About

Current organizers: Katie Dixon and Sophia Horigan

The Darwin Cluster Mental Health Check in is an initiative started in July 2020. The goal of these meetings are to set up a space set aside for sharing and discussion of the ‘not so great’ parts of grad school and life in general. We aim to uplift each other through active listening, connection, and support. While some weeks have a theme to encourage community building, it is not expected that sharing/discussions are restricted to that theme.

Currently, these meetings are held over zoom and occur every other Wednesday at 1pm. We are looking to transition to in-person meetings for the summer!

We also offer an anonymous google form where anyone can share thoughts or experiences at any time, with the option of them being read aloud at a meeting and/or shared with faculty. Name and email are optional, the form is set to not collect email addresses and is not linked to a UC email account (ee.issues@gmail.com). Please reach out if you would like help writing an anonymous statement.

General advice on self-care and fun links

Self-care is an incredibly important component of mental health. As part of a Mental Health Check-In, students collected suggestions for coping with graduate school during quarantine. Here is a summary of those suggestions! Please reach out to Katie and Sophia if you want to add things to this list!

 Things to remember:

•  So many fellow students are experiencing a lack of productivity and stress as a result, you are not alone
• Productivity ebbs and flows over time, and your productivity during quarantine shouldn’t be expected to be where it is at normally
• People’s productivity waves are often out of phase, so you may be experiencing productive and non-productive phases at different times than your peers
• It is okay (and encouraged!) to focus on being mentally healthy and happy rather than being productive. Self-upkeep work is work too.
• Reach out to your friends and other students and talk to each other honestly about how things are going- it’s okay to not be okay
• Join our mental health check ins!
• Try working only on the weekdays and giving yourself a true weekend off

Tips for boosting your mood

• Going outside
• Return to what got you interested in science in the first place, but this time for fun!

-Go birding in Jackson park

-Look for caterpillars

-Take walks and notice how the plants and animals are changing through the season

• Get into old hobbies or start new ones

-Arts and crafts

-Paint by Numbers – distracts the brain and the hands so you’re not tempted to look at social media!

-Baking and cooking

• Consider adopting a pet! Or, a plant! Or, a rock!
• Take a walk and listen to a podcast (if you’re into true crime, Sophia & Katie have heaps of recommendations)
• Follow fellow scientists on Twitter who post positive mental health messages. You can start by following students, faculty, and postdocs in the department!
• Tackle some home improvement projects
• Order some new books- could be related to research or not. Give into that urge to read a brain candy novel!

COVID-19 Quarantine Activities & Resources (GRIT)

Tips for physical health

•  Treat yourself like a giant Tamagotchi and go for walks on the regular
• Join a UChicago zoom fitness class
• Focus on breathing and posture to improve your work, maybe even try meditation!
• Get some friends and go social distance swimming together at Promontory Point, or throw a frisbee around on the Midway
• Vitamin D is very important to physical and mental health, try to enjoy some sunshine!

Tips to get some research motivation:

•  Make an extremely itemized detailed to-do list so you can check off more items and be able to go back to the list if you get distracted
• Try out the Pomodoro Method– work for 25 minutes at a time with scheduled breaks. Start here!
• Change up your workspace! Sometimes getting a change can boost your productivity! Work in a new location in your apartment, read outside, get a cool crystal that hangs in your window that makes rainbows! Get a plant!
• Productivity in areas beyond your research can make you feel just as accomplished
• Take an online class, such as a coding class, with a productivity bar

Remember in your soul that it is okay to be spending time engaging in anti-racism or any other social justice work and work to build up the department community.