I’m currently working on a PhD, and I had a meeting that felt like an intervention with my advisor where she encouraged me to take a few months away from the program to take care of myself. For context, I used to work for the airforce, and apparently I picked up some pretty severe mental health problems that have lead to not sleeping and panic attacks when I read papers about military hardware (not ideal when my current interest is hardware side cybersecurity).
What the fuck does “take care of yourself” mean? Like, I don’t know what to do with my hands. I’ve spent my entire life with a fast paced schedule, either with school work or some other crisis I’ve needed to attend to. Now I’m like… trying to accept going to therapy and I’m doing yoga with some people in my research group a few times a week, but i don’t know what to do with my time otherwise. I feel like smoking all of the weed in this state playing video games and rotting in bed isn’t the answer, but that’s where I’m at. I’d love any advice or to hear from anybody who’s been in that position of being told to take a few months off for mental health
I’d say do some exploration to find and/or pursue some activity that makes you happy that you don’t normally have time to do, or don’t prioritize. Spend some time in nature if possible. Give yourself permission to do something for yourself instead of for someone else.
If you’re at all like me, you have a laundry list of projects that you are interested in but never get around to working on. That’s always a good place to start.
Good luck, I’m rooting for you!
Not OP but I’m also a person with an endless amount of projects to work on.
My issue is that I tend to work on them too hard or not at all. If I also have work, I utterly exhaust myself or find it hard to switch to work. I often start work immediately when I wake up because that way I don’t have to switch to it.