Stress of thesis writing

[Hope.for.the.best]

Hi all, 

If you read my other posts, you would have known that I am in my final months of PhD and stressed about finishing. It is not great when I also need to convince my supervisors to just focus on writing and not to do more experiments for a manuscript along with writing. I know it is normal to stress out at this stage, but somehow I feel that I am abnormally stressed out. For some reason I feel that I will not be able to finish writing and my writing will never be good enough for submission (Imposter syndrome?). I always have a feeling that I am trapped and it gets to the point that everyday life situations can be triggers, e.g. 

(1) The city where I live in is breezy from time to time and I should be very used to that after living for 8 years. But since last year, I started to be scared of strong wind. My whole body tenses up and it feels like I cannot move. It is challenging for me to walk back to lab from my college. I can make it, but the 10 min walk becomes 20 min on windy days. I can relate this to something unpleasant last year. My dearest co-supervisor had me to help her out with the last bit of work for one of her projects. The collaborators were procrastinating until the last min and I had to rush through a big experiment within a week. I was panicking the whole time because of the large amount of work and those 7 days were very windy. My co-supervisor did apologise to me afterwards, but the whole experience was traumatic and I got into panic mode whenever the wind strikes  I feel that the wind can trap me, even though untrue! 

(2) I am uneasy with using the bathroom in the office. The bathroom has been there since I started my PhD and I am very used to it. Nothing has changed but I have that being trapped feeling when using the bathroom. Thankfully I don't need to be in the office most of the times as I am writing now. 

(3) The traffic is crazy in my city due to construction work. It would not affect me shopping around in the past, but now I don't feel comfortable with spending time on traffic and I will only go to a grocery stall within walking distances to do my shopping. My progress of writing is not that bad actually, but I feel guilty if I leave my thesis for too long.  

According to other PhD students, during the write-up stage they were struggling with (1) sleeping, (2) reduced immunity (catch a cold very often) and (3) panic-attack like symptoms when meeting supervisors. I got (3) too when I need to meet my co-supervisor, but not other supervisors though. None of them experienced the feeling of being trapped. I consulted professionals and they reassure me that I am just too stressed out with PhD and I am okay. But somehow I am doubting because I have never got these symptoms when I was stressed out. 

If you don't mind, could you share what stress symptoms did you experience when you wrote your thesis? What would be your advice to get through this critical stage? I heard that life will get back to normal after PhD. Is that true? I am worried that I will still be like that after finishing. Mental illnesses somehow run in my family  

Thanks.

Hope.for.the.best

[hats]

Can you get temporary disability accommodations for the weather: a parking space on campus, or disability transportation? Last year I was experiencing symptoms that made it a bit risky and somewhat difficult—nowhere near "impossible," just hard—for me to walk to campus...BUT ONLY if it was less than XX degrees outside. Our university has a rock-star shuttle system so I was able to get rides to campus if I gave them 12 hours notice, without any formal medical paperwork, so I regularly checked the weather and took five classes instead of dropping down to four or three. I am sure you can suffer through keeping walking; I could've kept walking too. But even if you can...if you'd buy a hot pack to help you with shoulder cramps that were distracting you from your work, why not see if you can do something to alleviate this mental pain that sometimes distracts you from your work, a bit? Many universities' movement-related disability services are, I think, not half so good as mine, so this may not be possible for you, but why not find out what your options are? Could you afford being able to take a taxi/Lyft/Uber home every third day it's windy, just to give yourself a bit of a respite from this? Do you have any friends with cars you could have you give the occasional ride home, maybe in return for a similar favor later? I totally get that the windy thing is a symptom of the stress, not the cause. On the other hand, I believe that when you are going through something this stressful, it's important to be nice to yourself to try to alleviate the symptoms.

The way you talk about the groceries sounds like it's difficult to cope with, too. I don't actually know where I got this idea, but I must've seen some study about how taking breaks recharges your mental energy. I've now gotten pretty good about being able to put aside research for 20 minutes at a time. I'm definitely not going to suggest that you go to a farther grocery store—but I think it might help you if you can re-frame the time in which you go get groceries as a productive thing to do for your work, as well as just generally a healthy thing for your life. People have new insights, large and small, when they take breaks and think about other things. I wonder if trying to apply that narrative to any breaks you have to take would help? Nobody can work 24/7/365—even besides sleeping, I think there's something in our minds that makes it physically impossible to sustain attention on exactly one thing for more than a certain number of hours. So, as an experiment, maybe you could tell yourself that the groceries are going to provide that reset.

If you can find the time and energy, counseling would probably be a really good idea for you right now. I'm sure finding time to go will be hard, but I think it would help—I've heard that counseling often works especially well for discrete challenges, like finishing your thesis—you could learn/practice coping mechanisms for this stress. (I don't know if I heard that anywhere authoritative.) It may feel like you don't have enough time to do that, but especially for somebody in a family with a lot of mental health challenges, it might prove a valuable investment in your long-term well-being.

[Hope.for.the.best]

39 minutes ago, hats said:

Can you get temporary disability accommodations for the weather: a parking space on campus, or disability transportation? Last year I was experiencing symptoms that made it a bit risky and somewhat difficult—nowhere near "impossible," just hard—for me to walk to campus...BUT ONLY if it was less than XX degrees outside. Our university has a rock-star shuttle system so I was able to get rides to campus if I gave them 12 hours notice, without any formal medical paperwork, so I regularly checked the weather and took five classes instead of dropping down to four or three. I am sure you can suffer through keeping walking; I could've kept walking too. But even if you can...if you'd buy a hot pack to help you with shoulder cramps that were distracting you from your work, why not see if you can do something to alleviate this mental pain that sometimes distracts you from your work, a bit? Many universities' movement-related disability services are, I think, not half so good as mine, so this may not be possible for you, but why not find out what your options are? Could you afford being able to take a taxi/Lyft/Uber home every third day it's windy, just to give yourself a bit of a respite from this? Do you have any friends with cars you could have you give the occasional ride home, maybe in return for a similar favor later? I totally get that the windy thing is a symptom of the stress, not the cause. On the other hand, I believe that when you are going through something this stressful, it's important to be nice to yourself to try to alleviate the symptoms.

The way you talk about the groceries sounds like it's difficult to cope with, too. I don't actually know where I got this idea, but I must've seen some study about how taking breaks recharges your mental energy. I've now gotten pretty good about being able to put aside research for 20 minutes at a time. I'm definitely not going to suggest that you go to a farther grocery store—but I think it might help you if you can re-frame the time in which you go get groceries as a productive thing to do for your work, as well as just generally a healthy thing for your life. People have new insights, large and small, when they take breaks and think about other things. I wonder if trying to apply that narrative to any breaks you have to take would help? Nobody can work 24/7/365—even besides sleeping, I think there's something in our minds that makes it physically impossible to sustain attention on exactly one thing for more than a certain number of hours. So, as an experiment, maybe you could tell yourself that the groceries are going to provide that reset.

If you can find the time and energy, counseling would probably be a really good idea for you right now. I'm sure finding time to go will be hard, but I think it would help—I've heard that counseling often works especially well for discrete challenges, like finishing your thesis—you could learn/practice coping mechanisms for this stress. (I don't know if I heard that anywhere authoritative.) It may feel like you don't have enough time to do that, but especially for somebody in a family with a lot of mental health challenges, it might prove a valuable investment in your long-term well-being.

Thanks hats for your reply. I am glad that you did not find my symptom weird. To give you a bit of background, I am a domestic student for my country, but my family are all overseas, so I am like an international student fighting on my own. I see a clinical psychologist regularly overseas. She is a PhD graduate herself and she can totally understand and help with my stress. The bad thing is she only takes face-to-face appointments and she does not do any video counselling. Unfortunately I am in the middle of my writing and I cannot go overseas to follow up with her. I am having a difficult time to find a suitable counsellor in my country. I heard that the counselling centre in my uni is crappy and indeed it is! They offer a lot of help and support to undergraduate students but hardly any for postgraduate students. I have to walk in and book an appointment on spot to see a counsellor. There are so many students and I am not offered any appointments even after many trials, so I have to give up. It is impossible for me to spend that much time to wait for a counsellor to see me! I ended up talking to a counsellor from a national helpline and she had a hard time understanding why wind was scary to me. She figured out that it might be the PhD stress after hours of talking.

Unfortunately my uni shuttle buses only operate afterhours, say after 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. to next day. I am not going to my lab/office during these hours obviously. I don't drive, but even if I get someone to drive me, there is still a reasonable distance from the carpark and my building. The carpark is not located at the basement of my building. So I still have to cope with the wind! I thought about catching a bus to replace that 10 min walk, but all bus stops around the campus have been relocated for the construction work. If I get a taxi or uber to drive me up to my building, it only takes a min or two and I don't think any drivers are happy to give me a lift for such a short distance. I don't mean to sound negative and turn down everything, but things are all working against me now  

I agree with the mental recharge thing, so I am scheduling reasonable breaks between writing. To me, the most helpful thing is to get my thesis out of the way! 

[hats]

There may be more options for counseling than just at your university—do you have health insurance? Does your location have any free or sliding-scale providers or options? Can you enlist a friend who really does know your location to do some research about this for you? Or, could your psychologist at home make an exception and do like three sessions with you by video as a tune-up, since it's going to be a short-term commitment? Or can she recommend any other professionals from your country that you could afford and who do do video sessions? (Also, that was a bad hotline response—did you maybe call one that has a more specific focus, like the domestic abuse hotline, where the responders might not be broadly trained outside that core issue? I find it hard to imagine a properly trained person on, say, general anxiety would say any such thing. I know people have horror stories about professionals with all the credentials, but that comment is just so egregious for even somebody with only, like, a "three articles on Buzzfeed" level of understanding of anxiety. It doesn't always manifest on "rational" issues!)

I am recovering from surgery right now! I literally live, like you, exactly twenty minutes away from where I need to get in the mornings! It's about a five minute drive. Now, I am in a major metropolitan area, but I use one of the apps where I put in my destination before I hit "go" to call the ride—and it's never taken me more than five minutes to get that ride. I don't do it every day any more, but I never had any problems. I do make sure to always tip a dollar on the $6.50-8 fare, but I've never said anything about a tip in advance. Nor has any driver ever complained to me about my destination. I know that's not obvious, but at least in many locations the short rides aren't an issue any more. I do remember having that problem with cabs a while ago, especially this one time I broke my nose and got out of the hospital at 3 a.m.—most of the cabs wouldn't drive me fifteen minutes' walk home. But that was before Uber—I haven't had a problem like that in ages. (For what it's worth, there seem to be plenty of cab/app drivers where I regularly go to school—and it's less than a fifteen minute drive from end to end of the area where undergrads live, so the whole fleet of drivers who come out to ferry people to parties must know that a ton of their rides are going to be like five minutes long.)

You'll get there!

[Hope.for.the.best]

My mum has called the centre where my psychologist works. The receptionist confirms that she does not do any other forms of counselling except face-to-face. Unfortunately she doesn't have her private clinic elsewhere, so there is no way I can contact her privately and request short-term sessions. She didn't do her PhD in my country, so she cannot recommend anyone for me, other than asking me to try the counselling at school. My family is asking around now, but still hasn't found anyone yet. I am from a culture where mental health problems are taboo, so it is difficult for me to ask my friends openly. Also, my friends are all living happily and I don't seem to find anyone having mental health problems (I might be wrong). It looks like I am the one who has the most encounter with a psychologist.

The helpline is for teens up to 25. I am actually fooling them by saying that I am still 25. I don't mean to lie, but no other helplines in my country will offer a regular phone counselling like this one free of charge. I would not say the counsellor I got from the helpline is untrained, but obviously she is not as experienced as my regular psychologist. Nevertheless, I appreciate that she is very patient and willing to spend an hour to explore why I am scared of the wind, though it would be great if she could offer me some possible solutions. It is still better to have her handy, but she is currently on holiday! I think for my situation, it really makes a difference to have someone who has ever done a PhD. People who have never done it know it is hard and difficult, but have no idea how hard and difficult exactly. At least my psychologist could say things like, "Unavoidably you need to revise your thesis for many times, but remember that your final thesis will be a great one."  

I will try to see if Uber is happy to drive me to the lab if I am struggling next time. I really wish my life will resume to normal soon. In the past, I could walk up to my lab without a second thought. 

Thanks and get well soon. 

Edited August 4, 2017 by Hope.for.the.best

[fuzzylogician]

6 hours ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

Also, my friends are all living happily and I don't seem to find anyone having mental health problems (I might be wrong). It looks like I am the one who has the most encounter with a psychologist.

Mental health problems are very common among academics but also stigmatized. Just be cause you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. Don't assume that you're the only one who is encountering difficulty, that's incredibly unlikely. More likely, each person thinks they're the only one and they're ashamed and deal with it alone. 

Agreed with others that you should seek (continue to seek) mental health professionals to help you with this, what you are describing doesn't sound healthy. 

Also important: try to keep to a schedule so as not to over-work, take breaks, eat well and exercise. Recognize that there *will* be bad days, we all have them. On those days, instead of beating yourself up for not doing better and wasting time trying to work unsuccessfully, try giving yourself permission to take a break (but a real one, where you don't worry about work). It's important to recharge and these times off will end up saving you time in the long run. 

6 hours ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

At least my psychologist could say things like, "Unavoidably you need to revise your thesis for many times, but remember that your final thesis will be a great one."  

A good dissertation is a done dissertation. Seriously, this is so important.

No dissertation is perfect. It'll have mistakes, and typos, and convoluted writing -- they all(!) do. You don't need to get it to be great, just to be good enough to defend and move on. That is an attainable bar. 

 

What you're experiencing is common, but sounds like on the extreme side of that. Lots of students run up against a wall at some point in the writing process. They develop anxiety, they have a hard time showing others unfinished work and get stuck, they overwork and don't take care of themselves. It's good that you're aware that there is a problem and you're trying to fix it. 

[Hope.for.the.best]

9 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

What you're experiencing is common, but sounds like on the extreme side of that. Lots of students run up against a wall at some point in the writing process. They develop anxiety, they have a hard time showing others unfinished work and get stuck, they overwork and don't take care of themselves. It's good that you're aware that there is a problem and you're trying to fix it. 

Thanks for shedding some light on me again, fuzzylogician! I searched on the web that mental health problems indeed are common in academia and there are published studies to support that. As you said, people are often hiding their problems due to the stigma and maybe that's why I didn't get much info from talking to other fellow PhD students. So I asked here and see. Probably people are more comfortable to open up if they can remain anonymous. 

One of my PhD friends who finished last year asked whether I slept well and caught a cold often. He said he's struggling with these but I am not.

There is another PhD student who also finished last year - the one who got panic attack like symptoms when meeting supervisors because of inadequacy in writing. I also observed some other symptoms, like she jumped up whenever anyone called her (she is not like that normally) and she also caught a cold very often. I remember there were days when she was coughing like crazy. That's when MERS was around and I was suspecting that she caught it. She is a very nice and friendly person and I talk to her a lot, but very nosy! If I tell her that I am struggling with the stuff I wrote here, everyone in the office will know the next day. Insomnia and catching a cold often are very "normal" stress symptoms. Even if these go around in the office, nobody will think less of them. However, if I share with people that I struggle to come in on windy days etc., they probably react like the counsellor from the helpline. The last thing I wish is to have everyone giving me a strange look when I walk into the office/lab. Can you see my loneliness here? 

The rubrics to diagnose mental illnesses are based on how bad one's life and functioning are affected by stress. There are a lot of emphasis on sleep and diet etc. I don't have problems with sleep and diet, so I am not considered having a mental illness. But I don't think I am mentally healthy either. The two PhD students really got back to normal after finishing, so let's hope that I will be too.   

Edited August 5, 2017 by Hope.for.the.best

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

The rubrics to diagnose mental illnesses are based on how bad one's life and functioning are affected by stress. There are a lot of emphasis on sleep and diet etc. I don't have problems with sleep and diet, so I am not considered having a mental illness. But I don't think I am mentally healthy either. The two PhD students really got back to normal after finishing, so let's hope that I will be too.   

What you're describing certainly doesn't sound healthy. I don't think the label of a mental illness is important here. What's important is finding ways of dealing with the situation and getting better. I'm not suggesting that you share the details of your feelings with colleagues, unless they are close friends who you trust. I do think you could say that you're stressed out because of dissertation writing, without explaining anything further. Everyone should understand that, and maybe you'll learn that other people are stressed too. I hope that sharing here is helping too, because -- again, you are not alone in feeling this way.

Having difficulty writing and experiencing impostor syndrome in the context of putting together this large project like a dissertation is also not unusual. I am experiencing it with my own students now. I don't know your advisors and can't make you any promises, but often it's worse if you hold off on writing or showing your advisors anything until it's perfect than if you start showing them something incomplete and get help improving it. If I were your advisor I'd tell you that I'm not expecting perfection on the first try (or of the final product, for that matter), and I'd be in a much better position to help you if I could see a concrete document in front of me that we could discuss, so I can help you iron out quirks in the writing and structure*. For many students, this is the first large project they've ever tackled, and of course it's hard.  

And yes, it's likely that once you finish the dissertation things could improve. At least, you won't have this pressure of this project, these people, and these locations, all of which seem tied up in your mind with unpleasant experiences. That said, it's not a magic cure; there will be other sources of stress (there always are), so it's important to find ways of managing the stress. 

*Caveat: there are professors who only want to see full chapters; you need to identify the ones who are willing to help with the process as well. They do exist. 

[Hope.for.the.best]

Thanks for your advice again! I am giving drafts of my writing to my primary supervisor and meet him weekly to discuss. He is the type who is willing to help with the process. He is more into ensuring that I write logically and justify why I did such and such experiments more than having no typos and grammatical mistakes. He always asks me to have the content properly set out and deal with the grammar later. My co-supervisor, on the other hand, requires writing to be completely perfect. She always fusses about typos, grammar etc. I am really stressed to make sure my writing has no typos (I installed grammarly as word sometimes does not pick up typos). The other day she was asking whether I read my writing aloud as she was doubting that I didn't do it. I said my English is not good so I cannot pick up all errors even after reading aloud. She finally accepted it. She always accuses me of not doing what she told me!

I also have another supervisor (the one who went through the manuscript), he is more than happy to mark all my work electronically. He track-changes obvious grammatical mistakes like agreement, single/plurals etc. He gives very good advice too. So my strategies are to give drafts to my two male supervisors and then when they are both happy, I pass on to my co-supervisor. Since she is intolerant of any grammatical mistakes, she is kind of my copy-editor lol. 

[hats]

One time I asked my undergraduate thesis advisor to please kindly review how the introduction was working, and whether he thought I should make THIS change to this situation on the first or whether I should make THAT one.

He responded to me only that he was very disappointed in me that I had three whole typos on page four. (I didn't ask you even to read page four!)

I went silent for three weeks, six weeks before the deadline, until he asked if I was mad at him. I said yes then he apologized. It was very cathartic.

Anyway, I can't help you at all with your co-supervisor, but I just wanted to sympathize that I find the typos-in-drafts thing so annoying!

[MHarry]

Stress is a good thing in my opinion, but only if it is under control and not debilitating. As crude as this sounds, I think that you should not go on disability, and try to find some coping mechanisms. Maybe leave the thesis for a week or two and try to incorporate some activities (e.g. running, biking, go away for a weekend etc.) that will help you cope with the stress. It's important to push yourself when you are stressed so you get more used to it and learn how to cope with it. After your thesis, things don't become less stressful....of course, after you are finished you will feel relief, but in future jobs and life in general you will encounter periods of high-stress and work volume that you will need to deal with and will not have the luxury of going on stress leave (e.g. having a child). I'm not trying to be inconsiderate, my entire family suffers from depression and anxiety, and so far, I am the only one in my entire family that is not on anti-anxiety or depression meds. I attribute this to learning how to cope during times of stress...and over time, you will be able to handle more and more work without feeling stressed. 

[Hope.for.the.best]

Thanks MHarry for your reply! You did not sound crude or inconsiderate at all as my thoughts go with you. I never intend to apply for disability as I wish to cope with it myself like you said. To me the biggest relief is my writing going well. I am glad that after months of hard work, my supervisors finally indicate great improvements in my writing. There are still more revisions to go, but at least I am no longer stuck like before.

The other day I searched on the web that the reagent for that experiment is not available at all! So that is another relief to me as I have a good reason to not do the experiment now. My co-supervisor will accept that without anything. You know she insists on that experiment so much that even with my main supervisor, it is a lot of hard work to persuade her not to do the experiment. Yes, I can insist on my thesis too because she doesn't know how to do that experiment herself, but she will be unhappy. I don't wish to create tense between any supervisors at this critical stage of my PhD. I am reading a self-help book for anxiety and one big strategy is to avoid creating more stress if possible! 

[MHarry]

@Hope.for.the.best Excellent to hear....everyone has their formula to cope with stress, and it is amazing how easy it is to get in a "rut" and stop doing the things that help cope with stress, and put every hour possible into work. For example, during my MSc degree, I discovered that in periods of HIGH stress I needed to do three things 1) spend time with my girlfriend, 2) exercise (running, mountain biking etc.), and 3) make more efforts to hangout with friends. Every single part of me tells me NOT to do those things and just focus on work. Howvever, over time I have improved on making an effort to keep those things as part of my routine no matter how difficult or how much work is on your plate...doing things that you enjoy and make you happy does take time away from work...BUT it will put you in a better mood and I guarantee that you will work better/more efficiently overall. Stress is OK, but a PhD (no matter how amazing you are) is not worth anxiety and depression....remember that. Graduate students sometimes forget that its important to have fun as well...

This is not to gloat, but I'm just using myself as an example. I am half way through my PhD, I go into my lab ~2-3 days a week (or more if we are collecting data etc.). Usually work from home on the other days, I take ~3-4 months off for vacation a year (some of this time I'll put in 1-2 hours a day to get the urgent things done though), exercise and do activities as I please, and I have already completed all my thesis projects and I have 30 publications...will likely have ~50-60 when I'm done. This is because I'm in a good mindset, have fun, enjoy myself, but when I work I work my ass off, I'm efficient, and on-point. It is amazing how efficient someone works when they are in a good mindset. During my MSc I was trying to put all hours of the day into my projects, which I now know it was a mistake. Yes, I was putting a ton of hours in, but I was in-efficient and sluggish. Something to think about ;). 

Edited August 10, 2017 by MHarry

[Hope.for.the.best]

Work life balance is really important. Thanks for sharing MHarry. For my field, it is impossible to go into lab 2 or 3 times a week during active stage of data collection. I had times when I had to be in every day, especially when I was working on time-point experiments. It is good that I can stay at home more to write these days as I feel more comfortable and concentrate better. I am way more productive when I can focus on my writing without any distractions, so I was really upset when my co-supervisor needed me to do experiments again for a manuscript but not my thesis! I am very jealous of your 3 or 4 months holiday each year! I took a longer break (a month) last year when I presented in a conference but my co-supervisor was not happy with that. Since then I was flooded with experiments and I could only start writing full-time 3 months ago! No other PhD students in my centre worked on experiments a few months before submitting their theses and I feel that I should ask for the same, particularly I still need more work for my writing. Anyway, things are going well now and hopefully my main supervisor won't come up with some other methods to do that experiment until I submitted my thesis! 

[Hope.for.the.best]

On 8/4/2017 at 1:00 PM, Hope.for.the.best said:

If you read my other posts, you would have known that I am in my final months of PhD and stressed about finishing. It is not great when I also need to convince my supervisors to just focus on writing and not to do more experiments for a manuscript along with writing. I know it is normal to stress out at this stage, but somehow I feel that I am abnormally stressed out.

Update: I would like to thank once again for everyone's replies. I really wish I heard more about how others dealt with the stress during their last months of PhD, but possibly many people forgot after finishing. I had another chat with the PhD student who got panic attack-like symptoms when she met supervisors. She said she spent 9 or 10 months on thesis writing and she was so stressed that she could not remember a lot of things back then. She could only remember getting very panic and sick on a few occasions. Then I bumped into a post-doc who asked about how my writing was going. She reassured me that I would be okay and that's the only thesis I've got to write for my entire life. 

Turned out that the cure was all my supervisors agreed that I should concentrate 100% on my thesis. My supervisors do wish me to help with more experiments for my own and other projects, but they are happy for me to postpone till I am done with my thesis. Since then, there were a few windy days when I had commitments but I was comfortable walking outside the whole time like before. I had a few early-morning meetings at 9 a.m., and I got up and prepared for them like I used to be. I no longer had that lump in the throat and muscle tension etc. I walked back to my lab as fast as before! I simply feel normal again after stressing out for one bloody year!

And the great news is I finally heard about that experiment which I crammed within a week last year. The collaborators is meeting my supervisors to discuss the data. Even though more work may be needed before a manuscript is submitted, I am feeling much better now because my hard work is getting rewarded. I am not stressing out for nothing! Yes, I am yet to refine my thesis draft for n times before I can submit but the stress level is getting manageable.

I hope my sharing is helpful to other PhD students who are struggling with stress and feel very alone.