Dementia Researcher Blogs19 Sep 2025

Emily Spencer - Rethinking Balance in Research

Emily Spencer, narrating her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website.

In this blog, PhD student Emily shares her reflections after attending the Alzheimer’s Society early career researcher retreat. She explores the myth of achieving perfect work-life balance, admitting how easily boundaries between research and personal life can blur. From compulsively checking emails to neglecting annual leave, Emily considers how fatigue and overcommitment distort priorities. She writes openly about the need to set limits, practise saying no, and protect wellbeing. With her supervisors’ encouragement, she has committed to taking her first family holiday and starting her final PhD year with a renewed sense of balance.

Find the original text, and narration here on our website.

https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-rethinking-balance-in-research/

#DementiaResearch #AcademicMother #Academia

Emily Spencer is a PhD Student at University College London looking at improving how GPs communicate with people with dementia and their family carers about their future care. Emily previous had a 5 year career break to pursue a career as a musician, and has previously undertaken research on improving the care people with dementia receive from their GP practice, as well as end-of-life and palliative care provision in the community. Emily is also a new mum and will be writing about her experiences navigating motherhood and a research career.

Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk

This podcast is brought to you in association with Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.

Join our community:

https://onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(710)

Beccy Owen - When Experiments Fail: Staying Positive in Research

Beccy Owen narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Every researcher knows the sinking feeling of an experiment failing after days, weeks or months of effort. In this blog Beccy talks about h...

9 Juli 8min

Harriet Greene - How I Found My Way into Dementia Research: Give to Gain

Harriet Greene narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Harriet wrote her first essay on Alzheimer's at 15. What followed was not a tidy line to Oxford. She missed medicine by one mark, took ...

9 Juli 8min

Professor Frank Gunn-Moore: Do Cats, Dogs and Dolphins Get Dementia Too?

Professor Frank Gunn-Moore narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.In this blog, Frank asks whether dementia is really unique to humans. Starting with the story of his cat Cardhu, and moving...

7 Juli 5min

Dr Sam Moxon - Why Some Ideas Never Get a Chance

Dr Sam Moxon narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.You develop something genuinely different, cost it, build the team, submit it feeling confident, and then the rejection lands. In this bl...

6 Juli 6min

Dr Becky Carlyle - How I Started My Own Lecture Course

Dr Becky Carlyle narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.In this blog, Becky reflects on creating a new lecture course for second year biomedical scientists, built around the molecular basis...

25 Juni 10min

Brandon Newman - Why data matters in human-centred dementia care

Brandon Newman narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.In this guest blog, Brandon Newman uses his experience as a paramedic to show how dementia care can be misread when clinicians only see...

24 Juni 8min

Rahul Sidhu - Sleep and Dementia: Should We Worry?

Rahul Sidhu narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.Rahul explores the relationship between sleep and dementia, asking whether a few poor nights should really worry us. Drawing on research i...

18 Juni 6min

Dr Yvonne Couch - Academia and the Sense of Self

Dr Yvonne Couch narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.In this blog, Yvonne reflects on why academia can become so tightly bound to identity, especially in careers where work has no clear e...

16 Juni 9min