Article written by Weston Ross, a Duke PhD student.
Since entering graduate school four years ago, I've always felt like I'm not constantly working on my research. He had the feeling that he was a bad student.
Like any student working on an engineering doctorate, I've always had the feeling that I could or "should" be working at all times.
I constantly have deadlines hanging over my head and it gets very tedious. I would like to have free time to rest. Ironically, I feel very guilty if I use my free time to relax. I feel disappointed in myself and even less productive than before.
My level of anxiety and stress was much higher than it was before I entered college and it prevented me from getting a good night's sleep. After two and a half years like this, I was tired of being tired, and I decided to seek help.
I found it thanks to reading self-help books as well as through the counseling and psychological services of my university.
In addition to counseling, I was offered a long semester practicing a program called Koru, focused on mindfulness, and a meditation seminar. This was my first introduction to meditation and since then I have embraced it as (almost) a daily practice to help manage stress and anxiety about my chronic ead.
I now use CalmCircleCollege as a daily guide for my practice. I usually listen to a session right after lunch. This seems to be the time of day that I feel most concerned about everything I need to do for the rest of the afternoon.
Doing these sessions calms me down and leaves my mind productive to continue working throughout the afternoon. The better I feel, the more productive I can be afterward.
My life and my night's rest have changed remarkably since I started meditating, and I am looking forward to continuing as well as convincing other students to join this practice because I believe it can have a positive impact on their lives.
Wes is a fourth-year Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. student at Duke University. His research focuses on the use of robotics in neurosurgery for tumor removal. He has participated in two series of the Koru Mindfulness Seminar and has been using CalmCircleCollege to meditate since March. Source