How to do research without losing our minds

This week it was my turn to lead the seminar of my research group, and for the occasion, I wanted to spread some light on the evidence for mental health crisis in (under)graduate education & research. I presented a paper related to the topic (see below), and I provided some tips/guides to deal with the mental…

Changing my PhD reading habits with a tablet

I’ve recently changed the way I was reading papers and books for my PhD and I’ve noticed a huge difference from before and now. I used to browse on the Internet for papers about a particular topic and then print (most) of them at the university because it was kind of tiring for me to…

My first paper is out!

I’m super happy to announce that my first paper is already out! After two years of non-stop work, I can let this project go and undertake new ones. Can the occipital alpha-phase speed up visual detection through a real-time EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI)? Irene Vigué-Guix, Luis Morís Fernández, Mireia Torralba Cuello, Manuela Ruzzoli,  Salvador Soto-Faraco DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.06.189712 You can read the paper…

Connected Papers: a visual tool to explore related papers for your research

When I opened my email this morning I’ve received the most unimaginable gift that I could ever think that I would have in my hands and that would help me instantaneously with my PhD. “What was it? What was it?” You might be wondering. Well, it’s a visual tool to help researchers and applied scientists…

Reading, thinking, writing, coding, and teaching

At this point in my Ph.D. journey (and especially, for this quarantine), I spend my mornings under the sun on the terrace reading new articles and books both related and unrelated to my Ph.D. All the new information that I read makes me think and gives me plenty of room to write whatever comes out…

The importance of digital detox

Given that during this quarantine (my “quaratinrene“) I’m using my own room to do different tasks (e.g., sleep, meditate, do yoga, work, draw, illustrate, read, watch movies, rest…) I find it really hard to focus on just one task and make a proper task-transition without mind-wandering or thinking about something else. Maybe because of the…

New life routines for historic moments

Given the current situation that we’re all living in (at least here in Barcelona we’re told to work from home and stay inside unless we have to go to the supermarket to buy supplies or to the pharmacy to get meds), I’ve decided to add new practices to my routine for my own behalf and…

My mental health crisis

I remember that a few years ago a colleague from my research group presented a paper about the mental health crisis in graduate students. By that time I was in the middle of my master’s degree and I didn’t feel like I was in that state to suffer stress and anxiety because of my studies…

Workshop on PhD well-being

Yesterday I went to a PhD workshop about “PhD Well-being & Systems thinking” given by Ryan Armstrong (Scientists Dating Forum / University of Barcelona) and held at the Department of Technology and Information Communication (DTIC) at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). Before the workshop, I did not know that recent studies have found that PhD students…