Studying with Chronic Fatigue: Lessons learned in my first year
About me
Karen Gordon-Tamang is 32 years old and a first-year PGR in the School of Education. Her PhD is in psychology, with a focus on cross-cultural differences in stress expression. She can be found on Twitter @gordontamang.
I moved up to Glasgow at the end of May this year with my wife Reshika and cat Lilith - although we expanded our family quickly and got a little kitten named Shrimp over the summer! I thought having a few months before starting in October would help me be ready to jump right in – oh, how wrong I was! I knew going back into full-time study would be tricky whilst also managing my physical and mental health, but nothing could have prepared me for everything starting up in October. For context, I have Fibromyalgia and Sjogren’s syndrome. They are “invisible” disabilities and the main symptoms I have are chronic fatigue and widespread pain. They are also triggered by stress – so it wasn’t a huge shock that they became trickier to manage when starting as a PGR.
So, with the end of semester one on the horizon, these are the pitfalls, tips, and tricks I have discovered.
Pitfalls
I was so excited for induction week: really stoked to start, meet people, find out more about the services on offer, and generally just get stuck right in. I had prepared for this, I had my planner, my diary, my laptop folders organised, my reference manager found/chosen/downloaded and now tentatively in use. What could go wrong?
Well. For anyone managing chronic fatigue or stress triggered health conditions, there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing”. I attended EVERYTHING in that first induction week. I was just so excited and didn’t want to miss anything.
The downside? By the first weekend I was a burned out loaf of bread reaching for the blanket and ice cream. And as much as I joke, coming back from burnout takes time. It takes days to weeks of recovery, lots of sleep and good food (not just ice-cream). So very quickly I was able to see that, as excited as I was, the word of the semester had to be pacing. Pace yourself, Karen.
Did I learn this immediately? No. Have I been burned out multiple times? Yes. But I do think I’m slowly starting to get better at walking the health/study tightrope, and I’d love to share my advice.
Tips
Pace yourself! Attending/doing everything sounds great, but if you don’t have the energy to complete your priority tasks for the week or are getting burned out, then it’s too much! Go back to basics. What is the main priority? Plan that in, do it for a week. Okay: now what can I add? If nothing additional is manageable yet, keep getting into the rhythm for a bit longer. I’ve found that small steps like this have given me a much stronger foundation to build things up from, and made it simpler to strip things back when I have health flare ups.
Setting a regular routine really has helped me. I go through diaries, notebooks, post-its, and to-do lists like no one’s business. Having everything out of my head and down on paper helps me understand what is a priority, what time-frames I have and also where I can take breaks within a working day.
Time-blocking. I’m a pretty visual learner so a simple word document with colour coded chunks is great for me. I set myself a time to start and finish every day and have started including (and sticking to!) a lunch break with a little exercise in there too.
Remember that everything is flexible. You can do your best, but your best is different on every day. If you don’t stick to your timetable, that’s fine. It has to work for you on all of your days, not just your “best” ones.
Please, please, please: step away from the laptop. I know, planning in an actual lunch break when you feel like you are drowning in work sounds like the worst idea, but it really isn’t. Go outside, move your body in a way that feels good for you, and get some light. We are basically houseplants with complicated emotions: we need to drink water and we need sunlight. Every single time I do this I come back to my desk and the time away has helped.
Do other things. The time that is not spent in study-mode is your own – not to worry about what you have yet to do. The cats still need to be played with, great food still needs to be eaten and your friends do still want to catch up with you. Even if it is on FaceTime and even if you are so tired you aren’t making too much sense.
Use your annual leave! Having a long weekend/4-day work week is motivating when you know it’s a slightly shorter week to look forward to.
Do the boring stuff. Register with your G.P, go to dentist check-ups, find a pharmacy you like.
Speak to your supervisors if you’re struggling. Yes, it’s a bit intimidating. But they are also other humans that go through all/many of these same things too. And they really want you to succeed. That’s a pretty great starting point.
Find a trash TV show. My own personal favourite. You don’t need to tell anyone about it. But when you don’t want to think anymore, Selling Sunset really is Oscar-worthy.
These are things I've found that work for me so far. Some of them won’t be relevant to you, but hopefully some of them will. And I’m sure I’ll keep adding to the list next semester!
Shrimp and Lilith making a den in a cardboard box.
