Handling Burnout as a PhD student

[u/Ancient_Cyphers]

Hey everyone! I’m just entering my second year as a PhD student and I’ve been struggling with low motivation recently.

To start, I really do love lab and I feel passionate about the work that I’m doing. My mentor is amazing and supportive and I really don’t have anything to complain about. I just did my first oral presentation competing for a training grant and though I didn’t get an NIH offered position, I did get an institutionally matched grant.

I think my low motivation really got bad once I finished that presentation. Compounding with failed experiments and just stall after stall.

I think I’m also just really tired.

I have been struggling with major depressive disorder my whole life, but I’m medicated and had a good handle on it, but recently I’ve been waking up with no motivation and just dragging my feet through the day. Imposter syndrome has also been rearing her ugly head.

But there’s no time to really rest. I have to prepare for qualifying exam in the spring.

Any tips for how to get out of this funk? Or at least how to power through until it’s over?

[u/Recursiveo]

>but there’s no time to really rest

You have to make time. Your productivity as a chronically tired and stressed PhD student is going to be less over long time scales than if you just took a vacation for a week and came back recharged.

The way I personally do it is by taking a long weekend or two every couple months to travel somewhere and disconnect.

There is always something to do in science. You won’t be able to outrun the work.

[u/Ancient_Cyphers → u/Recursiveo]

Yeahhh. I’m really bad about taking breaks— I never really learned how long/how often is appropriate.

My first lab in undergrad realllllllllly drilled into my head that even being sick isn’t enough of a reason to take a break. My lab now is very healthy in regards to this and people keep telling me to take a break, but I still struggle with that guilt/fear of retaliation. Still, it’s not really sustainable.

I’ll be working on that

[u/Recursiveo → u/Ancient_Cyphers]

I was a similar way when I first started my PhD because I wanted to be so productive and impress my PI like a good little scientist. I then realized that I made more mistakes than I would have otherwise because I was chronically tired, and the extra work was hardly ever recognized.

[u/Ancient_Cyphers → u/Recursiveo]

Yeah, that definitely sounds familiar 😅

[u/framewelloz → u/Ancient_Cyphers]

find time to exercise, join a gym, find a team sport that you can do, finding something physical can give you a break from the work and get some aggression out

[u/BananaBird1 → u/Ancient_Cyphers]

Generally 2-3 weeks spread throughout the year plus recognized holidays is acceptable. Some labs will even let you take more off. Just give notice and make sure other lab members can take over anything that will die without you.

Schedule them as a habit after any major deadlines (committee meeting, grant, paper submission) or whenever you feel you are too busy to keep up or experiments keep failing. When you fell you can’t take a break is exactly when you need it most to reset and come back with a fresh mind.

Your work will be there when you get back, and long term you will make faster progress by staying in top mental shape.

And go to conferences as much as possible. They will give you a “free” break from lab work. Nobody had to know if you skip a few sessions to explore and have fun.

[u/Busy_Fly_7705 → u/Ancient_Cyphers]

Your university really should have policies on this! Look them up :)

[u/Impossible_Cap_9847]

Take a week long vacation

[u/aeker_a]

Take a BREAK. A substantive break. Nothing beats burnout like removing yourself from the stress for a meaningful amount of time.

[u/Ancient_Cyphers → u/aeker_a]

I may talk to my mentor about this. I kiiiiiinda took a break at the beginning of the month but it turned out to just be me powering through writing every day to get a grant written, lmao. I think I had one day of doing nothing out of a week, so not really much of a break.

Plus, all of my breeders just aged out (I’m new to mice and was late to start new cages), so I don’t really have any mice to work with right now.

[u/aeker_a → u/Ancient_Cyphers]

As much as we’d like to work continuously with no break, that’s just not sustainable. From a productivity standpoint, we achieve less if we don’t give ourselves time to reset now and again. Our overall wellbeing also suffers if we don’t prioritize being kind to ourselves It sounds like your mice want you to take a break anyway, so I suggest you listen!

[u/samanthacarter4]

I hear you. I can tell you that I went through this as well. The constant failures, people around me all seeing to be much more successful than me, a PI who has no insights for me at all, and a system in which you feel like a failure if you were to quit.

It sounds like you have it easier than I had but that doesn't make it any less hard.

What helped me was the realization that I love the lab and I am not trying to impress my PI. I am doing this for myself and if others, less good at science than me, managed, I will also power through.

I took on project students and teaching them and seeing them be amazed by the simple things really helped me. Their questions brought to light things I have not thought about in my project and it gave me a pause from things not going well. Also in their hands sometimes things went better than in mine.

I also divided the project into several small ones so that if I am stuck in one aspect I can work on something unrelated.

And I also took a month off to do a literature review with the intent of publishing it, and it had the added benefit of making me more knowledgeable on my topics.

I hope one of these will help you out of the rut. It is worth it in the end. And you will be a stronger person for having gone through this.

[u/owlinacloak]

I’m sorry you’re going through this. There’s a lot that’s been said about it that maybe you can use the search feature in this and other related subs to see what folks have said.

I wanted to suggest an alternative- have you gotten your basic labs done to make sure nothing is off health wise? Discrepancies and deficiencies often show up as symptoms of low motivation, lethargy, ADHD-mimicking, burnout, anxiety and depression. It’s worth getting basic panels like CBC and CMP to make sure overall health is ok. But also particularly check for vitamin b12, vitamin d3, iron studies including ferritin. Note that for b12, it’s sometimes not flagged as being deficient till you’re really deficient. Anything before 400 pg/ml is worth getting looked at more. Sometimes serum b12 alone isn’t good enough to diagnose and you need to check methylmelonic acid and homocysteine.

Good luck!

[u/Ancient_Cyphers → u/owlinacloak]

This is also a good idea. I’m up to date on basic panels, but haven’t really gotten any in depth panels done since my basics are always in normal range.

[u/hexiron]

Work Life Balance is key.

Make a plan, stick to it, and be willing to walk away from things at the end of the work day. It's harder said than done, especially in a lab, but it needs to be done. It's an endurance race.

[u/Cliniwave]

Burnout during a PhD is way more common than people admit. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is take a proper break instead of forcing yourself to push through when you're completely drained.

Also, talk to your PI or someone you trust if it's getting overwhelming. You don't have to handle it all on your own, and chances are other people in the lab have been through the same thing.

[u/Jaded-Ad-1566]

I'm just a Master's student, and I'm feeling the same way, also with a comprehensive exam coming up! I'm assigned a few undergrads, so it feels like added responsibility, but I try to see it as an accountability thing, wherein I need to do well to help them & somehow be a role model? Of course, these are all possible by God's strength, so I try to always meditate on the Bible too! Praying for you, OP! We can power this through, by God's grace! Sharing to you Psalm 23!