Tag: tenuretrack

Simple Stress Busters to Cope with Mid-Semester Overwhelm

It’s that time of the semester again! The end is in sight but the work is piling up! You have a lot to do before the holiday break including finishing everything for your current classes and preparing for next term so that you can actually relax for a bit.

Research suggests that a wide range of stress coping strategies can be effective. These include social support, emotion-focused coping strategies (aimed at making you feel better), problem-focused coping strategies (aimed at improving or solving the problems/situations that are the source of your stress), and cognitive reappraisal (reframing the stressor and your interpretation of it).

Here are some Simple Stress Busters to Cope with Mid-Semester Overwhelm:

  1. Do a short guided relaxation or meditation. Apps like Calm and Headspace are particularly helpful for this. Schedule 10 min in your day to do this so that it becoms a habit. I like to do it in the car at the end of the work day before I go pick up my son and dog from daycare. It puts me in a much calmer, more mindful state of mind and provides a transition from work to non-work that I find helpful.
  2. Have a mini dance party! Listen to 2-3 of your favourite songs and rock out. This is such an awesome way to release pent up stress energy and add a bit of fun/play to your day 🙂 Often the songs we love also remind us of fun times with friends.
  3. Speaking of which… Connecting with a good friend can also be a great mood booster. Taking 10 min to message a friend or family member and let them know you’re thinking of them is never a bad idea. Making use of commute time to have a longer conversation is also an excellent way to build in meaningful connections during your busy life.
  4. Do something physical. There is a lot of research showing that physical activity and exercise have positive effects on your mental and physical health. You probably already know this! If you’re finding it challenging to get motivated, just commit to doing 10 min/day to start. You will probably feel better once you get going and even a 10 min walk/workout can help break up your grading marathons and give you some fresh air.
  5. Go the F to sleep! I mean that as nicely as possible. If you are not getting enough sleep you are living life on hard mode. Getting a good night sleep when you are stressed out can be challenging, I totally get it! However, there are many things you can do to set yourself up for the best opportunity to have a good night sleep. These include creating a dark, quiet, cool sleeping space, turning off electronics an hour before bedtime (also you should absolutely have a consistent bedtime), having a caffeine cutoff time in the early afternoon, and doing a brain dump so that you can put your mind to rest.
  6. Stop checking your email first thing in the morning. You have more important things to do most of the time. I like to plan my most important work for early in the work day because it ensures that it actually gets done. Your inbox is a black hole of other people’s priorities. It is a bit different for me now in my current role as an Associate Dean because I do need to be available for my team and there can be urgent things that need to be responded to. Our students are in clinical so serious things can happen (knock on wood they don’t). But if you are in a regular faculty position, you may want to consider scheduling certain times each day for email management and communication.
  7. Book a massage or spa treatment. Find a local day spa or massage therapist that specializes in relaxation. Book an appointment. Go. Enjoy. Forget all the things. It’s that easy.
  8. Stop comparing yourself to others. You might feel like you are “behind” or that you don’t measure up to the amazing superstar researcher that you look up to. Stop wasting your energy on that! Instead, focus on the unique value and expertise that you have to share. You are awesome and one of a kind! Take 5 min to write down what makes your teaching and/or research unique. Pin that on your bulletin board so you can look at it and remind yourself.

You certainly don’t need to do all of these but consider trying one out today and see how you feel afterward – maybe you will want to keep doing it 🙂

Have a great week and hang in there!

Emily

Need some more time for self-care? Download this awesome freebie I made just for you. Click here to subscribe to my weekly newsletter and get your free PDF of “How to Find Time for Self-Care”.

Creating a weekly research writing practice

Creating a consistent writing practice is an essential habit that will help you be more productive and impactful as a researcher. If you don’t prioritize your research writing in your calendar other activities (often meetings and teaching-related work) will take over that time, leaving you feeling like you just don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything done. (Pro tip: you don’t and never will have enough time to do ALL the things so you must prioritize and choose what matters most).

Why weekly instead of daily? 

A lot of people recommend daily writing but I find that a week is a better unit of time for planning and time management, especially as a professor. There are just so many different roles and activities that we must do as part of our job that to try to do all of them in a single day would make you crazy!  Not to mention the cognitive costs of frequent task switching between diverse activities. Personally, I find that a 2-4 hour block of writing time allows me to really focus on what I am writing and make progress. Academic writing often involves searching the literature, reading articles, and interpreting/synthesizing results as you write too, so it can be a slow process! If you only have one hour/week or find that works for you, fill your boots but I do recommend a larger block of time if you can.

How to create a weekly research writing practice: 

Step 1: Decide what day and time each week works best for you to write. This may be based on your schedule or on when you feel like you write best. Unfortunately, these don’t always match up, so if that is the case, I recommend being practical and going by what works for your schedule. I recommend picking a time on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday if possible so that you don’t skip weeks due to holidays.

Step 2: Create a recurring event in your calendar for the same day and time each week. This is your dedicated research writing time. Do not use it for anything else!

Step 3: Turn off emails and other distractions during your research writing time. Note that it may take some time for other people to get used to the fact that you are not available to them during this time. Reinforce that writing is an essential part of being a productive researcher and remind them of when you are available. 

Step 4: Write! Work on high-impact research outputs such as grant proposals, research papers (and revisions), and conference abstracts. 

And that’s it! It is actually very simple to set this up. The challenging part is showing up and writing every single week consistently. There are about 46 work weeks/year once you account for holidays and vacation time. So, if you were to write for 4 hours every single work week, that’s 184 hours of dedicated research writing time each year! Obviously (or maybe not?) you will probably need additional writing time at certain times (like before a grant proposal is due). However, during semesters when you have a heavy teaching load, you may find that this dedicated time is particularly helpful and important to keep your research productivity on track.

Have a great week and see you next Sunday!

Emily