By now, we have established that PhD students (and academics in general) seem to be at a higher risk to develop mental health problems like depression or chronic stress. But, how can we know if we have one of these mental health problems, right here, right now? In this post, co-authored with colleague, friend and therapist Paula Odriozola-González, we go over a few basic concepts of psychopathology, and propose criteria and simple practices to help separate internal experiences that we all go through at one time or another, from the more serious stuff.

In this blog I have often covered the mental health and wellbeing problems that may come with doing a PhD, if we are not careful. In this series of posts I look at the flip side of that, diving into the research on thriving at work, to find out which practices may help us be a little happier during our research, and how to diagnose ourselves about what aspects of our research activity can most be improved.

No matter how meaningful your research feels to you, no matter how engaged you are when doing it, sometimes things just don’t work out as you expected. Papers get rejected, proposals are not funded, data gets mangled and needs to be collected again… plus all the non-research-related stumbling blocks that life throws at us, from sickness to accidents or family tragedies. How fast and how well can we recover from those setbacks that throw us off balance? This fourth post in the series goes over the concept of resilience as an important pillar for staying happy and fulfilled while working in research. Read below for instruments you can use to gauge it, and practices to help you stay resilient in the face of difficulties.