All Phd students go through the same stuff and set of struggles and almost all of them cope up fine with it.
Know and accept that a PhD is difficult and you need’nt beat yourself up for it. It is not everyone who gets to do a Phd. To get onto the course in itself is an echievement and then as you accomplish each and every stage, you keep adding on to your list of accomplishments.
You wouldn’t for sure find a person who would tell you it is easy because it really is not. Had it been then everyone would be doing a phD only. Isnt it? The struggle it involves makes it a degree worth achieving. Going through bouts and phases of underlying panics, missing texts, confusions and so on is an expected part of a PhD. Everytime you hear that you arent the only one and everyone goes through a similar struggle, there is a sense of respite. I can compare this example to running a marathon. Half way through when you feel that you are stucck in the middle of nowhere and you cant escape, you look at the faces of the co runners and a similar expression on their faces gives you a sense of respite and then you know that soon you would reach the finishing line and that would be the end of it.
My tips here for you may sound very cliché and boring but they arent anything to do with academics. There is so much moderation that you can do with your day to day life schedule and alter it in a way to suit your PhD challenges that it would actually make a difference in the way you feel.
1. Eat a healthy diet: Keep healthy snacks around and eat food that boosts up your metabolism in a way that your energy levels are high and you don’t feel sluggish
2. Take deserving breaks: Taking short and regular is not actually eating up the productive time, it is rather make you more productive. Get up from your desk, look out of the window or just stroll around for a while to give your mind and body rest it needs.
3. Burn it out: Keep your good habit, if you have, of being a runner or a gym buddy. If nothing else a good brisk walk is enough to renergise the cellsc and activate your mind and body.
4. Reward yourself: there isnt a better way to enhance productivity than to acknowledge your hard work and reward yourself for your accomplishments, even if noone else does or is bothered.