'After we talked through the experiment, the postdoc said, 'I think it’s time to go home and get some sleep.' He added with a smile, 'Taking a break is also hard work, you know?' Those comments planted the seed of a new approach.' NPAW2022
My lab bench was strewn with tubes and pipettes—remnants of an experiment that had refused to work for several weeks. I was slouched against the bench, deep in despair. It was a far cry from how I had felt just a few months earlier, when I started my master's research project. At that point, I thought I had cracked the code to academic success.
Those comments planted the seed of a new approach. Previously, when my nonresearch friends questioned whether the"always working" ethos that is common among academics was normal or healthy, I had brushed off their concerns. Now, I realized that they were on to something. I started to go easier on myself, to try to make being in the lab from early morning to late evening the exception rather than the norm.
A few years later, during my Ph.D., the penny dropped the rest of the way. My adviser and I were at a café, discussing a hurdle facing our field of nanomedicine and many other biomedical fields: that research rarely translates to improved clinical outcomes. As he finished his coffee and rubbed his forehead, he said,"We need to work smarter, not harder." I had never heard that mantra before, although I now know it is common, and it resonated with me.
Today, a decade after that eye-opening evening in the lab, I try to pass this mindset on to my own students. Not too long ago, in the lab one night, I walked by one of my students slumped over her bench. I gently asked how she was doing. With a defeated look, she responded that the protocol refused to work, again, despite many attempts. I couldn't help but see myself all those years ago. We talked for a while about academic life and what it means to be a researcher.
How can we nurture that spirit? The answer does not include working ourselves to exhaustion. Work-life balance is not a detriment to excellent research, or an optional bonus, but an integral part of it.
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