Looking After Yourself

Abstract

It may be argued that having a certain amount of stress in life is good. It will propel you forward and help you to achieve goals, so you can ultimately achieve a successful research career. However, too much stress can have a negative impact, which may lead to illness, potentially affecting you physically, mentally or both. Hence, the ability for you to manage your stress level is extremely important. As such, this chapter is all about you and how to look after yourself, which is necessary before you can even begin to look after your research career. Key to this is in your ability to manage your stress level. Thus, the chapter details on the different options available of how to de-stress, e.g. doing physical exercise, adopting a breathing technique for relaxation and changing your attitude on how you view life events. Furthermore, I have proposed PRAAM (Problem, Research, Assess, Action and Monitor), which is an approach that you can use to tackle personal problems in a logical and consistent manner. As everyone’s stress response can be different, your goal after reading this chapter is to develop a strategy that works for you.