I Measured Stress. Found My Own

Two kilometers away, and the generator still reached them. The seabirds, the marine mammals—all showing elevated stress hormones from human noise they couldn't escape. I stared at the data for hours. Increased cortisol levels. Disrupted communication. Animals avoiding areas they needed to survive. Then I realized: I hadn't left my lab in three days. My advisor's latest email sat unread because I knew it was another revision request. The grant deadline loomed, and my preliminary results looked like statistical noise. The animals we studied were 2km from the source of their stress. I was living inside mine. They developed hearing loss and behavioral changes. I stopped answering calls from home and lived on vending machine coffee. We wrote about protecting their habitat from acoustic pollution. Meanwhile, I couldn't escape the constant hum of academic pressure—deadlines, rejections, comparisons to other labs. The irony wasn't lost on me. We were both just trying to survive the noise. #LabBurnout #ScienceStress #ResearchReality #Science