In this post for Mental Health Awareness Month, current blogger Garry Mac talks about social anxiety, a condition that can be debilitating and which can have all kinds of effects on your PhD research. He'll discuss his own experiences with the condition, dig into why ‘networking’ events can be crisis-inducing for those with social anxiety, … Continue reading My Life in Research: Coping with Social Anxiety
Week 3 of our Mental Health Awareness Month posts come from Jodie Russell, a 3rd year PhD researcher at University of Edinburgh whose research explores the intersection of mind and medicine. In this guest post, she explains how our concept of the self can influence mental health. Мышь 2 by George Shuklin is licensed under … Continue reading The Person That I am and How that Affects My Mental Health
This week (9th May – 15th May 2022) is Loneliness Awareness Week set by UK Mental Health Foundation . Loneliness is one of the key factors in many people’s experience of mental health issues. During the pandemic, people spent most of their time staying at home and suffered more loneliness than before. However, emotional loneliness … Continue reading PhD Study is Never a Journey on Your Own
During May, the SGSAH blog will focus on mental health in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month which runs from 1st to 31st May. In this first post, blogging intern Garry McLaughlin introduces the concept of mental health and how to look after yours while you study. Mental health is the overall state of a … Continue reading Mental Health and PhD Studies: Broad Strokes
This week's guest post is by University of Stirling PhD researcher Rosie Priest. Here, she discusses the specific difficulties she's encountered throughout her time in academia and how the exacerbation of those issues during the pandemic encouraged her to seek help. When lockdown came in March last year, I did what I always did, what … Continue reading Challenging the Normative: Academia and Neurodiversity
For the past several weeks I – along with a large portion of the world, it seems – have been engrossed with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest show, WandaVision. It might seem strange that I’ve chosen to focus a post for the SGSAH research blog on a television show, but I promise I have my … Continue reading ‘What is Grief if Not Love Persevering?’: Making Space for Grief in Academia
This latest guest post comes from Negar Ebrahimi, a PhD student in Architecture at the University of Edinburgh. Here, she gives a review of her pre-COVID workshop, Designing My Happy City: Playground, and discusses the importance nature has in our every-day lives. The government’s road map in controlling the global pandemic promises an easing of … Continue reading Hitting the Yellow Brick Road
What do depression and the PhD process have in common? (This is not a setup for a joke. I’m sorry.) The answer, as I came to discover recently, is their tendency to force our attention towards new questions; questions that are unexpected, overdue, crucial for our development, and illuminating in their own way, even when … Continue reading On questions and questioning
PhDs are relentless, and they can obviously be very stressful. It's a good idea to take a break regularly. As my therapist said, you have to rest before you burn out to avoid burnout! So here are some ideas for decompressing days out near the main HEIs of Scotland, going north to south. If I … Continue reading Take a Break!
This guest post is by Perin Westerhof Nyman. Perin is entering the fourth year of her PhD in the School of History at the University of St Andrews. Her research considers the use of dress as a political tool in the Scottish royal household, particularly during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. She also works … Continue reading Changing Direction
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