13 Aug 2023 - Reader
We have all heard the story of Newton seeing an apple falling from a tree whilst daydreaming which lead him to unlock the secrets of gravity or the story of Archimedes running out of his bath naked and shouting eureka as he figured out a way to measure the volume of irregular objects seeing how his immersed body displaced his bath water. Whether these stories really did happen or whether they are legends we cannot know for sure, but one thing they hint at is that scientific discoveries do not just happen through active thoughts and relentless scribbling on a sheet of paper or on a blackboard. They happen also and maybe even more so when the scientist is in a relaxed state of mind and gives enough time to their thoughts to fully mature.
As you would expect, the job of a researcher is highly intellectual and demands periods of deep focus in order to connect together different clues and arrive at a coherent model of the problem at hand and hopefully a way toward a solution. High levels of stress are not conducive to the best results. Of course this is true for other types of activities too but when it is your mind that is your main tool for the job, stress and fatigue are your main enemies. For the modern researcher, sources of stress and fatigue abound ! Living in the digital age means having limitless sources of stress in the form of overstimulation by apps that all beg for your attention and algorithms that are trained to better activate your dopamine receptors and keep you connected at all times. As a victim of these algorithms myself, I often wonder if there could ever be a worse weapon against researchers than one that promises to hit them with new information everytime they refresh the page. This might actually be an evil plot against us! Is there a way out of this ? None that doesn’t involve putting down your devices and enjoying a bit of silence, all alone with your thoughts. Ideally you may want to take on an activity that is mechanical and repetitive, one that allows you to escape your body for a few moments like knitting, walking, running, painting… Another major disruption to the peace needed for our noble goal of advancing the frontiers of knowledge is the gargantuan amount of tasks given to researchers and that we detail here on Researcharium. Indeed, between preparing lectures, marking assignments, reviewing articles, hiring, mentoring, teaching, writing proposals and so on, it becomes very difficult to have the time to just relax and free our minds for new ideas to form. The best advice is to find a way to become a master of time management. At the very least, be aware of the amount of work you need to do and schedule time to relax and play with ideas. It is best to have these slots marked down in your calendar to avoid having something compete for your attention then. Besides the beneficial impact on your activities as a researcher, taking the time to relax is also good for your mental and physical health. So go carve out some time to do nothing but relax! You are a researcher.