Take Care of Your Mental Health

Linda Corcoran
Jul 28, 2021
1 min read

Graphics text reads Strength is not pushing through when you're breaking inside, it's standing up when it feels like the whole world is on your shoulders and saying: I need a break.

What a great representation of putting your own mental health and well-being first that we saw from Simone Biles at the Olympics.

We see so many people saying that "she couldn't take the pressure" and "she let others down" - sound familiar to anyone?

Deciding to say "no I need to take a break, I need to stop" can be incredibly difficult to do, especially with all the pressure that was put on her and we absolutely applaud her.

Nothing is worth your mental health. Nothing is worth you.

Supporting people who need help at "inconvenient" moments is what mental health support is all about.

Academia take note 📝

2 Comments

sherryoung

Jul 31, 2021

Hi PhD Balance team! How would you recommend each one of us to promote mental health within our universities? I am trying to launch a "Have you taken a break yet?" campaign with the support of the various unions and graduate groups across campus but finding an impactful way to motivate students to really take a break is difficult. The PhD Balance blog posts help to show that everyone needs that, but which sort of resources would you recommend (or tips in general) so we can act locally? thanks!

Linda Corcoran

Aug 11, 2021

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Replying to

Hi! I'm Linda (part of the PhD Balance team!) That's sounds like an awesome campaign! One of the best things you can do is really try and get the word out not just through email but also through notice boards, flyers and whatever other ways you can communicate in your university. Sometimes people get so many emails they just start to ignore ones that are not specifically related to their research! Things we (I asked the others in the PhD Balance team too!) recommend is doing things like trying to get the PIs to endorse the campaign, some students may be afraid that they'll be judged negatively by their PI for taking a break! If you come up against resistance…