phd without stress

The Savvy Scientist

Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond

PhD Burnout: Managing Energy, Stress, Anxiety & Your Mental Health

PhDs are renowned for being stressful and when you add a global pandemic into the mix it’s no surprise that many students are struggling with their mental health. Unfortunately this can often lead to PhD fatigue which may eventually lead to burnout.

In this post we’ll explore what academic burnout is and how it comes about, then discuss some tips I picked up for managing mental health during my own PhD.

Please note that I am by no means an expert in this area. I’ve worked in seven different labs before, during and after my PhD so I have a fair idea of research stress but even so, I don’t have all the answers.

If you’re feeling burnt out or depressed and finding the pressure too much, please reach out to friends and family or give the Samaritans a call to talk things through.

Note – This post, and its follow on about maintaining PhD motivation were inspired by a reader who asked for recommendations on dealing with PhD fatigue. I love hearing from all of you, so if you have any ideas for topics which you, or others, could find useful please do let me know either in the comments section below or by getting in contact . Or just pop me a message to say hi. 🙂

This post is part of my PhD mindset series, you can check out the full series below:

• PhD Burnout: Managing Energy, Stress, Anxiety & Your Mental Health (this part!)
• PhD Motivation: How to Stay Driven From Cover Letter to Completion
• How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Studying

What is PhD Burnout?

Whenever I’ve gone anywhere near social media relating to PhDs I see overwhelmed PhD students who are some combination of overwhelmed, de-energised or depressed.

Specifically I often see Americans talking about the importance of talking through their PhD difficulties with a therapist, which I find a little alarming. It’s great to seek help but even better to avoid the need in the first place.

Sadly, none of this is unusual. As this survey shows, depression is common for PhD students and of note: at higher levels than for working professionals.

All of these feelings can be connected to academic burnout.

The World Health Organisation classifies burnout as a syndrome with symptoms of:

– Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; – Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; – Reduced professional efficacy. Symptoms of burnout as classified by the WHO. Source .

This often leads to students falling completely out of love with the topic they decided to spend years of their life researching!

The pandemic has added extra pressures and constraints which can make it even more difficult to have a well balanced and positive PhD experience. Therefore it is more important than ever to take care of yourself, so that not only can you continue to make progress in your project but also ensure you stay healthy.

What are the Stages of Burnout?

Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North developed a 12 stage model of burnout. The following graphic by The Present Psychologist does a great job at conveying each of these.

I don’t know about you, but I can personally identify with several of the stages and it’s scary to see how they can potentially lead down a path to complete mental and physical burnout. I also think it’s interesting that neglecting needs (stage 3) happens so early on. If you check in with yourself regularly you can hopefully halt your burnout journey at that point.

PhDs can be tough but burnout isn’t an inevitability. Here are a few suggestions for how you can look after your mental health and avoid academic burnout.

Overcoming PhD Burnout

Manage your energy levels, maintaining energy levels day to day.

• Eat well and eat regularly. Try to avoid nutritionless high sugar foods which can play havoc with your energy levels. Instead aim for low GI food . Maybe I’m just getting old but I really do recommend eating some fruit and veg. My favourite book of 2021, How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reduce Disease , is well worth a read. Not a fan of veggies? Either disguise them or at least eat some fruit such as apples and bananas. Sliced apple with some peanut butter is a delicious and nutritious low GI snack. Check out my series of posts on cooking nutritious meals on a budget.
• Get enough sleep. It doesn’t take PhD-level research to realise that you need to rest properly if you want to avoid becoming exhausted! How much sleep someone needs to feel well-rested varies person to person, so I won’t prescribe that you get a specific amount, but 6-9 hours is the range typically recommended. Personally, I take getting enough sleep very seriously and try to get a minimum of 8 hours.

A side note on caffeine consumption: Do PhD students need caffeine to survive?

In a word, no!

Although a culture of caffeine consumption goes hand in hand with intense work, PhD students certainly don’t need caffeine to survive. How do I know? I didn’t have any at all during my own PhD. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it .

By all means consume as much caffeine as you want, just know that it doesn’t have to be a prerequisite for successfully completing a PhD.

Maintaining energy throughout your whole PhD

• Pace yourself. As I mention later in the post I strongly recommend treating your PhD like a normal full-time job. This means only working 40 hours per week, Monday to Friday. Doing so could help realign your stress, anxiety and depression levels with comparatively less-depressed professional workers . There will of course be times when this isn’t possible and you’ll need to work longer hours to make a certain deadline. But working long hours should not be the norm. It’s good to try and balance the workload as best you can across the whole of your PhD. For instance, I often encourage people to start writing papers earlier than they think as these can later become chapters in your thesis. It’s things like this that can help you avoid excess stress in your final year.
• Take time off to recharge. All work and no play makes for an exhausted PhD student! Make the most of opportunities to get involved with extracurricular activities (often at a discount!). I wrote a whole post about making the most of opportunities during your PhD . PhD students should have time for a social life, again I’ve written about that . Also give yourself permission to take time-off day to day for self care, whether that’s to go for a walk in nature, meet friends or binge-watch a show on Netflix. Even within a single working day I often find I’m far more efficient when I break up my work into chunks and allow myself to take time off in-between. This is also a good way to avoid procrastination!

Reduce Stress and Anxiety

During your PhD there will inevitably be times of stress. Your experiments may not be going as planned, deadlines may be coming up fast or you may find yourself pushed too far outside of your comfort zone. But if you manage your response well you’ll hopefully be able to avoid PhD burnout. I’ll say it again: stress does not need to lead to burnout!

Everyone is unique in terms of what works for them so I’d recommend writing down a list of what you find helpful when you feel stressed, anxious or sad and then you can refer to it when you next experience that feeling.

I’ve created a mental health reminders print-out to refer to when times get tough. It’s available now in the resources library (subscribe for free to get the password!).

Below are a few general suggestions to avoid PhD burnout which work for me and you may find helpful.

• Exercise. When you’re feeling down it can be tough to motivate yourself to go and exercise but I always feel much better for it afterwards. When we exercise it helps our body to adapt at dealing with stress, so getting into a good habit can work wonders for both your mental and physical health. Why not see if your uni has any unusual sports or activities you could try? I tried scuba diving and surfing while at Imperial! But remember, exercise doesn’t need to be difficult. It could just involve going for a walk around the block at lunch or taking the stairs rather than the lift.
• Cook / Bake. I appreciate that for many people cooking can be anything but relaxing, so if you don’t enjoy the pressure of cooking an actual meal perhaps give baking a go. Personally I really enjoy putting a podcast on and making food. Pinterest and Youtube can be great visual places to find new recipes.
• Let your mind relax. Switching off is a skill and I’ve found meditation a great way to help clear my mind. It’s amazing how noticeably different I can feel afterwards, having not previously been aware of how many thoughts were buzzing around! Yoga can also be another good way to relax and be present in the moment. My partner and I have been working our way through 30 Days of Yoga with Adriene on Youtube and I’d recommend it as a good way to ease yourself in. As well as being great for your mind, yoga also ticks the box for exercise!
• Read a book. I’ve previously written about the benefits of reading fiction * and I still believe it’s one of the best ways to relax. Reading allows you to immerse yourself in a different world and it’s a great way to entertain yourself during a commute.

* Wondering how I got something published in Science ? Read my guide here .

Talk It Through

• Meet with your supervisor. Don’t suffer in silence, if you’re finding yourself struggling or burned out raise this with your supervisor and they should be able to work with you to find ways to reduce the pressure. This may involve you taking some time off, delegating some of your workload, suggesting an alternative course of action or signposting you to services your university offers.

Also remember that facing PhD-related challenges can be common. I wrote a whole post about mine in case you want to cheer yourself up! We can’t control everything we encounter, but we can control our response.

A free self-care checklist is also now available in the resources library , providing ideas to stay healthy and avoid PhD burnout.

Top Tips for Avoiding PhD Burnout

On top of everything we’ve covered in the sections above, here are a few overarching tips which I think could help you to avoid PhD burnout:

• Work sensible hours . You shouldn’t feel under pressure from your supervisor or anyone else to be pulling crazy hours on a regular basis. Even if you adore your project it isn’t healthy to be forfeiting other aspects of your life such as food, sleep and friends. As a starting point I suggest treating your PhD as a 9-5 job. About a year into my PhD I shared how many hours I was working .
• Reduce your use of social media. If you feel like social media could be having a negative impact on your mental health, why not try having a break from it?
• Do things outside of your PhD . Bonus points if this includes spending time outdoors, getting exercise or spending time with friends. Basically, make sure the PhD isn’t the only thing occupying both your mental and physical ife.
• Regularly check in on how you’re feeling. If you wait until you’re truly burnt out before seeking help, it is likely to take you a long time to recover and you may even feel that dropping out is your only option. While that can be a completely valid choice I would strongly suggest to check in with yourself on a regular basis and speak to someone early on (be that your supervisor, or a friend or family member) if you find yourself struggling.

I really hope that this post has been useful for you. Nothing is more important than your mental health and PhD burnout can really disrupt that. If you’ve got any comments or suggestions which you think other PhD scholars could find useful please feel free to share them in the comments section below.

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PhDs without tears: how academics can help ease students’ minds

With many doctoral candidates unhappy and reporting mental health problems, emma pierson suggests ways supervisors could reduce pressures.

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I was so proud of my little sister when she began getting admission offers from PhD programmes. But, as I talked to her, I found myself warning her away unless she was certain. The truth is that, as a fourth-year PhD student, I can recommend this path only reluctantly to someone I love because I have become increasingly concerned about its effects on students’ mental health.

I am in many ways extremely lucky. I have a supportive adviser, reliable funding and research projects that I’m devoted to. But I have at times been unhappy, and I have talked to many other unhappy PhD students; studies consistently show a high rate of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression among doctoral candidates – roughly twice as high as in other highly educated populations.

To better understand the problem, I put out a survey asking PhD students to describe their specific experiences with mental health issues related to their doctorates and to propose ways to improve the situation. I received hundreds of responses from all over the world, primarily in the sciences. Here are some particularly striking experiences from students who agreed to share them:

• “I have had trouble sleeping, and woke at 6am in December to work on a paper. I tripped and fell into my concrete apartment and broke my nose. That epitomises my experience.”
• “I can no longer enjoy ANY moment of sleep, family time, or relaxation without feeling overwhelmingly anxious and guilty that I should be working.”
• “During my PhD I had a panic attack that sent me to the emergency room. It was caused by being forced to work with a postdoc who constantly bullied me, publicly humiliated me, and generally made my life hell.”
• “I remember myself taking long showers with cold water, crying and thinking that I was a fraud and I didn’t deserve the opportunity to do science because of my lack of talent.”
• “To invest everything that you have to an uncertain end tears one apart.”
• “There is a certain sense of glorification of pain in academia. It is socially accepted that people go through depression.”
• “My mom sent me a package for my birthday…Inside were a series of cute, brightly coloured decorative boxes with cookies inside…I cried alone in the parking lot for about 20 minutes, and felt about as low as I ever have.”

It is true that doing independent research is inherently hard and stressful, but we should not accept serious, long-term mental health issues as the price of doing a PhD. I believe there are several measures that we can adopt to address this. To come up with my suggestions, I first drafted a short list based on a review of the literature on PhD mental health. Next, I read each of the hundreds of responses to my survey, developed a standard set of categories to describe each one and then expanded and revised the original list of ideas on that basis. Finally, I circulated the expanded list to PhD students, professors and a mental health expert to get feedback.

Because most of my survey responses came from academics in the sciences, these recommendations are targeted at academics in the sciences as well. However, some apply more broadly.

1. Increase awareness that many PhD students suffer from mental health problems and improve treatment

This was one of the most commonly cited survey themes.

Currently, students are often punished for being honest about their mental health issues. “I told one of my profs that I was getting an anti-anxiety med to help with the stress of [PhD exams]. She told me that anyone who needs a pill to survive grad school doesn’t belong in grad school,” one survey respondent said. When another respondent “met my supervisor and told him I had just seen my doctor [who had told me that] all my issues were stress-related, my supervisor answered that stress is good (he also constantly jokes that no one needs to sleep)”.

Students, advisers and administrators should be educated about the prevalence of mental health issues among PhD students, in order to reduce stigma and encourage people to speak up and seek help. They should also be made aware of the resources that students should seek out if they are suffering, and greater care should be taken that those resources are actually helpful. A survey of PhD students carried out in 2017 by the journal Nature found that only 35 per cent of those who sought help found helpful resources at their own institution.

2. Recognise and reduce discrimination

“Workplace sexism started the downward spiral,” one survey respondent wrote. A second described “the time when I had a baby and my supervisor emailed me to inform me that women tend to lose interest in everything else once they become mothers”.

Studies   substantiate  these anecdotes, making it clear that discrimination persists in academia. Discrimination contributes to depression and anxiety, which women report at  higher   rates  than men. Similarly, racial minorities in academia experience unique discrimination-related stress.

Combating discrimination requires realising that it is not always overt. For example, with respect to gender, a recent National Academy of Sciences report finds that subtle discrimination is far more common than overtly sexual coercion. Combating discrimination also means making academics aware that they personally – not anonymous others – are prone to implicit bias, even if they are well-meaning and generally rational.

Resources directed specifically to underrepresented groups also help mitigate the effects of discrimination. These include gatherings and conferences for minority students, and regular check-ins with minority students to see how they’re doing and to make sure that they feel like they belong. Efforts to recruit and retain more diverse faculty and students also help fight discrimination.

3. Facilitate supportive social connections

PhD students are frequently lonely . Many survey respondents emphasised that collaborating with peers, as opposed to competing with them, reduced loneliness and stress. Supervisors should help create collaborative environments by encouraging students to work together, rewarding students for being team players, avoiding favouritism and scheduling lab social outings. It is important to work hard from the outset to develop positive lab cultures because they become self-perpetuating. Developing simple social rules can also make the lab culture more positive and inclusive.

Survey respondents also emphasised connections with loved ones, who supported them irrespective of their professional achievements. “Dogs and partners…help lots,” one remarked. The lack of such support can be devastating, as noted by an overseas student doing a PhD in a foreign country: “One day, after having a [tough] day at office, I came back home and found no one waiting for me…I really had serious suicidal thoughts and I…cried for hours.”

4. Improve work-life balance

It’s true that PhD life requires periods of intense focus, when work-life balance becomes hard to achieve. But prioritising care for students is worthwhile even in these circumstances.

The Nature survey of PhD students found that 55 per cent viewed maintaining work-life balance as one of their top concerns, and my own respondents also attest to its importance. “My mental health starts to deteriorate whenever my PhD starts to take over my life and becomes all-encompassing,” one wrote.

Studies show that depression and anxiety are more common among students with an unhealthy work-life balance. Many respondents to my survey recommended having hobbies, especially exercise, to provide some escape from work worries. Supervisors can also help to keep their students from working too hard. Model healthy behaviour: take real vacations, and encourage students to take them, too. Don’t glorify lack of sleep; don’t email students asking them to do things when they’re on vacation; don’t deliberately schedule meetings on Mondays, for which students will have to work through the weekend. Set clear expectations about how hard you expect students to work, and check in to ask whether you’re doing things that unnecessarily stress them.

5. Pay students a living wage

“I went to the chair of my [programme] because our pay is based on 1950s rates, and I was not eating for days because I couldn’t afford to,” one student wrote. “She looked at me and said: ‘I don’t understand what your issue is. Lots of hours for little pay is just part of academia. If you don’t like it, leave.’ I’m a 30-year-old man, and I had to go to the bathroom to burst into tears. I told this woman I couldn’t afford to eat. She couldn’t have cared less.”

Of respondents to the Nature survey, 50 per cent listed financial issues as one of their top concerns. In addition to paying students enough to live, universities should remove unnecessary uncertainty about their income streams. “I’m an international student in the US. Sometimes my advisor [threatens to stop] paying my tuition…This is very stressful!” one of my survey respondents said.

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6. Provide students with more frequent and positive feedback

Many survey respondents complained that the feedback they received was too negative, vague or infrequent. They asked for concrete milestones, more structure and guidance, and more focus on successes, not just on critique. Advisers, of course, can be one source of this feedback. But some survey respondents said that they had benefited from having other mentors, including some who were not directly linked to their research but could provide broader life advice and emotional support. Additional mentors also protect students who have negative relationships with their advisers by reducing their reliance on a single person.

7. Conduct regular, anonymous, institution-wide surveys of PhD student mental health and well‑being

This would help each institution track important issues, such as how rates of anxiety and depression change over the course of grad school and whether their interventions are effective. The survey could be extended to faculty, who, research suggests , also suffer from high levels of stress. As academics, we collect data on everything else; we should be rigorous about our own well-being. Such surveys have already been implemented at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, for instance.

8. Help and incentivise academics to be better managers

This was the most commonly mentioned theme among survey respondents. Students who had positive relationships with their advisers testified to how much it mattered. “I spent 6-12 months coming into the office every day and just not being able to do a thing,” one remarked. “Thank the Lord that I had an understanding [adviser].”

But many respondents said that their relationship with their adviser harmed their mental health. One respondent “would just walk into my building with dread…It was the fear of facing my advisor.” Another faced “extreme anxiety leading up to meetings with my advisor, and panic attacks afterward. One time I just found a corner of a hallway I didn’t think anyone would walk down and lay on the floor and cried after a meeting.” A third student said that because their adviser “has no tolerance for seeing wrong results, [all the time], even during the night, I wake up and check my codes, derivations etc”.

The Nature survey found that guidance from their adviser was the top determinant of PhD students’ satisfaction, and that 23 per cent would swap advisers if they could.

So why do students frequently struggle with their advisers? Some responsibility lies with the student, and useful guides for postgraduates have been written. But some responsibility also lies with advisers. All industries harbour some senior figures who are not skilled managers, but several factors make it uniquely difficult for professors to learn management skills. They are not generally trained or selected as managers, and there is often no formal feedback system for professors, so even well-meaning ones may be unaware that their students are unhappy. Moreover, professors just aren’t incentivised to treat students well (although, of course, many of them do so anyway). They are put under enormous pressure to publish, and not penalised for passing that pressure on to their students.

Several survey respondents advocated management training for principal investigators. A second possibility is to have a formal, institution-wide system requiring that professors get annual feedback from the people they supervise. That feedback could be made part of their promotion process, the way it often is in the tech world. To alleviate students’ fears of retaliation if they provided honest feedback (because anonymity is hard to preserve in small research groups), it may be best if the feedback were reported to the PI by a third party, rather than allowing them to read it directly. This would help to equalise the student-professor power imbalance (which survey respondents cited as one cause of abuse).

Students should also be encouraged to seek out information about whether a PI is a good manager (perhaps from their current students), and it should be made easier to switch advisers. These measures would incentivise all professors to become good managers – and reward the many who already are.

9. Be honest about the negative aspects of doing a PhD

Present would-be students with statistics about job prospects and quality of life at the outset. The number of PhD students is increasing, and the number of tenure-track faculty positions is not keeping pace . The Professor Is In , an honest examination of the realities of academia by former tenured professor Karen Kelsey – which has become a resource for many students – notes that knowledge of this would “empower you…to make informed choices about your career, and protect your financial security and your mental health.” Being honest about the difficulty of obtaining a tenure-track job would make nasty surprises less likely, and would also encourage students to explore careers outside academia.

It is also important to be honest about the ubiquity of failure. A year ago, when I had two papers rejected in one week, I took comfort in speaking to a friend who’d had three papers rejected that week. We’d all benefit from more honesty about the fact that research is really hard and that we all spend a lot of time feeling incompetent.

Such honesty would help to mitigate impostor syndrome, which is common among PhD candidates, and keep students from feeling, as one survey respondent put it, “like I am the worst student in the group”. Give PhD students older students to confide in about their failures; have panels and online forums where successful students and professors talk specifically about their 
failures . Celebrate honesty about mistakes rather than making students afraid to admit them. After all, as one survey respondent put it: “We are all just advanced primates trying to do our best.”

It is important to bear in mind that, according to the Nature survey, more than three-quarters of PhD students remained at least somewhat satisfied with their decision to pursue a PhD despite the high rates of stress. “The PhD gives me life,” one of my respondents wrote, describing their experience with depression. “Every supervision meeting, every seminar, every conference, every debate about societal issues with colleagues over coffee, every rant with colleagues about the PhD, every day I wake up and do something to get me to the PhD finish line – I resurrect over and over again.”

If the measures I have outlined were adopted, I am hopeful that many more students would feel the same. 

Emma Pierson is a Rhodes Scholar and computer science PhD student at Stanford University . She would like to thank Tim Althoff, Timnit Gebru, Dan Jurafsky, Scott Kamino, Clarke Knight, Pang Wei Koh, Hima Lakkaraju, Jure Leskovec, Alejandro Martinez, John Mikhael, Chris Olah, Leah Pierson, Paul Pierson, Nat Roth, Jacob Steinhardt, Pratiksha Thaker, Stephanie Vatz and Christopher Yau for helpful conversations and comments, and to all surveyed PhD students.

Reaching out: how the survey was done

The survey was disseminated on Twitter and Facebook. Current and former PhD students were asked to rate whether their mental health had improved since beginning their PhD, to describe their experiences with depression and anxiety, and to propose ideas for improving PhD student mental health.

Because unhappy PhD students may be more likely to respond to a mental health survey – as previous surveys have noted – it is possible that my survey over-sampled them. There is some evidence, for example, that my survey had an unhappier respondent population than the Nature survey that I mention in the main article, although questions in the two surveys were not identical. For example, in the Nature survey, 31 per cent of respondents reported that their level of satisfaction had worsened since beginning their PhD; in my survey, 50 per cent of respondents reported that their overall happiness had decreased since beginning their PhD.

However, the goal of my survey was not to estimate the rate of unhappiness, but rather to understand why students are unhappy and what they think might improve the situation. Thus, over-sampling unhappy PhD students increases sample size for this population of interest.

Emma Pierson

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Experienced PhD stress in the world of academia

The academic world has changed a lot over the passed decade which has resulted in the deteriorating status of the researchers [2], a lot of work-related stress ( PhD stress ), and mental health issues for people working in academia [1],[3]. According to study [3], 47% of the PhD students in Berkeley reached the threshold for being depressed, and according to study [1], 40.81% of the PhD students in Flanders, Belgium felt under constant strain. Compared to highly educated professionals or students, people with a PhD or PhD students report much more mental health issues [1],[2]. Feelings of being powerless, helpless, stressed, depressed, unhappiness, and being unable to enjoy every day activities are common among people working in the academic field. On top of that, low self-esteem and perfectionism are common among academics [19]. Job insecurity, temporary contracts, too many PhD students and too little faculty positions, and changes in the funding policies are some of the contributing factors to more PhD stress [1],[2]. The biggest problem for most people working in the academic world is that they can’t do anything about these contributing factors: you join the rat race or you’re out!

Fortunately, PhD stress and the chance of developing mental health issues can be reduced to a minimum with the tips on this page. This article focuses on PhD stress , its causes and ways to reduce the experienced stress levels.    

PhD stress – Why do PhD students experience so much stress these days?

There are several contributing factors that add to the stress PhD students experience:

• Future perspective : poor promotion/job prospects; temporary contracts [1],[2].
• Personal life : work-family conflict & family-work conflict [1],[4],[5].
• Work context : supervisor’s leadership style; job demands; job control [1],[6],[7],[9],[10],[11].
• Personality and mental health [8].

Future perspective

PhD stress – Ratio between PhD students and faculty positions

Due to the economical crisis worldwide, many universities and research institutes are experiencing financial problems, because governments have been cutting in the funds for education for years now. Less funding leads to fewer (permanent) job positions or promotions, less money for research, and an increase in job insecurity and short-term contracts [1],[2]. Most research institutes and universities are forced to apply stricter criteria in the allocation of research funds. In some countries, research funds can only be obtained by universities and research institutes if research proposals are accepted by international funding commissions [2]. The cuts in funding can also be seen in the reducing amount of available job positions or promotions; people with a permanent job prefer the security the job gives them over the new challenges they face with a new (temporary) job. On top of that, the amount of PhD students has increased significantly over the past decade, whereas the amount of faculty positions has only slightly increased (see image) over the past decade [1]. More PhD students for few positions leads to more competition and PhD stress . The increasing amount of PhD students in combination with the poor job/promotion prospects has created a huge pool of unemployed people with a PhD. In short : less money for research and education has lead to more short term contracts , poor promotion/job prospects, more unemployment, more competition, and too many highly educated people (PhD students or higher) compared to the amount of positions available. Consequently, this leads to a lot of PhD stress .    

Personal life

Family to work: work to family by gender

A lot of PhD students or people with a PhD work in the evenings and weekends due to the high workload, which negatively affects their social life (missing out on family time, parties, and date nights with partner). This is a clear example of work-to-family interference. Both work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts are associated with psychological distress [1], job dissatisfaction, and burnout among employees in a range of occupations [5]. A possible reason could be the negative sanctions (at both personal and institutional levels) academic scientists face when family interferes with work [4]. Unsurprisingly, if the departmental climate becomes more competitive and stressful, the probability of work-to-family conflict increases significantly [4]. These circumstances will add to the PhD stress most academics experience, especially if nothing changes.    

Work context

8 bad leadership traits

Stress has a negative impact on leadership styles. When a supervisor experiences a lot of PhD stress , their leadership qualities deteriorate, which leads to higher levels of stress and burnout in their subordinates [6]. Also, destructive leadership is associated with counterproductive work behaviour and a negative attitude towards the organization in subordinates [7].

In other words: reducing PhD stress by applying changes on an organisational level can be effective if organisations focus on leadership styles and job demands and job control.  

Job demands and job control

There is a strong relationship between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings. Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort [10]. High job demand and low job control is associated with increased PhD stress . Job control refers to control one experiences regarding the timing of breaks, usage of skills, and working pace [1]. High job demands, low job control, and certain leadership styles in combination with fewer (PhD/permanent) positions in academia creates a PhD stress cocktail so lethal that it’s almost impossible to sustain a health work-to-family life where weekends and evenings can be spend with family.    

Personality and mental health

Some people are more sensitive to stress than others. Certain personality traits such as neuroticism, disagreeableness, and tendency to perceive hostility can all lead individuals to be more reactive to stress as well as to perceive the behaviors of others in a hostile manner [8]. Also, suffering from PTSD, anxiety disorders or mood disorders can increase stress levels, because these mental disorders negatively affect daily life and work performance.    

What can you do to reduce PhD stress?

There are several things someone can do to reduce PhD stress and to stay as productive as before. For some people, small changes and adjustments are sufficient, whereas for others, it means they need to develop a whole new way of living and working. In some cases, the stressor will disappear, in other cases, however, coping skills will be offered to deal with them, because it’s difficult to control them (think of leadership style). Let’s have a closer look:  

Adopt a healthy day and night rhythm

An unhealthy day/night rhythm can cause all kinds of changes in peoples’ behaviour and mood. In general, sleep disturbance impairs quality of life. Compared to good sleepers, people with chronic sleep problems experience more psychological distress and impairments in daytime functioning [13]. People who experience sleep disturbances (or nightmares or insomnia), for instance, have significantly more suicidal thoughts and behaviours [12]. And right before people experience a manic or depressive episode, they report sleeping problems [13]. Therefore, it’s important to keep a healthy day/night rhythm: use the bed(room) only for sleeping; sleep a minimum of 6,5 and a maximum of eight hours a night [13]; switch off electronic devices one hour before you go to bed; develop a bedtime routine (brushing teeth, taking a shower, read for 10 minutes, turn off light); immediately leave the bed when you wake up (no snoozing).  

Adopt a healthy lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle both prevents and reduces the amount of stress one experiences [14]. People who’ve adopted a healthy lifestyle, pay attention to their nutrition, are more in touch with nature, exercise and relax regularly, and possess stress management skills and/or meditate [14]. Exercise and meditation do not only reduce the amount of stress one experiences, they also help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression [14]. At the same time, both meditation and exercise force you to take a mental break from work/study related activities, and give you time to recharge mentally again. Paying attention to good nutrition indirectly affects the stress levels one experiences, because it prevents people from eating too many calories, and to eat healthy and varied. Obese people are at higher risk of developing depression; the odds increase for severely obese people [15]. Herbal and nutritional supplements such as kava, passionflower, Lysine, and Magnesium help reduce symptoms of anxiety [16], and thus add to the reduction of PhD stress . NOTE: Next to taking in anxiolytic ingredients, users of passionflower and kava may also consume ineffective of possibly toxic substances [16]. Therefore, it’s important to discuss the intake of herbal medication with your General Practitioner. Avoid (too much) coffee and alcohol. Although coffee has a stimulating effect on people, on the long run people can get dependent on caffeine with means that they need more caffeine to experience the same stimulating effect as before. Unfortunately, regular caffeine and alcohol intake leads to feelings of fatigue and tiredness.  

Visit a specialist

Visiting a therapist or counselor when someone feels emotionally or physically exhausted, also known as burnout, or depressed, suffers from symptoms of anxiety or has self-esteem issues is highly recommended. Sometimes, people cannot get better on their own and need a professional to treat or guide them through this process. It is possible that work or study is so demanding that it exhausts you mentally or physically, which increases the chance of developing a mental disorder or symptoms of mental disorders. Sometimes, (old/childhood) traumatic experiences resurface or get triggered, which can lead to sleeping problems, irritability, flashbacks, numbness, and eventually reduce the productivity levels needed to perform at work or for study. For others, low self-esteem may cause a lot of PhD stress , because they constantly question their own academic (writing) skills and are afraid to make mistakes. This may result in perfectionism and perfectionism leads to more worry and rumination about work [19]. Worry and rumination add to stress levels.  

Use a family calendar

People working in academia may experience a lot of work-to-family and family-to-work stress [1] due to job demands and family obligations. A lot of the problems within families are caused by self-centeredness: the intense desire to achieve desired goals and little tendency to satisfy the others’ needs [18]. Although there is no relationship between communication skill level and marriage satisfaction [17], there is a relationship between marriage satisfaction and conflict resolution: a domineering, authoritarian or autocratic control of the conflict leads to less marital satisfaction and longer lasting conflicts [18]. Due to this approach, partners are less likely to adjust to their partner’s needs and competition and feelings of jealousy between them grows [17]. Knowing in advance what someone’s schedule is, prevents surprises, conflicts, and increases the likelihood that the partner will adjust their schedule a little. A family calendar is very helpful for those who have a busy schedule and have children. People can plan events and deadlines way in advance and it reduces the experienced PhD stress significantly.  

Schedule breaks

It is common for people in academia to work on articles for hours at once, because they need to get into a flow (increases their productivity). Unfortunately, writing/working for hours without a proper break is exhausting on the long run, and makes people less emotionally available (which leads to more conflicts at home). Consequently, people become less productive which will lead to longer writing shifts. Therefore, it is important to have regular breaks of 10 minutes, and to have one big break of one hour around lunch time. Exercise, relax or socialize with friends in the evening. This will help you recharge your battery for the next day.  

Have a support network

Having a support network moderates the effects stress has on psychological distress and significantly improves quality of life [20]. Also, a support network is a strong predictor of a person’s physical health and wellbeing, and helps people cope with phd stress. Intimate social relationships, rather than family relationships, is the strongest predictor of overall life satisfaction [20].  

Have a back-up plan

Temporary contracts, less funding for research, too many people with at least a PhD (compared to the amount of positions available), and a strong competitive field, significantly reduce the chance that one will finds a PhD position or job in their desired field. Add the fact that switching careers is considered a failure (because you were not good enough), and it becomes clear that this may be the most difficult piece of advice to follow-up on. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that most people who do their PhD will not end up working in academia, or will have to live from temporary contract to temporary contract. Especially the latter adds to the experienced PhD stress . Make sure you have a back-up plan. Discuss with family or friends how long you will try to get (a) a PhD position or a permanent position in your desired field, before switching to plan B. Discuss what plan B will be and make sure that you like plan B, and that finding a job is easier with plan B.  

Schedule regular meeting with your supervisor/boss

Communicate with your supervisor/boss to know what he/she expects of you and to keep them updated about your progress. Depending on your boss’s leadership style and personality, it is likely that you boss will not ask too much of you when he/she knows how much you have to do still.    

• [1] Levecque, K., Anseel, F., De Beuckelaer, A., Van der Heyden, J., & Gisle, L. (2017). Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students. Research Policy, 46(4), 868-879.
• [2] Pavli, S., Uršič, M., & Hočevar, M. (2013). Changing the context of researchers’work in academia. Annales, Series historia et sociologia, 23(2), 365-376.
• [3] http://ga.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wellbeingreport_2014.pdf
• [4] Fox, M. F., Fonseca, C., & Bao, J. (2011). Work and family conflict in academic science: Patterns and predictors among women and men in research universities. Social Studies of Science, 41, 715-735.
• [5] Kelloway, E. K., Gottlieb, B. H., & Barham, L. (1999). The source, nature, and direction of work and family conflict: a longitudinal investigation. Journal of occupational health psychology, 4, 337.
• [6] Harms, P. D., Credé, M., Tynan, M., Leon, M., & Jeung, W. (2017). Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review. The Leadership Quarterly, 28, 178-194.
• [7] Schyns, B., & Schilling, J. (2013). How bad are the effects of bad leaders? A meta-analysis of destructive leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 138-158.
• [8] Brees, J., Martinko, M., & Harvey, P. (2016). Abusive supervision: Subordinate personality or supervisor behavior? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31 , 405–419.
• [9] Emery, C. R., & Barker, K. J. (2007). The effect of transactional and transformational leadership styles on the organizational commitment and job satisfaction of customer contact personnel. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 11 , 77.
• [10] A.H. De Lange, T.W. Taris, M.A.J. Kompier, I.L.D. Houtman, P.M. Bongers, 2004. Work characteristics and psychological well-being: testing normal: reversed and reciprocal relationships within the 4-wave SMASH study. Work Stress, 18 , 149-166.
• [11] Skogstad, A., Einarsen, S., Torsheim, T., Aasland, M. S., & Hetland, H. (2007). The Destructiveness of Laissez-Faire Leadership Behavior. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12 , 80-92.
• [12] Pigeon, W. R., Pinquart, M., & Conner, K. (2012). Meta-analysis of sleep disturbance and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 73 , e1160-7.
• [13] Harvey, A. G. (2008). Sleep and circadian rhythms in bipolar disorder: seeking synchrony, harmony, and regulation. American journal of psychiatry, 165 , 820-829.
• [14] Walsh, R. (2011). Lifestyle and mental health. American Psychologist, 66 , 579.
• [15] Onyike, C. U., Crum, R. M., Lee, H. B., Lyketsos, C. G., & Eaton, W. W. (2003). Is obesity associated with major depression? Results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. American journal of epidemiology, 158 , 1139-1147.
• [16] Lakhan, S. E., & Vieira, K. F. (2010). Nutritional and herbal supplements for anxiety and anxiety-related disorders: systematic review. Nutrition Journal, 9 , 42.
• [17] Burleson, B. R., & Denton, W. H. (1997). The relationship between communication skill and marital satisfaction: Some moderating effects. Journal of Marriage and the Family , 884-902.
• [18] Esmaeilzadeh, M., Reza Iravani, M., & Ghojavand, K., 2015. Study relationship between conflict management styles and marital life quality among spouses, parents of elementary school students of 3 district in Esfahan City. Advanced Social Humanities and Management, 2 , 88-93.
• [19] Flaxman, P. E., Ménard, J., Bond, F. W., & Kinman, G. (2012). Academics’ experiences of a respite from work: effects of self-critical perfectionism and perseverative cognition on postrespite well-being. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97 , 854.
• [20] Ali, A., Deuri, S. P., Deuri, S. K., Jahan, M., Singh, A. R., & Verma, A. N. (2010) . Perceived social support and life satisfaction in persons with somatization disorder. Industrial psychiatry journal, 19 , 115.

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May 21st, 2023

Managing your phd without burning out.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Working towards earning your PhD is an engaging venture albeit your progress can be riddled with challenges along the way. Some of these challenges have less to do with answering your research questions and more to do with managing stress, maintaining energy levels, overcoming anxiety, working around constraints, and finding the balance that helps your progress and takes care of your mental health.

The PhD burnout is a very real and yet less talked about phenomenon which can make the experience all the more tough to deal with. The WHO defines burnout as a syndrome that results from excessive stress and is characterised by the following dimensions:

• Reduced energy or exhaustion
• Negative feelings towards your work
• Lowered efficacy.

As a PhD student, you’re essentially working a full-time job and may experience these symptoms. And so, all the concepts we talk about with regards to a healthy work-life balance, maintaining productivity over time, and delivering quality work apply to your PhD life. No doubt PhDs are tough; however, you can overcome burnout by managing the symptoms. Here are some tips:

Improve energy levels

This is a no-brainer and yet can’t be stressed enough – eating well, following good sleep hygiene, and exercising regularly are your three best strategies at enhancing energy levels. Ensure that you eat a healthy diet and at regular intervals. Getting enough sleep is key to feeling well-rested and productive. Regular exercise can improve multiple health-related parameters and also boost your mood and sleep quality.

Maintain energy levels

Establishing a routine provides a better structure to your work and helps you manage your time and workload better without necessarily having to work long hours. There is evidence to support that routines improve creativity and focus. Ensure that you regularly take time off to improve your performance at work. This applies to within a work day where you take regular short breaks and even during the academic year, where you give yourself an extended well-deserved break. Taking walks, watching a show, catching up with a friend are good ideas for short breaks.

Reduce stress and anxiety

It is inevitable that your PhD will be stressful at times but the stress doesn’t have to lead to burnout. For this, the stress needs to be managed well. Journalling, meditation, reading (other than PhD work), listening to music, using laughter are all proven strategies to alleviate stress. Actively taking the time to switch-off from work and invest some time on these activities can go a long way towards managing stress and other negative emotional states and caring for your mental health.

Boost self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is your set of beliefs and personal confidence in your own ability to accomplish goals and is very important for your performance. Improving self-efficacy is not only necessary for avoiding burnout but is also key for good mental health, and personal and professional development. Developing a good support network of friends and peers, building resilience to bounce back from set-backs, reframing your outlook to a more optimistic style of thinking can help enhance your self-efficacy .

The PhD burnout is certainly avoidable and can be overcome with a few lifestyle improvements and mindset training. Your PhD is a project that you’ll be invested in for three to four years. Burning out early on in the journey can affect both your personal and professional life. This can be avoided by simply taking charge of your work life and taking care of yourself. You may want to consider talking to a professional if you need help. LSE has a number of support and well-being resources for PhD students that provide the necessary guidance or point you in the direction of other resources that may be available to you.

Your PhD can be rewarding experience if you take the initiative to shape your own journey.

About the author

I’m Aish, an MPhil/PhD student at the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. I study the impact that personality characteristics can have on performance at the workplace. When I’m not actively PhD-ing, I spend my time cooking, writing, and hula-hooping.

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1 in 5 PhD students could drop out. Here are some tips for how to keep going

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Doctoral students show high levels of stress in comparison to other students, and ongoing uncertainty in terms of graduate career outcomes can make matters worse.

Before the pandemic, one in five research students were expected to disengage from their PhD. Disengagement includes taking extended leave, suspending their studies or dropping out entirely.

COVID-19 has made those statistics far worse. In a recent study , 45% of PhD students surveyed reported they expected to be disengaged from their research within six months, due to the financial effects of the pandemic.

Many factors influence whether a student completes their doctorate. They include supervision support (intellectual and pastoral), peer support (colleagues, friends and family), financial stability and good mental health.

In our recently published book The Doctoral Experience Student Stories from the Creative Arts and Humanities – which we edited with contributions from PhD students – students outlined their experiences of doing a doctorate and shared some useful strategies for how to keep going, and ultimately succeed, in the doctoral journey.

A deeply personal journey

Completing a doctorate involves much more than generating knowledge in a specific discipline. It is a profoundly transformational process evolving over a period of at least four years — and often longer.

This entails personal questioning , development in many areas of life, and often a quite significant personal and intellectual reorientation. The PhD brings with it high expectations, which in turn creates high emotional stakes that can both inspire and derail students. This is coupled with coming to see and think about the world very differently — which for some can be a daunting prospect, as all previously held assumptions are thrown into disarray.

Such a profoundly existential process can itself engender anxiety, depression and trauma if students are not equipped with the self-care strategies that enable resilience.

Read more: PhD completion: an evidence-based guide for students, supervisors and universities

Every chapter in our book, written by a different student, emphasises the need to engage in deep thinking and planning regarding their personal goals, strengths and weaknesses, and ways of working before starting the PhD.

This is important preparatory work to ensure any challenges that arise are surmountable.

In her chapter, Making Time (and Space) for the Journey, AK Milroy writes she learnt to

[…] analyse and break down the complicated doctoral journey into a manageable, achievable process with clear tasks and an imaginable destination.

She writes this includes involving family and friends in the process because

[…] it is paramount to ensure these people understand the work that lies ahead, and also that they too are being respected by being included in the planning.

Relationships were, above all, a critical component of the experience for many of the student writers. The supervisory relationship is the most obvious one, which Margaret Cook describes as the student undertaking a form of academic apprenticeship.

Read more: Ten types of PhD supervisor relationships – which is yours?

The student authors also identify strategies for the “thinking” part of the research process once enrolled. These include acknowledging that the free and creative element of mind-wandering and downtime are as legitimate as the focused, task-oriented work of project management, such as preparing checklists and calendars.

AK Milroy calls these “strategic side-steps”.

Peter Mackenzie, who researched regional jazz musicians, went a step further to connect with his participants.

I felt like an outsider but once I started to play with the guys on the bandstand that night at the Casino, I sensed a different level of appreciation from them. After playing and taking on some improvisations, I could feel the group relax. I was no longer an outside musician. Even better, I wasn’t seen as an academic. I was one of them.

Struggling with self doubt

The task of writing, of course, cannot be ignored in the long doctoral journey.

Drafting and redrafting, jettisoning ideas and arguments along the way, is acknowledged as a core component of the doctoral learning process itself, and the many attempts are not proof of failure.

Gail Pittaway writes about extending networks beyond one’s supervisors and university to collaborate with those in the discipline nationally and internationally.

This can be productive and lead to co-written articles and editing special issues of journals, which can positively influence the PhD thesis.

[…] by developing confidence in sharing ideas, seeking peer review feedback and editorial advice from a wider range of readers as some of these sections are submitted for publication, the writing of the thesis is encouraged and energised.

Many of the student authors acknowledge questioning, self-doubt and fear of the unknown are central to creating and performing research. While this might be frightening, they say it should be embraced as this is where innovation and novelty can arise.

Charmaine O'Brien writes about how transformative learning is dependent on this period of complexity and not-knowing. While “failure to make experience conform to what we already know is threatening because it destabilises a sense of how we know the world, and ourselves in it, resulting in psychological ‘dis-ease’”, staying with it – and having supportive supervisors – ensures the student becomes a doctoral-level thinker.

Read more: Mindfulness can help PhD students shift from surviving to thriving

Lisa Brummel writes of extending requirements of occupational health and safety into her own life. This takes forms such as family, friends and exercise, assisting with work-life balance and good mental health.

After all, two of the most significant resources PhD students possess to do the work required are their physical and mental capacity.

Finally, students must love their topic. Without an innate fascination for the field in which they are researching, this often tumultuous intellectual, emotional and personal journey may derail.

In the four-plus years spent doing a doctoral degree, any range of major life events can occur. Births, deaths, marriages, separations and divorces, illnesses and recovery, are all possible. Being willing to seek help and knowing who to ask can be the difference between completing and collapsing.

There is no pleasure without pain in the doctoral journey, but with the right frame of mind and supportive supervisors, the joys certainly outweigh the suffering.

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Some people don’t experience stress. Are they happier?

Research shows that some types of stressors—and the way we react to them—can actually be beneficial to our overall health and well-being. Here’s how.

Susan Charles loves figuring out what keeps people happy. Throughout her career studying emotional processes across the adult life span, the professor of psychological science at University of California, Irvine has returned to this research focus again and again. Most emotions are experienced in a social context, so “what keeps us happy is often what keeps us safe,” she says. “What keeps us enjoying the people … that add meaning to our lives.” And quantifying daily stressors is part of unlocking the key to that happiness.

Much of her data come from a treasure trove of information known as the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) series, a groundbreaking longitudinal study based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison that tracks participants’ health and well-being through daily diaries and surveys conducted over the phone. There have been three major waves of data collection every 10 years—in 1995, 2005, and 2015—with a special fourth survey in 2012 to capture the effects of the Great Recession, a collective stressor. The researchers are now also collecting special data tracking the effects of the pandemic.

For eight days in a row, participants at each wave of the midlife study spoke to a researcher over the phone about their day. Respondents shared whether or not they experienced any stressors, such as getting into an argument with a friend or having a problem at work—the kinds of stressors that aren’t life-threatening but can be disruptive. Charles dug into these surveys, wanting to learn from the answers how different people react to and handle stress. But she kept having to throw out a small portion of the data.

Throughout every wave of the MIDUS study, 10 percent of respondents answered “no” to every question researchers asked about whether they experienced stress in some form that day. In other words, for eight days straight, these participants did not experience one iota of everyday, normal life stress. At first these outliers were meaningless to Charles, because a person who didn’t perceive or experience stress couldn’t help her figure out how people manage under stress. But then she thought, Wait a minute, who are these people?

Mixed blessing  

A life devoid of stress, and stressors, might sound idyllic, but don’t be fooled. There’s a reason Charles decided to call her 2021 study of these miraculously unbothered outliers “The Mixed Benefits of a Stressor-Free Life.”

Charles and her colleagues found that without stress, a person would report higher levels of happiness than the general population and lower levels of other chronic health issues, but they also displayed signs of cognitive decline, such as lowered attention and concentration, worse short- and long-term memory, worse problem-solving, and a lowered ability to focus or inhibit unwanted behavior.

The message of this type of work isn’t that we should all learn to cherish every stressor we encounter. Not all moments of stress response are created equal. When researchers talk about the ones that do benefit people, “we’re not talking about really negative things like trauma-type stressors, we’re talking about things that are very normative in people’s lives,” says Jeremy Jamieson, a stress researcher at the University of Rochester.

He wasn’t involved in Charles’s study, but he, like Charles, studies the benefits of certain types of stress, an experience that usually gets a bad rap across the board. “Doing a hard assignment or taking on a difficult task at work—these are things that we all do all the time, and they’re not necessarily negative, but oftentimes they’re presented as such,” says Jamieson.

As with pain, the general experience of stress is universal, but what sets off this system is highly subjective. Two people, both capable of experiencing stress, can face the same relative stressor, say performing in the school play, and each handle it differently. One person may clam up under the spotlight, and the other may feel totally at home on the stage.

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Also like pain, not experiencing stress may help a person avoid one problem, but it can summon others. While people who don’t feel pain may avoid one of life’s more unpleasant sensations, they are also prone to injury, since pain triggers a reflex that keeps us safe—it’s what tells us to take our hand off a hot stove. Someone who doesn’t feel pain could end up burning off their skin.

For its part, the stress response allows us to experience the full spectrum of life and facilitates learning. The hippocampus—the part of the brain that helps promote learning through memory—loves novelty. Successfully overcoming a small daily life stressor presents novelty in droves, and the opportunity for growth. Without these non-life-threatening challenges, the brain starts to suffer. This is likely what’s behind the lower memory and problem-solving skills Charles noted in the unstressed participants of the MIDUS cohort.

“When people feel the first sense of being overwhelmed, the response is to disengage, to back off and go away, but you don’t need to do that all the time,” says Jamieson. “To actually learn to be resilient, and persevere through challenges or difficulties, that’s an important skill set. That’s not just something that we either do or don’t do, it’s something that we can learn how to do.”

Charles will never fully be able to answer the question of who these stress-free people are. The identities of the survey takers are closely guarded by Carol Ryff, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who runs the MIDUS study.

But Charles does know the general profile of a stress-free person: They tend to be older, unmarried men with lower levels of education than those who reported at least one daily stressor during the eight days of surveys. The unstressed also reported many fewer daily activities than the rest of the cohort, except for watching TV, which they did with higher frequency than those who reported experiencing daily stressors.

For Charles, the most interesting tidbit is that it would seem on the surface that having fewer social interactions lowers a person’s daily stress—but that likely isn’t the whole story. Of the daily activities the MIDUS data capture, the unstressed reported spending fewer hours than the stressed on only the activities that typically include interacting with other people—working, volunteering, and both providing and receiving emotional support.

But Charles notes the paradox here: Having more social support is also an effective buffer against stress. “We know that people are our source of stress often in life,” Charles says with a warm laugh, but adds: “They’re absolutely necessary for us; we’re social creatures.”

There seems to be a sweet spot, an ideal amount of social support that keeps us thriving cognitively before too much time with other people becomes its own source of stress. The role of social networks, like so many aspects of the stress experience, is something researchers are continually exploring.

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• CORRESPONDENCE
• 02 April 2024

How can we make PhD training fit for the modern world? Broaden its philosophical foundations

• Ganesh Alagarasan 0

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati, India.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

You have highlighted how PhD training assessment has stagnated, despite evolving educational methodologies (see Nature 613 , 414 (2023) and Nature 627 , 244; 2024 ). In particular, you note the mismatch between the current PhD journey and the multifaceted demands of modern research and societal challenges.

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Nature 628 , 36 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00969-x

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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Stress levels: PhD versus non-academic full-time job

Is pursuing a PhD as stressful as a full-time job? This is a question that many prospective PhD students ask themselves. While it depends on your personality, a PhD can be more stressful than a full-time job outside of academia. Several specific circumstances trigger high-stress levels among PhD students.

Stress as a subjective experience

Phd students tend to be perfectionists, a phd requires a lot of self-responsibility, phd work feels very personal, phds students have a less external structure, phd research is often underpaid.

Stress is subjective. Every person experiences mental or emotional strain resulting from demanding circumstances differently. Therefore it is difficult to generalize. However, doing a PhD is a unique situation that tends to trigger high levels of stress.

It is useful to have a good understanding of the common types of stress that PhD students experience, and why. On that basis, prospective candidates can evaluate for themselves whether it would be more or less stressful for them to pursue a PhD instead of working full-time outside of academia.

The world is full of perfectionists. However, the percentage of perfectionists in academia tends to be higher than in other professions.

Character traits such as an eye for detail and conscientiousness make for a good university student. Standing out by delivering excellent work during a bachelor’s and master’s programme is directly linked to chances of getting a PhD position.

PhD students are often driven and have a high degree of self-awareness. While this has obvious benefits, it often goes hand in hand with excessive self-criticism and unrealistic expectations of themselves.

Perfectionists might strive in demanding circumstances in terms of delivering good outputs. But the process and emotions that they have to go through to achieve these results are often crippling.

To make things worse, perfectionists often compare themselves to others. These ‘others’ in academia are often equally self-critical and work extra hard to overcome insecurities.

Constant stress due to perfectionism and a fear of failure can have real mental and physical consequences (think of depression, arrhythmia or insomnia).

Of course, a PhD student (ideally) gets a lot of support from supervisors as well as peers. Some PhD students also work as part of a project team.

However, at the end of the day, the PhD is your project. It has to be written by you alone. And if you succeed, the degree will be awarded to you .

PhD work requires a high degree of self-initiative and proactiveness. Ultimately, you are responsible for the outcome. But this can be challenging when you suffer from perfectionism and imposter syndrome:

Constantly questioning your academic ability, and feeling like a fraud who is not smart enough to deserve a PhD position can create a lot of stress.

When you work for a company or organization, be it in the public or private sector, you are more likely to work as part of a team. I am not saying that you might not feel performance-related stress outside of academia.

Yet, experiencing performance-related stress is often much more individualized when doing a PhD compared to many non-academic full-time jobs.

In a PhD, the aim is to further academic knowledge. To branch out into unknown territories. To test novel methodologies and develop new theories.

In non-academic jobs, you often learn certain skills and can deal with situations based on existing knowledge. You have a backup, so to speak, from people who generated that knowledge and have done it before you.

In a PhD, you enter unchartered territory. That is the whole point of it. You are supposed to do something new.

Therefore, a PhD feels much more personal.

Feedback and criticism can sting. It can feel like a punch to the gut. It feels like you are criticized personally as if something is wrong with your way of thinking, and your ideas.

During a PhD, your identity becomes very much intertwined with your research. Separating yourself (and your worth) from your work is very hard for PhD students.

Questioning your whole identity is a different – and more constant – stressor than dealing with, for example, a busy period in a non-academic full-time job

Many people doing non-academic work have well-established routines. Very often, working times are non-negotiable.

Yes, it sucks if you have to be up every day at 7, and present at the office at 8. But at some point, you might not even think about getting up anymore. You simply do not have a choice. External pressure is, at times, good.

Have you ever tried getting up early without having to? It requires so much more effort and willpower. Pushing yourself out of bed to start writing on a PhD without a real deadline or external pressure is hard. Like, real hard.

PhD students often have little external structure to their day. They are largely responsible for their time management. Which can be fabulous and I guess that many non-academics envy this flexibility.

However, practising constant self-discipline can also be stressful. Especially when you are stuck and do not know what to do next in your PhD.

Very often, it results in feelings of not working enough. Or the failure to get up at 7, as planned. Which in turn leads to a feeling of guilt to take proper breaks and rest. Long-term stress is a real thing.

Thus, the constant need for self-discipline can create a different type of stress than having to be present in the office from 9-5 every day.

Last but not least, when you have a full-time job and consider doing a PhD, the chances are high that you earn a decent salary.

With a few lucky expectations, PhD pay is not great. Or PhD students are only paid part-time and have to take over heavy teaching loads next to their PhD. Or, they are not paid at all.

The effects of lingering financial stress in the background should not be underestimated.

This is coupled with the knowledge that academia is an extremely competitive place. Jobs are scarce. Consequently, many PhDs experience existential stress. Financial stress in the present, while also stressing about the future.

Every person has their own story, their personality and their coping mechanisms to deal with stress. There are also still very good reasons to pursue an academic career.

Simultaneously, many non-academic jobs can be extremely stressful. And if you long for more independent work, self-responsibility and a flexible schedule, a PhD might be the right fit.

( When you experience high levels of stress during your PhD, and if it is negatively affecting your mental health, please reach out to your supervisor or institution for help. )

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Can You Get a PhD without a Masters?

• Applying to a PhD

Yes, it’s possible to get a PhD without first having a Masters degree.

The conventional route for someone who earns a PhD is to pursue a Bachelor’s degree, followed by a Masters degree and then a PhD. However, several students opt to bypass a Master’s degree by enrolling onto a doctoral programme as soon as they complete their undergraduate degree.

Before we discuss how this can be done, it is worth mentioning the advantages and disadvantages of this route.

Advantages of Applying to a PhD without A Masters

The motivations for undertaking a PhD immediately after an undergraduate course are largely in saving money and time. This is because you will essentially eliminate a year of study. Another advantage of immediately enrolling onto a doctorate degree is project availability. If you find a project that you’re really interested in, it’s unlikely that it will still be available in a years’ time. Therefore, bypassing a Masters and enrolling directly into a PhD will increase your chances of securing the research project before it becomes unavailable.

Disadvantages of Applying to a PhD without A Masters

Although a Masters degree will add a year onto your academic journey, it can be incredibility helpful for your development and can help prepare you for a doctoral degree.

Not having a Master’s degree may prove to be a hindrance during your application process. This is because many other students will also apply to the same research projects, and it’s likely that the majority will hold a Masters. This will put you at a disadvantage to them.

Besides this, the dissertation project you’ll be required to undertake on a Master’s programme will provide you with a taste of what it is like to work on a research-based project. In addition to this, it’s likely that you’ll be able to select your own dissertation topic. As such, you can explore a specific field you’re interested in in further detail. This is a great way to confirm that both research-based work and the specific field you’re interested in are right for you before committing the next few years to it via a PhD.

Another advantage to the dissertation project associated with a Masters degree is the opportunity it provides you with to work closely with a project supervisor. This will help you understand the PhD student-supervisor relationship and communication frequency that works best for you. You can then use this knowledge to find supervisors who would compliment you when it comes time to find a PhD project to apply to. For tips on how to find a great PhD supervisor, check out our supervisor guide .

PhD without a Masters – How Does It Work?

To be considered for a PhD without a Master’s, at a minimum you will be expected to have a Bachelors degree. For students looking to enrol onto a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) PhD, a relevant Bachelors in a 3-year undergraduate course is usually expected. However, this is not the case for students looking to apply to non-STEM PhDs. Rather, students looking to apply to doctorates in subjects such as those surrounding Arts and Humanities are usually expected to have a relevant Bachelors from a 4-year course.

In addition to this, you will need to have demonstrated strong academic performance during your undergraduate course. This means that your Bachelors will need to be at least a UK Upper Second-Class Honours (2.1) for nearly all institutions to consider you.

Should you be accepted into a PhD programme without a Masters, the usual process will be to first register you as an MPhil student. You will then have a year to prepare and submit a thesis. Your thesis will need to detail the research you have carried out within that year and outline how you intend to continue it into a full PhD study. There are three outcomes of this MPhil thesis review:

• Failure and you’re not awarded anything.
• You pass, however, the supervisor doesn’t believe you’ve demonstrated strong research skills. You’re awarded an MPhil but they do not upgrade your course to a PhD programme.
• You pass and the supervisor believes you have proven yourself as a capable researcher. Your course is upgraded to a PhD as opposed to you being awarding an MPhil.

For more information on these outcomes, read the outcomes section of our PhD Viva guide .

Integrated PhD

Some universities offer Integrated PhD degree programmes (also known as an Integrated Masters degree). These are four-year programmes comprising of a one-year Masters degree immediately followed by a three-year PhD degree. These can prove a great option for graduate students who are looking to undertake a PhD without a Masters but are struggling to meet the eligibility requirements. You can read about the many benefits of  integrated degrees here .

Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.

PhD without a Bachelors – Is It Possible?

Yes, it is possible to get a PhD without a Bachelor’s, however, this is extremely uncommon.

When this occurs, it is almost always reserved for very mature individuals. For example, an individual may not be in active academia but still may have significantly contributed to their field. This contribution could be through the work they have undertaken as part of their career, or as part of a long-term study project, they have undertaken out of self-interest.

In either case, the individual would need to prove that they have extensive experience in their field and have directly contributed to new knowledge within it. The key factor here is that their work has pushed the boundaries of existing knowledge. It is not enough for an individual to be regarded as an expert in their field – they must have contributed something new and meaningful. It’s common for individuals awarded a PhD through this means to have produced several publications within their lifetime. It’s also common for the individual to have gained several professional accreditations within their field before even being considered suitable for a PhD research degree.

Universities Offering PhD without a Masters

Unfortunately, there is not a centralised list of universities which offer PhDs without a Master’s degree. The reason for this is that the edibility requirements differ from PhD to PhD and from department to department.

Therefore, you will need to check the guidelines for each individual university and the requirements for each specific PhD you’re interested in.

Should you find a PhD programme you can apply to with a Bachelors, make every effort to make your application as strong as possible. This is because you will be competing against other candidates, most of who will have a Master’s degree.

Not only can you strengthen your application by having a Bachelors with a First-Class Honours (1st), but you can also do so by showing the traits of a successful researcher. This includes showing a genuine interest in the project, a high work ethic, and exceptional communication skills.

Additionally, a strong letter of recommendation from a respected university lecturer will prove very beneficial. This is especially true if the lecturer supervisors his or her own PhD students. This is because the lecturer will understand the skills required for an adept research student.

For more advice on how to apply to a PhD degree, check out our Application Process Guide.

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