Thursday, June 9, 2022

Panel on mental health

 In the School of Mathematics and Physics at UQ there is an Early- and Mid-Career Academic group who organise activities to support one another. Today they organised a panel discussion on "Mental Health, Wellness and Resilience".

I commend them for their initiative. Before covid, they organised a single forum which I spoke at and thought was particularly good.

I am one of the panelists. As someone who has struggled with mental health for four decades now, here are a three of the points I want to make.

Practise the basics: eat and drink healthy, sleep, rest, exercise, control screen time, and connect to community.

Get professional help, sooner than later. Be open to medication, counselling, and expertise. 

Live according to your own personal values, rather than those that your boss or university management may want you to have.

One of my fellow panelists, Marissa Edwards, brought to our attention this recent article in The Conversation, Where has the joy of working in Australian universities gone? It is pretty disturbing, but unfortunately not surprising.

1 comment:

  1. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01512-6

    Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?
    A wave of departures, many of them by mid-career scientists, calls attention to widespread discontent in universities.

    ReplyDelete

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