12/06/2018
My partner, Sam Nicholls, has just completed his PhD Viva, taking ~4.5 hours. He monitored his heart rate and plotted it, seems quite a traumatic event. However the Viva was a success!
I am writing this blog post to acknowledge the stress that PhD students experience and what we, their partners, witness. Whilst I am not a PhD student, mental health awareness is important. Please note: speaking to PhD students, this post is not in any way trying to say that you are annoying/grumpy/sad people - you are allowed to feel however you feel.
From my perspective, it seems both the Viva itself and writing-up a thesis are stressful. But many people don't discuss that stress. Myself, being the role of the partner, watched the write-up, saw the ups and downs, and generally first-handedly observed the emotional impacts.
Sam's field is in Bioinformatics and I kept track of the funniest things said, and emotion levels during his 3rd and 4th year. I observed that his emotions vary frequently, even in times he seemed happy or grumpy, he was often saying things that would imply the opposite: screaming how "Bioinformatics is shit" seems like an angry thing to say yet he was laughing and seemed joyful.
Writing up a PhD thesis seems demanding, you need to set deadlines for chapters. Some students work best by making schedules, however breaks in writing was difficult for Sam, it was hard to drop concentration and then try to resume. The stress of writing seemed to change him: Sam didn't seem himself, he would wake up to write until late hours. When he did sleep, Sam started to sleep talk more: "the sequences", "bad men at the bank", and "it's real science".
To help him get out of the house, I would persuade a change of scenary: working in the department, staying at home, or going to the library. Weather was a factor in Sam's mood: raining meant that he would get soaked if he went to campus (also rain reminded him of his bees and pondered if they were doing well).
I also tried to get Sam to do something different in the evenings, he found some fun in videogames and mead. Sam stopped eating breakfast and lunch, so I would make sure every morning he left the house with something to eat, most of the time it was a chicken coronation sandwich from our local garage, other time it would be a small breakfast bar. One thing that didn't change was that Sam ate dinner with me every evening - I appreciated that he would make sure to take 30 minutes out of writing to spend some time with me. I would try my best to get a chuckle out of Sam, saying "write, win!" or terrible puns.
"do you like puns, or do you just hate mine?"
Sam handed in the thesis, wore a great tie, and had a successful Viva. Since the Viva he has some energy back! He even went to a job interview!
heart rate during the Viva emotions throughout the PhD and write-up
evening entertainment bees are great
handing in the thesis Viva day