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“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.

Meira Epplein, PhD, came to epidemiology by a more scenic route than most. She has always been fascinated by China, from Chinese art to culture and modern history. After getting an MA in Chinese Studies, she began working for an Asian research think tank, studying military, political, and security issues surrounding China. Because she frequently went to China’s big cities for work, she also took her vacations there, in the countryside.

“China’s a fascinating country,” she says, “because it’s part developed and part developing. There’s a big divide between city and country. When I was there, it was very easy to see that the people in the countryside could use some very basic improvements and their lives would be so much better.”

To make an impact on the lives of people in rural areas, Dr. Epplein decided to get into public health. She discovered it wasn’t that simple. “I tried to get a job, and no one would give me a job. They said, you have no background in science, you have to go back to school. I already had a master’s degree, I didn’t want to go back to school!”

But go back she did, receiving an MS and a PhD from the University of Washington. Along the way, she took a job as an administrative coordinator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where she worked for cancer epidemiologist John Potter. She organized a conference on Helicobacter pylori in 2002 and became fascinated by the bug.

H. pylori is a bacteria that lives in the stomachs of about half the world’s population. While “we used to think nothing could live in this highly acidic environment, it turns out there’s evidence H. pylori has lived in the stomachs of humans for over 50,000 years.” It is the great causative agent of gastric cancer, one of the most fatal types of cancer, but the curious thing is that not everyone who has it develops the disease. For Epplein, the goal is to understand more about this bug and its relationship with cancer and with humans, particularly in Asia, where there is a high incidence of gastric cancer. “What’s become exciting is trying to understand, maybe from the bug’s point of view, is that it also does good things. It wouldn’t have lasted all this time and become very genetically heterogeneous to survive in all these different stomachs unless there were some good things it did for the host, and vice versa.”

For example, just to live in the stomach, the bacteria must be able to moderate levels of acid. People who harbor H. pylori thus have less likelihood of gastro-esophageal reflux disease. They are also more protected from esophageal adenocarcinoma. Presence of the bug may also be protective for conditions like obesity, allergies, and asthma.

Because not all people who harbor H. pylori develop gastric cancer, there must be cofactors involved, such as different strains of bacteria, bacterial load, and/or—Epplein’s key interest due to her study of Chinese culture—dietary factors. A high intake of salt, for instance, irritates the lining of the stomach and makes it easier for the bacteria to colonize, leading to a higher risk of cancer. “If you change the cofactors so that you can live with your bug, and it does the good things” without causing cancer (which creates an environment terminal to H. pylori as well), then that’s a win for humans and bacteria alike.

Because of her passion for H. pylori and the people it affects, Epplein’s R01 application practically wrote itself. She started in the first year of her K07, “which was too early,” she says, “but I was so excited about the preliminary data, and so excited about the reactions I was getting [to the idea of pinpointing a novel biomarker for gastric cancer risk in China]. I think that when you write with excitement, your readers read with excitement, and everything goes better.”

One of her touchstones during the writing process was Writing the NIH Grant Proposal: A Step-by-Step Guide by William Gerin et al. Although aimed at basic scientists, she found the strategy tips such as using white space, bullet points, and underlining to emphasize key points about impact valuable.

With her award from the National Cancer Institute, Epplein is now searching for a way to identify the population at highest risk of gastric cancer because of the sub-type of H. pylori they have, and then screen them, making it possible to prevent cancer by eradicating the bacteria. “That’s the cool thing about public health,” she says. With the anthropology PhD she originally contemplated, “you try to be an observer—you don’t want to affect their culture—whereas with public health, you do. You want to get in there and change something to make people’s lives better.”

When you read the word “meditation,” what image first comes to mind?

A New Yorker Magazine cartoon once depicted two monks in robes, one young, one old, sitting side-by-side, cross-legged in the lotus position on the floor. The younger monk is looking somewhat quizzically at the older one, who is turned toward him saying, “Nothing happens next. This is it!”

The truth about meditation (and the formal practice of mindfulness) is that actually EVERYTHING happens next.  Mindfulness teacher and MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) founder Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “Mindfulness is a practice of letting go and letting be, of waking up to our truest self, our innate nature.”

And most people don’t get this point right away.  Waking up to what?

If asked what is the shortest distance between two points, one might respond, predictably, with “a straight line.”  The practice of mindfulness is somewhat like this.  It is transitioning from the discursive, meaning-making, chattering mind at Point A to the gentle, quiet, and present-moment observant mind at Point B.  And it is also arriving at Point B with one’s collective sanity intact without leaving a mess behind. Now that’s waking up!

For me, mindfulness practice, which includes the formal practice of meditation and movement (tai chi, qigong, yoga) is really a love affair with what is: What is beautiful, what is unknown, what is possible, what is here now, what is true.  And as Jon Kabat-Zinn explains in his seminal text Wherever You Go, There You Are, EVERYTHING is already here, at the same time, everywhere, because “here” can be anywhere at all.

There are some common myths about meditation that deserve some clarification and understanding.  Myths like meditation helps STOP the thinking mind.  Try this: For the next 60 seconds, close your eyes and do NOT think about anything. NO THOUGHTS!

How did you do?

Meditation is NOT about stopping our thoughts or eliminating them completely.  Meditation is about learning to recognize thoughts as they arise, and at the same time, not be fixated on them or allow them to hijack our attention and exhaust our energy.  Author Anne Lamont writes, “The mind is a dangerous place. Don’t go in there alone.” The practice of meditation is always escorted by the breath and armed with the intention of “letting go and beginning again” at any moment, so you are never alone.

Another common myth about meditation is that it is an “ism” in disguise, e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.  The truth is, meditation is neither a religion or a dogma, but rather a practice of bringing kind awareness to the present moment and at the same time increasing the gray matter in the brain’s frontal lobe responsible for activating the body’s “relaxation response” to stress-producing (fight, flight, freeze) events.

My favorite definition of mindfulness comes from Dr. Ellen Langer at Harvard University, sometimes referred to as the “Mother” of Mindfulness.  She says mindfulness is “the simple act of actively noticing things.”

So before arriving at Point B today, try noticing something new.

Elmo Shade is the Founder / Principle of Mindful Foundations, Inc, a holistic business intervention committed to improving personal health, performance, leadership effectiveness, and well-being through a combination of mindfulness-based and emotional intelligence practices.  He currently facilitates Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Workshops at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN; serves as an Executive & Leadership Coach for the Owen Graduate School at Vanderbilt MBA Program, and practices Mindful Leadership and Coaching as a Consultant.  Contactelmo@mindfulfoundations.com.

www.mindfulfoundations.com
www.halemindandbody.com

A few weeks back, my mentor had us watch Amy Schumer’s parody video about women at the top of their respective fields continuously saying, “I’m sorry,” and then we talked about why it’s just not what you want or need to say.

Well, yesterday morning I had my chances to prove that I took that advice to heart – and I blew it. I had a 9:00 meeting – which on a typical day is doable: wake up, let dogs out, eat, get a shower (hopefully while baby is still sleeping), feed baby, wash baby, dress baby, throw food at dogs, pack car, drive baby to daycare, go to work. But of course, the night before was a marathon of my husband and I trading off sleeping in the rocking chair holding baby at the perfect angle because she’s having coughing fits and waking herself up. And now it’s the morning and because I actually had a time I needed to be at work, baby is awake and still coughing like a champ with super rosy cheeks (she’s definitely not feeling well). I call my mentor to make sure the meeting is still on and she says, “Yep.” – and instead of just saying. “I don’t think I can make it, the baby is really not feeling well,” I chicken out and say, “OK, just checking. See you soon.” Meanwhile dog 1 decides to check out the entire neighborhood (because his giant yard isn’t enough) and gets caught in a live animal trap. So, after a good 45 minute search, I find and release said dog from trap (baby and dog 2 in tow) and take everyone home safely. But now there’s no time to take baby to daycare and make the meeting on time. So plans change – baby’s coming to meeting with me, there’s nothing else I can do, I put myself in this position.

I text my mentor from the parking garage to say I’m running a little late – maybe 5 or 10 minutes max and start the trek across campus looking like a Sherpa with computer bag, baby bag, stroller, etc… and the whole time I’m thinking to myself, don’t worry, everyone will understand and most importantly, DO NOT apologize. But what do I do the minute I push the stroller through the door? I blurt out, “I’m so sorry about this!” (Really?!?!? Did I just say that out loud?) And what does my mentor say? “Don’t apologize, life happens…” Why can I not get this through my thick skull? So now I’m in the meeting, trying to listen, while silently chastising myself for doing just what I had planned not to do and just what my mentor wants me to stop doing. Sometime into the meeting (because why not), baby projectile vomits everywhere – and what do I do? Yep, I apologize – AGAIN!!! Meeting ends and I take baby home because now on top of everything else, I feel like the worst mom on the planet.

Today baby is still not feeling well, so I’ve decided to stay home with her as opposed to subjecting other kids at daycare to her grossness, or her to theirs. Since she didn’t sleep well again last night, she’s napping now and I’m using this time to reflect on what happened yesterday. I really, really, really didn’t NEED to be at that meeting. My mentor and the others that where there (in full capacity – as opposed to somewhere in insane person land, like myself) wouldn’t have been mad, upset or disappointed in me for doing what I needed to do – be a mom. And while I definitely didn’t have to apologize to them, I should be apologizing to myself and my family for not recognizing that fact before it was too late and I blurted it out not once, but twice in less than an hour… It seems like such a simple thing to do – just stop saying two little words but I sure am finding it difficult, even when I’m actively thinking about it.

Being a principal investigator with tons of grant funding is awesome.  But what if it’s not quite for you?  Chronicle Vitae recently ran an interview with Dr. Chris Pickett, a science policy analyst at the American Society for Biomechmistry and Molecular Biology who analyzes how public policy affects scientists, from funding to training to regularory burden.  He talks about how he got into his current field, the skills and background needed (including why experience doing science is invaluable), and what he’s doing today.

Excerpt:

What kind of experience is needed to do the job you have now?

If you’re coming from the lab bench, you need to have good communication skills. You need to be comfortable relating what you know to a variety of audiences. Typically, the work you’ll do in policy has very little to do with your specific research area. In addition to communication skills, critical thinking skills — and the tenacity that you learn in the lab to pursue lines of investigation to their logical conclusion — are also necessary in policy.

Aside from that, you don’t need anything specific, policywise, to get into science policy. What you need to have is a passion for policy, and a commitment to a policy career path.

When I was applying for positions, a lot of places would ask: “What do you plan to do after the fellowship?” And I would say, “I don’t know. I really like policy, but who knows?” And I never got any callbacks. It wasn’t until I started saying, “I’m interested in policy, and I’m going to have a career in policy, I’m committed to it. I would love to have the opportunity to have a fellowship with you to start it off right, but either way I will have a career in policy,” that I was successful. So I think you need to be clearly committed and passionate about what you are doing.

Read more

To help you think about what you want to do with your PhD, check out myIDP.  It offers skills, interests, and values assessments to help you decide on careers that would be a good fit, then allows you to read up on them and gives you interactive tools to help you reach career goals you set.