wow its amazing reading all your posts and realising that im not the only one going thr all this! i work more from home, as like being alone to work, like u all hv said can get regular cups off tea, where comfy scruffy clothes etc (altho very embarasing other week when had to answer door to postman and i looked a complete mess, lol)..but, ive found too much time at home on own and ive slipped into bit of depression without realising, and found it very difficult to reconnect with outside world..hard to break the isolation spell of being housebound...

hey xeno..which point are you at in your phd?? sorry to hear you feeling demotivated. ive found emotions during the whole process has been like a rollacoaster...some days up, some days down. any partic aspect you stuck on??

hey jojo well done for all the work youve been doing, keep it up!! keep going!! xx

yes sleepiness is common. ive found that too.. and weirdly though im not doing anything physically tiring, as all day is spent indoors working..but i think that writing up is so mentally tiring..and i find it difficult to switch off too from work to sleep at night, then sometimes weirdly enough can just drop off suddenly to sleep during the day.

ahh i examined my teeth the other day and was horrified to notice very bad tea stains behind my teeth, no doubt due to my substantial increase in drinking tea since doing phd!! must get my teeth checked too!

if things wit your boyfriend are really bad, reassess if its worth it all? but a phd is one of those things ive found that NO-ONE really fully understands unless they have done a phd themselves.i myself didnt fully realise the pressure (altho i had been told), and how it wuld feel in the last stages of writing up, the emotional swings u go thr, until now when i am at that stage!

but i had to get myself healthy first before i culd properly get on with work. at that time i was also in a long term relationship, which again had problems- around the time i was ill alot he cheated on me..(then we split up!)-but looking back now i can see they were all interlinked-for a long time i blamed illness, breakup etc on myself, and it all really hindered my phd progress..
emotional wellbeing and health are so important..you have to put yourself first, and be honest with your boyfriend and family about how you are feeling..

hey jojo, im not sure what your health issues are, but i know that health stuff is very much interlinked with the emotional stuff in life, both affect each other, and it is very hard to feel positive or work when ill. In the first year of my phd ( a few years go now) i was getting ill every few weeks,stuff like tonsillitis, chest infections, my supervisors thought i was out partyng lots cos i looked so tired and washed out. turned out had a lot of food intolerances.

hey jojo and others.. sorry to hear abt boyfriend helth stuff etc. relationships are vey hard to sustain while doing phd..i just recently split up wit mine cos of pressure of my work,no time for anyone else, i culdnt sustain any more expectations from other people on top of phd..ive just had to get selfish, don't have mental energy for anything else!

no dont exactly have a phd finish date, well latest is sept..right now im stuck on redoing my lit chapters..and still have to redo some of first draft results..some new chapters still to write like concs, policy/impl, methods that kinda thing. i keep making myself deadlines, but been too over-optimistic about them and not meeting the deadlines!

yea i shuld try and schedule a night out..just kinda stuck in that 'house arrest' thing and cant get out of guilt mode (except doing major procrastination at the mo).. i think one of problems is i have been expecting same phd output as before when wasnt worked, so feel extra stressed that i feel not getting far, and on my 'phd days' it takes me a day sometimes to get my head back into it, just when i do its like its back around to having to do the lecturing job.

hey all, im new here.in 4th year of phd, funding finished last year but still writing up while doing part time lecturing
just wondered if anyone else felt this: im in this weird thing where i want to be alone to get work done, yet at same time its hard going through this alone..
cos of pressure i cut everything out except work, im not doing any exercise, dont get out of the house much (except when i have to go to x uni to do lecturing). i feel in order to work i need to mentally just switch off from everyhting and everyone, but now no social life watsoever, too much work to do!feel guilty to go anywhere to do anything except work.. but then i end up procrastinating watching tv!! then feel even more i shouldnt go anywhere but stay in and attempt work!
lot of friends dropped away, they just dont understand the pressure and i think some just got fed up of me saying 'no i cant go out i have to do work', they just dont get im not a student, nor like a job that finished at 5pm etc.
anyone else feeling like this?