Some Ways Improving My Emotional Health Has Made Me a Better Researcher
I’ve been doing EMDR therapy for 3 years to recover from complex PTSD. I’ve also been meditating and journaling daily and making a concerted effort to build habits to improve my emotional health. Here are some of the changes I’ve seen that make me a better researcher.
It’s easier to learn things - When you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, and trauma, you tend to have a background level of static noise in your mind. This can make it really hard to focus on something or think through an idea. My static noise has dropped significantly and I’ve learned methods to manage the noise when it comes back. I feel like I learn things significantly faster, and the ceiling on the complexity of the material I can learn has also risen.
I’m more creative - I believe that being creative requires the ability to be playful. It’s hard to be playful when you have a lot of background fear and shame though, since your focus is then on fixing those emotions as opposed to doing something novel. For much of my life, I’ve been scared that I’m stupid and worthless, and so my energy would be diverted towards overcompensating for those insecurities. This meant that I tried to do things that had already been done since they were a guaranteed success, as opposed to taking a risk and doing something novel. For example, I was tempted to go down the standard software engineering career path for computer science graduates since I wanted to fix my shame and live up to the image my mother had in mind. Instead I’m in graduate school working on riskier but more interesting and creative problems. It’s a worthy trade-off.
It’s easier to meet people and talk about science with them - Anxiety and depression can get in the way of your ability to connect with others. For me, complex PTSD caused me to not trust anybody and always fear getting yelled at or criticized. The issue is that I then wall myself off from good hearted people who actually want to make friends and get to know others and I make myself a target for manipulative and abusive people. Learning to trust others and be vulnerable meant that I can let the good people in and filter out the unhealthy ones. I’m really grateful to my mentors Chris Smillie, Michael Desai, and Sean Monaghan for their support in my research career so far. I never would have been able to connect with them if I didn’t choose to work on my emotional health and learn to trust people.
I put less pressure on myself which means I burn out less - My mental health issues led to a paradoxical sort of workaholism/procrastination where I would constantly think about the work I’m not doing and beat myself up, but also not get things done. I was constantly in a shame spiral that kept me stuck. Eventually I’d burn out on the project I was working on and quit or be depressed for a while until I picked myself up again. Through the emotional work, I’ve been able to shift my perspective to treating my work as a marathon as opposed to a sprint, where it’s better to set realistic and attainable goals every day and take baby steps towards the end product. I also take hours/days off when I’m not feeling great. As a result, I don’t burn out. In fact, I get more work done in less time.
If you’re a scientist, or generally somebody who is passionate about their work, I hope that I’ve conveyed how your emotional health can actually help you with your work. While you should take care of yourself regardless of your work output, maybe these ideas will help you get the ball rolling towards being gentler and healthier towards yourself. It’s especially a problem in science, where people are consistently burnt out and people neglect their and others’ emotional health. The reality is that being healthy emotionally makes life better for everybody and helps us do better science.