Let’s talk about researchers’ mental well-being

Although mental health concerns among university populations are on the rise, discussions of academia-related trauma rarely occur in published outlets. They are usually limited to informal talks and the private exchange of anecdotes during conferences and workshops. This is problematic because accounts of how to mitigate stress, anxiety and depression in the academic environment are valuable for both early-career and senior researchers. In being honest about the strategies that I have developed to protect my mental well-being, both during my fieldwork in Central Asia and the academic environment more generally, I do not wish to make totalizing generalizations about researchers’ trauma experiences in our discipline. By contrast, I hope that my account presented here will invite further academic discussion about the possibility of academia-related trauma and its implications for scholars’ work and mental well-being.