One of the hardest questions that has recently come up in my professional life is debating changing institutions pre-tenure. I came to my medical school not that long ago. Over the past year and change, I have set up my laboratory, hired personnel, committed to thesis committees, taught, and submitted some grants. I have made personal and professional connections. I have long proclaimed my love of being a basic scientist in a clinical department. But there have been some issues, some large enough to consider a change. Advice from my Chair and faculty mentors is sincere, but how much of it is biased by their tenured positions? Faculty from other institutions are starting to ask if I am happy where I am. My optimism and “make it work” attitude is waning and Twitter’s daily wave of new tenure track postings is alluring. Today’s post is dedicated to figuring out what could come next. Unfortunately, n= me and maybe you too.

Stay in the department: The easiest solution is to, of course, stay in the department. No department or institution is perfect and it is better to know the limitations of a place than have to rediscover them all over again. The goal should be to write the papers, get the grants, and do the science. My funding is secure and grants are pending review. If the environment does not improve, perhaps I can contemplate a move when I am more competitive. Another consideration is that some of these feelings are normal and likely coincide with the end of the “new job honeymoon” phase that some of my colleagues have warned me about. Objectively speaking, our lab is beautiful, we have everything we need, and the resources of the institution are considerable.

Change departments: Another option that I can explore is changing departments. This may allow me to keep my start-up and equipment, provide me more protections through teaching, and keep the valuable connections I have made. Whether basic science departments will be interested in this departmental refugee, how much space I would be given, if I can take all my equipment, and whether this will be workable in the long term is unknown. Moreover, some of the institutional issues with which I struggle will not be resolved by changing departments. This has also resulted in a bit of an existential crisis: I have always been in clinical departments. How am I going to adjust to life in a basic science department? Am I ready to make it even harder to collaborate with our clinicians? How do I make this change without alienating my current department?

Change institutions: Another option is to change institutions. I still have a couple years on the R00, and grants that are pending review. Do I make discrete inquiries or go all in and start applying to job postings? The siren call of other institutions with smaller salary coverage, greater access to clinicians, and stability certainly are tempting. But can they really be immune to today’s dismal funding climate? And where would I apply? Am I ready to give up on clinical departments? The major downside to all of this, is the total disruption of my laboratory. We have spent so much time setting up, getting our breeding colony to size, optimizing protocols, and the thought of all that effort and money wasted makes me ill. I have also made commitments to employees and trainees. Will they move with me? Can they? Leaving our beautiful space and lightly used equipment is also depressing. Of course, all of these events are occurring on a backdrop of life. Can we survive another year on the job market? While we are still fairly portable as a unit, do I really want to move us again? At what point do we get to finally settle down? Has life in science transformed us into nomads? Will I ever be able to just do the science?

If you are wrestling with a similar choice, be it changing mentors in graduate school, moving to a different postdoctoral fellowship lab, or changing institutions, know that these changes are more common than you think. Also, these decisions are never easy. I have been trying to work through this impossible arithmetic for months and all I can do is recommend reading Simone’s Maxims. For those of you on the job market this fall, good luck! I might be joining you. Stay tuned for more tales!

Advice and thoughts welcome. Feel free to send some electrons my way in the comments, via Twitter @PipetteProtag, or through traditional electronic mail pipette.protagonist@gmail.com

“Stressed?” Of course. We are all stressed. We are carving out an identity in academia, developing our research focus, writing grants, papers, and talks, all while attempting to have some “balance” in our lives. In fact, it would probably be a little concerning if you were not stressed.

The war stories of mentors and advice from those intimately familiar with this career stage confirm we will adapt. We habituate. We become intimately familiar and comfortable in the fields we are in through practice and consistent work. As expectations become more familiar and expertise develops, we settle in.

But back to now: Attending to our stress levels and taking care of ourselves is extremely important to make it through this career stage, to adapt to increasing demands, and to build resilience.

Our “stuff” will surface during times of heightened tension, such as a transitional period in a career. It can be helpful to have tools to manage stress that can reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and boost energy levels. Once learned, they can be applied to myriad situations. If you practice them regularly, their effects extend and deepen over time.

As a clinical psychologist, I work closely with stress, anxiety, sadness, illness, life transitions…you name it. I hope you’ll consider two tools that I use often in practice and that can drastically change how people manage stress. That’s the key – the stress doesn’t go away. How we handle the stress changes – from “reacting” to “responding.”

Tool #1: Clinical Hypnosis

Yes. Hypnosis. In practice, clinical hypnosis is nothing like what you’ve seen on TV, at halftime shows of basketball games, or in Office Space (anyone remember that?). That’s “stage” hypnosis. So let’s separate fact from myth.

To understand hypnosis imagine the last time you felt deeply relaxed. I mean, so relaxed that you could just comfortably drift off to sleep wherever you were. That’s what hypnosis feels like – the state your body is in right before sleep: Heavy, comfortable. Aware of what is happening around you but also absorbed in how good you feel. During hypnosis, a practitioner will “guide” you into deep relaxation and provide you with suggestions for alterations in perception, thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Ultimately, the goal is for you to practice and then learn how to do self-hypnosis, practicing on your own.

Hypnosis can be helpful with performance anxiety, pain, headaches, chronic illnesses, sleep, and compulsions such as overeating, smoking, or nail biting. It can also enhance situational performance in athletics, speaking, acting, and playing music. Hypnosis is a skill you learn to apply whenever you are stressed or feeling tension. You can teach your body to become calm very quickly. It’s transforming.

Myths about hypnosis include: 1) you are not in control and 2) all you need is a good imagination and cooperation to be hypnotized. I can promise you that neither is true. You are in control the whole time. Your eyes are closed during the practice but they can open if you need them to. Hypnosis can be done with your eyes open riding a recumbent bike. Or driving. Or shooting free-throws.

Ability to imagine things vividly or cooperate with the practitioner is unrelated to hypnotic responding. How you respond to hypnosis depends on your hypnotizability, which can range from low to high. It is not related to personality or intelligence, and cannot be “learned.” Hypnotizability is a heritable trait that is stable over time. Although just about anyone can benefit from hypnosis, those who are more highly responsive to the intervention benefit more.

Tool #2: Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation are a practice of “present-moment awareness.” To be mindful is to pay attention to the present moment, without judgment, just noticing what’s happening. This practice harnesses your ability to attend to internal and external experiences without freaking out.

For example, noticing that you may be feeling anxious before a talk, you might say to yourself, “Oh no! This is only going to get worse.” What happens next? Beads of sweat, racing heart, and you’re losing your focus. To be mindful in that situation would involve recognizing the physical sensations occurring in your body, noticing your emotional response, where it is coming from, and then asking yourself the question, “What do I need to do to help this?” Mindfulness teaches you to problem solve through difficulty as opposed to lighting up your insula.

Mindfulness training typically includes focused attention to breathing, body sensations, and mindful movement. This can be done through both formal and informal practices. A formal practice might involve a 2-5 minute meditation focusing on the breath. An informal practice may be paying attention to the experience of walking as you go from one building to another during the day.

After eight weeks of mindfulness and/or meditation practice, our brains and immune function change. Our attention and focus improve, and happiness increases. Have you ever heard about the “happiest” person in the world? According to a long series of neuroimaging studies, it’s a Tibetan Buddhist monk named Matthieu Ricard. He meditates for 15 minutes a day. I would consider that something to work up to. My goal is 5-10 minutes a day four days per week.

So, how do you learn these tools?

My recommendation is to learn these tools face-to-face with another individual. Mindfulness and hypnosis can both be learned in individual and group settings. Mindfulness can also be learned through online and e-format platforms. In any psychotherapy community there are wonderful practitioners that accept health insurance who are trained in mindfulness, hypnosis, mind-body practices, and other things I did not mention in this post. Two websites to visit are www.psychologytoday.com or your insurance carrier’s website, where you can browse practitioners by insurance, location, and specialty.

The UMass Center for Mindfulness pioneered the original Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program that is now used all over the country. If you visit their website, you can locate MBSR teachers and programs near you, and also browse their online learning options. You can also simply research “MBSR classes” in your community and will likely find multiple avenues to choose from.

Lastly, consider mindfulness apps. Reputable options include InsightTimer, Headspace, and Stop/Breathe/Calm. Apps provide thousands of meditations to choose from and can be handy if you need a break in the middle of the day.

With practice, learning mindfulness, hypnosis, and other tools to enhance our stress regulation ability now will pay dividends down the road in both career and life outside of work. These tools can both provide you with a larger quiver to hold more arrows, and also improve your mood, focus, and sleep at the same time.

More Resources

Creating a Clearing in the Woods

Just Breathe: Mindfulness Apps in a Pressured Time

Finding Your Science Flow: Yoga Lessons to Increase Productivity

Natasha Halasa’s parents emigrated from Jordan to the United States to make sure their children had a better life.  Within one generation, via vaccine and other studies on respiratory illness and acute gastroenteritis in young children, Dr. Halasa is improving the lives of children in both the United States and Jordan.

“Respiratory illness is the number one killer of kids under five worldwide, and diarrhea is number two,” says Halasa, who currently works with a cohort of children under two in Jordan to discover if Vitamin D could be a way of reducing respiratory illness burden in this population.  She also leads the New Vaccine Surveillance Network, a CDC-funded project with national reach that helps define the burdens of respiratory illness and acute gastroenteritis in hospitalized children.  As well, she is PI of several studies investigating the efficacy of high-dose influenza vaccines.

“My dad’s a microbiologist, and he worked in a children’s hospital for over thirty years, so I was exposed to infectious diseases (no pun intended),” she says when asked what drew her to the field.  When she was in grade school, “some of our science projects involved looking at the best mouthwash to eradicate Group A Strep, or the best over-the-counter antiseptic cream to kill staph.”  She likes dividing her time between seeing patients and conducting research, feeling that work in each area helps answer questions in the other.  “It’s also exciting to see…a burden decrease” because of policies introduced based on her research, she notes.  “You can make an impact on individual lives.”

When it comes to writing grants, Halasa values having time and “the amazing resources at Vanderbilt” to prepare.  Before she even came to Nashville, she identified mentor Dr. Kathy Edwards and the two wrote a grant together while Halasa was still a third-year resident.  Working with an experienced grant writer was invaluable, as was receiving formal training via activities like a grant writing class in the MPH program or from writing workshops.  Halasa also looked at many examples of successful grants.  And practice, she says, makes perfect.  “With each grant you write, you learn how to write a grant.”

Even though her not all of her previous grant applications were successful, she says that the practice gained through each and every proposal better prepared her to succeed.  “All the different little components,” such as writing a biosketch and putting a budget together, are vital to a good application and best learned through direct experience.

Also essential is making time to receive feedback from seasoned PIs and edit accordingly, says Halasa, who put together an “informal studio” of readers when she was writing her U01.  And starting even further back, cultivating relationships with people who could provide letters of reference—ER doctors and primary care providers, in Halasa’s case—was also critical to her success.  The take-home?  Do your writing early, and do it often.

With her drive to learn something from every grant she writes, Natasha Halasa will be making an impact on children’s lives for years to come.

Although he didn’t originally envision a career in pediatric oncology, Richard Ho fell in love with it during a rotation in his fourth year of medical school.  The relationships he developed with the patients’ families were too rewarding to give up.  “It’s obviously an intense emotional situation when you have a child that’s diagnosed with cancer,” he says, and “to be able to be involved in the care of those children, with those families, is really a privilege for me.  It’s something I just knew at the time that I was meant to do.”

I was recently asked by a colleague to name a favorite ‘life hack’ for research or academic life.   My first thoughts centered around productivity tips and tricks.  However, the more I reflected, the more I came back to the concept that success isn’t really measured in getting more things done faster.  Rather, success is getting the right things done – period.

Years ago, a trusted colleague and mentor advised me to ‘spend time with smart people … and good things will happen’.  I honestly didn’t get it at the time, but eventually understood that taking time to listen and aggregate information gleaned from spending time with ‘smart people’ would help me define and focus my career goals on ‘important’ problems.