Why biomedical research is stressful, and how it can be slightly less so Read more: Opinion: 6 impossible things - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57903/#ixzz1AHBHgB7f

Thing #1. You Are Not in Control of the Answers:



Life is not logical, because living things are not designed. Any biological system is a cobbled-together affair that once upon a time happened to work better than some other contraption, so that it was reproduced and subsequently built upon. And therefore our utterly logical experiments fail.
 

Thing #2. Ideas Come from the Eighth Dimension:


If you are reading five to ten papers per day, you've got the gist of it. Then, when you happen to think about something you have noticed in the lab, wondered about in the literature, or worried about late at night (you do this, right?), there emerges an "aha" that might explain something that has never been explained before. (How do you know it hasn't been explained before? Because you did the reading! I bet Buckaroo Bonzai did, too.) 
Thing #3. You Cannot Multitask Your Research :


. It is those things that don't snap at us and demand our attention, those deadline-less things, that often actually count in the long run. Developing our ideas, thinking about results, writing up the research, planning the next stage of the research: these things take time -- focused, uninterrupted time. We tend to feed the nearest wolf. Add these to the pack. 

Thing #4. Stress Can Be Good for You 
A good actor nurtures and savors the pre-curtain jitters, peaking just before entrance. The trick is not to eliminate stress, but to master it, bending this evolutionary gift to our needs, those times when we need it.