Brain Habit

This post is a bit off-topic for the purposes of this blog, but it’s a very sensitive topic to me and I’m sure someone might relate. Last Thursday, October 10 th , was World Mental Health Day, which made me think about my own mental health – something I do rarely. I’ve been feeling like a juggler lately, trying to do the trick with too many balls spinning around. Well, the trick here is my mental health, and the balls are my job as post-doc, my role as mother, as wife, as housekeeper, as pet owner. Thus, today I’m going to let it all go and write about difficulties experienced by a female scientist, an expat, a mother and so on and so forth. Being a scientist is not easy, and it’s not surprising that mental illness is so widespread in the sciences. Rates of depression and anxiety reported by postgraduate students are extremely high, with more than one-third of graduate students reporting being depressed, and I can relate. There have been tough times in the past 4 years, ...