Navigating Difficult Times as a Graduate Student: How to Support Your Mental Health While Pursuing Your Graduate Degree
Graduate school can be a challenge to your mental health. Between long hours, competing priorities, and processing a wealth of new information, your brain is being put to the test.
Plus, obligations to your graduate program likely are not the only stressor you’re dealing with while pursuing a graduate degree. You may encounter other personal and family challenges during your time in grad school. Changes beyond your control--related to the pandemic, natural disasters, and the impacts of racism and inequity, for example--can be significant sources of stress.
It’s important to be able to recognize how stress impacts your brain and can make learning and achieving your goals more difficult.
You can use this knowledge to bring more compassion to your own experience, as well as empower yourself to move towards your goals and build connections with others.
Read on to learn how to care for yourself and those you interact with as a colleague and educator during grad school and beyond.
How Stress Affects Your Brain & Body
Learning the basics of the physiological response to stress can help you develop empathy for yourself and others and mindfully react to your stress response.
In her conversation with UL Lafayette graduate students, Dr. Mays Imad, professor of genetics, biotechnology, and bioethics at Pima Community College, described how the isolation and uncertainty we experienced during the pandemic affects the brain.
“There are biochemical reactions that happen that make us feel overwhelmed,” Imad explains.
“From the evolutionary perspective, I asked the question ‘What is it about the brain that is feeling overwhelmed?’ Our brains evolved to connect. We are social creatures. We thrive when we make connections.
Connections with others, connections internally, connections with our surroundings,” she says.
When you experience disconnect and life feels uncertain, your brain struggles to process your experiences and plan ahead.
“The brain is like a statistical machine. We gather information from our surroundings, and subconsciously the brain is making predictions about our wellbeing, our survivability, and what will happen next. We want to be in control,” Imad says.
“When the information is not there, or when the information is overwhelming and keeps changing, it becomes difficult for the brain to feel that state of control. And so the uncertainty is extremely stressful for the brain – it takes away our autonomy, our agency.”
How Stress Affects Learning
Difficulty concentrating and retaining information are normal responses to stress.
“We have a finite amount of energy, and if we’re not replenishing, there’s a change in the brain circuitry where survival is prioritized over anything else,” Imad explains.
It’s important to avoid judging yourself for having these struggles. Instead, try to keep a balance of acknowledging your feelings of overwhelm while remembering the reasons why you came to grad school.
“When the brain is struggling, it becomes really tempting to say why should I do this, why does it matter, the world is ending, on and on,” Imad says. “It becomes really important to make the case, negotiate the difference, remind your brain why this particular PCR experiment, for example, matters.”
When doubt comes in, remind yourself of the greater purpose of your work in graduate school—to contribute to your field, receive your degree, and pursue your desired career.
Ultimately, finding ways to help your brain process stress will support your ability to take in new information and move forward with your academic and professional goals.
Boost Your Brain
Growing research is investigating the ways we can address our stress levels and do things that help our brains adapt to challenging circumstances more skillfully. When you’re experiencing stress in graduate school, keep these strategies in mind.
Get outside
Connecting with nature can have a profound effect on your wellbeing. Spending just 20 minutes outside has been shown to measurably lower stress hormone levels.
Lafayette has plenty of options to explore, including UL Lafayette’s own Cypress Lake!
Reach out to others
It can be hard to reach out when you’re feeling overwhelmed, but remember that your brain is wired to connect. Contacting friends, family, and colleagues, even with a disclaimer that there’s no need for them to respond, will help you feel more connected.
Helping others too can be a powerful way to boost your mood and lower your stress, so keep an eye out for opportunities to lend a hand.
Find your resources
Cultivating a sense of community and support is a surefire way to combat the effects of stress in grad school. Explore the resources that are available to you and stay connected with the Graduate School through events and programming.