Under Pressure

I'm pretty sure that my primary care physician thinks I'm a big cry baby. I actually found him when my real doctor was out on maternity leave, but I hadn't been getting many good vibes from her (she just didn't seem to listen, which to me, is important in a doctor). What I liked about him right off the bat was that he really listened to what I had to say, including a meltdown where I cried in front of him about tenure, getting journal rejection after journal rejection, and how I just felt stuck at this job... and especially how I felt guilty about taking time to work out when I should be working.

I came across this interesting study yesterday on another blog built by people in my profession. It claims that assistant professors who are seeking tenure are more likely to cut their exercise time. This quote really hit home: "For assistant professors, the problems are more acute because they are 'aiming to be tenured [and] have reported higher levels of stress, negative physical health symptoms, and work-life imbalance compared to other professional workers as a result of their early career expectations.'"

Uh... yeah. This describes me to a T. As I near my critical year (which is just about 18 months away), I am a nervous wreck. High levels of stress? Ha. A daily occurrence. Negative physical health symptoms? Other than regaining half of the weight I had lost, let's talk about my hypertension as well. Work-life imbalance? Please feel free to ask my fiance about this... which of course, I feel horribly guilty about as well. I keep saying that I'll be up for tenure soon enough, but damn... this is a horrid time in my life.

My doctor advised me to stop waiting until my life "returned to normal". Sure, I'm under a lot of stress right now, and while that stress might leave my life soon, there will be other stresses and demands on my time in the future. I just need to change now. I guess I'm just glad to read this article and realize there are others out there like me.