PhD Discussion Forum

======= Date Modified 17 Nov 2012 21:45:59 =======
Maisie, I'm no physical scientist so I can't put myself in your shoes. I can imagine how frustrating it is though when you seem to be going in circles, or even just stopped for a bit. And it would make me anxious if I couldn't see beyond this or envison when things might work or start up again.

All in all, it sounds like a pretty tough deal. However, I'm wondering about whether having a short spell away from things might be a good idea. Another poster mentioned a holiday and you answered that you got away periodically on PhD related stuff-conferences, etc.

I go to conferences (like most PhD students) and while I really like them and enjoy the change of scenery, I don't really find that they are holidays or real breaks. On a conference, you are being stimulated, you are getting ideas, you are learning (well hopefully you are) and even when you are socialising at lunches, dinners, or what have you, it is a form of academic socialising. It really isn't the same as a holiday or real break. Just wondering whether a real break of a few days might help. It could just give you the mental space to either:

Move emotionally out of your current state of frustration and worry about the wretched cells (and what they are doing or what they are not doing!
Give you a breather, so that you are relaxed enough to start thinking or seeing things in a fresh light-worry and frustration do not actually enhance creative thinking.
Or even just give the 'cells' some time on their own-who knows maybe they will do whatever you are hoping they will do (last bit is pretty fatuous comment I know-but hopefully you get the gist).

Hope it goes well-ignore holiday advice if you really don't think it will help, but sometimes a little bit of real 'time out' can be remarkably helpful.
(I've just had to add the usual edits to my post again sigh-the more I go into this PhD and work overload, the worse my writing seems to become :-()

Hi Maisy, Chin up, it’s not all bad, all in all its easy, it’s a very nice way to spend a few years, long hours yes, but the flexibility to those hours is something you may well miss when it’s time to do a real job and it’s not all about results, papers, etc. In the end chances are only half a dozen people will ever read you thesis, it’s really about learning a set of skills that the vast majority of people on Earth do not even know exist. You get to work on thinks no one else has ever looked at, hence the no results part (we have all been there) and after all in the end it is the highest qualification in the land and should one day lead you to fame and fortune, or at least fortune, plus you get to call yourself Doctor at the end, enjoy and keep smiling,

had the same problem when i did my phd. 3 years and no results.
one day, for no apparent reason, i had an epiphany on how everything could be solved.
i designed the framework, model, implementation and did the experimentation in one shot.
managed to get it all done in 3 1/2 years.
for me it was a miracle.
i knew then that it was divine intervention. :)
don't lose hope. miracles do happen. maybe not like the ones in hollywood, but they do happen.

Read your post. I don't have any constructive thing to say (cells are not really my area!), but could you take a day off? Exercise? It did me good last time when I was sooo stress. I went outside for a run and those endorphines started to kick in!