Mindfulness for Teachers: 9 Activities for the Classroom

If you’re staring down teacher burnout, mindfulness for teachers is not a silver bullet. However, it is a practical way to interrupt the spiral. The best part is that this is a practice where you can begin small, then build. Even one minute of attention can stop a rough moment from becoming a rough day.

Now more than ever in history, the emphasis should be on helping educators minimize their stress. A common definition of mindfulness for teachers is a way to learn how to stay in the present, to focus on what you have control over, and to overcome chronic stress reactions.

The world is an overwhelming place at the present moment. I know I have personally struggled along with many others. It’s difficult to keep your thinking away from the negatives and focus on the good stuff to celebrate in life.

If you’re a teacher, you know what I’m talking about! All of this is taking a huge toll on the mental and emotional health of teachers.

Mindfulness is something out of the box that can make significant differences in your teaching life. The daily worries, the stress, and the overwhelm you might be experiencing can all be tackled with mindfulness. Notably, it can help prevent an emotional response when working with students. It also helps you avoid or reduce your emotional exhaustion from handling the needs of your students and the requirements of your school district.

In this article, you’ll find out what research says about the amazing benefits for anyone experiencing daily stress – to assist you in relaxing and minimize the negative effects on the body; and why, I believe, the practice of Mindfulness for teachers is going to be hugely beneficial to you. But only if YOU let it!

Mindfulness for teachers; 9 Easy Activities to stay calm on the job blog post - woman sitting onher bed in the mediation state in front of a sunny window

How can mindfulness help teachers?

There are many surprising benefits from practicing mindfulness for teachers!

In previous articles, I’ve discussed some of these benefits for both teachers and students. In a post called 6 Easy Ways to Use Mindfulness in the Classroom, I discussed them at length, but I’d like to revisit them here with you.

Benefits of mindfulness exercises for teachers:

Mindfulness has many welcoming advantages to help both the body and the brain.

Things like:

Stress reduction
Health and immune function
Focus and attention
Handling difficult emotions

Additionally, numerous resources, including Positive Psychology, state that many ailments, such as anxiety and panic attacks, depression, fatigue, headaches, and post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), can be treated when a dedicated Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) is implemented.

So with all of this in mind, you’re probably aware that with the increased workload and demands on teachers, the amount of daily stress has also increased. I’m sure you’re probably feeling it too, like I was.

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How Stress Impacts Teachers in the Workplace

Stress itself isn’t the problem. However, the continual day-in-day-out stress, and also how the individual handles the stress, is the worry. In addition to this, it’s important to know whether the individual uses stress relief techniques to regularly minimize the effects of stress on the nervous system.

It’s now known that having a personal mindfulness practice helps a person cope much better with stress and stress-related conditions.

While some people handle stress quite well, others (who are more sensitive and susceptible to it) require methods to help counteract its effects.

This is where mindfulness for teachers can be such a key element in fighting stress.

And the great news is, experts are saying that using mindfulness in the WORKPLACE can be useful in reducing JOB-RELATED STRESS employees experience.

So much so, in studies conducted, workers who engaged in ‘brief mindfulness intervention, reported decreased stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and negative affects, while also experiencing greater satisfaction at work.’

In addition to all of this, and one of the most important things to be aware of, mindfulness is also closely linked to the LOWERING of the incidence of burnout and turnover at work.

Wow! This is an exciting breakthrough!

Let’s now take a look at what mindfulness involves:

What activities support mindfulness?

Brilliant Mindfulness offers some helpful resources for teachers to help TO be more mindful in the day. They recommend the best activities should include times for:

Mindful seated breathing – focusing your breath on your nose, your chest, or your abdomen (wherever you notice it most in your body)
Mindful listening with nonjudgmental awareness
A body scan practice
Mindful moments – for example: bringing your thoughts to your daily routines and being attentive when you’re washing up, driving to work, eating breakfast or showering etc.

So, how do you create a mindful classroom climate?

Many teachers are keen to implement mindfulness with their students, so I’ve included a few helpful Mindfulness activities that can be used in the classroom with your students:

Breathing Buddies – a short video by Daniel Goleman
KidsRelaxation.com – Spider-Man – Practicing Mindfulness and Increasing Focus
Left-Brain Buddha – 10 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids
A more in-depth article called: 6 Easy Ways to Use Mindfulness in the Classroom + Free Printable discusses how to incorporate these types of activities with your students to create a mindful classroom environment.

Now, let’s look at the 9 different types of mindfulness activities for teachers to feel calmer in the face of stress.’s look at the 9 different types of mindfulness activities for teachers to feel calmer in the face of stress.

9 Activities to Promote Mindfulness for Teachers

This set of 9 mindfulness skills can be learnt and adopted into your routine, to be more mindful and help balance the mind, body, and emotions:

Intentional Focused Breathing Exercises

Focusing on your breath throughout the day is one of the easiest mindful practices to help you slow down. By using a focused deep breathing strategy, you can transition from a stressed state into the relaxation response and calm your nervous system.

If you want to learn this style of transformative breathing and be much more intentional by taking deep breaths that fuel positive emotions (not just ‘3 quick puffs and you’re done breathing style’,) read this in-depth article called An Easy Way to Relieve Teacher Stress (You Won’t Believe How Simple It Is!)

Self-Check-In Mindfulness for Teachers Activity

A simple way to do a self-check-in is to stop and ask yourself how your body is feeling. Is it tired? Is it thirsty? Hungry? Happy? Sad? etc; then you’ll be able to meet any need it requires at that time and help you focus on how you are in the present.

You don’t need to WORRY about how you feel, just sit with these feelings, acknowledge them and then move on.

This self-check-in activity is also great for developing your own self-awareness.

Journaling (Self-Reflection) Mindfulness for Teachers Activity

Using your favourite journaling method can be a helpful addition to bring in mindfulness for teachers – to help in the processing of your worries, difficulties or problems you might be experiencing.

Journaling is a powerful tool that will help sort through your thoughts to isolate the worry and stress, to stop it taking over your being.

With your thoughts on a page, you’re able to see things more clearly, separate FACT from fiction and constructively FIX something that is bothering you, rather than be consumed by it.

Mindful journaling helps to train your mind to separate worry from daily thoughts, and then replace these negatives with more helpful ones (Viki Thondley, 2017).

Use whatever method you like to journal. It might be gratitude journaling to ‘free-write’ all that you’re thankful for in your life; it might me bullet point gratitude journaling (a quicker method to do the same thing); or just doing a ‘brain dump’ to release your pent-up issues or hostilities from the school day, which can be very therapeutic.

Whatever journaling method you choose, know that this is a wonderful method to bring you into the moment. It helps you become CONSCIOUS of your own truth, ESCAPE from external noise and CONNECT with yourself, in a safe space, so that you can shed light on your choices (Viki Thondley, 2017).

Meditation: An Underrated Mindfulness for Teachers Activity

Meditation isn’t anything new, but it’s something new I’m trying in my life at the moment, because previously I thought it was a bit ‘out there’ for me.

But, meditation has been practised for hundreds of years by many cultures and is now a well-respected, scientifically tested and medically endorsed activity.

The act of meditation is known to have enormous benefits to a person’s mental, emotional, and physical health and is like the antidote to stress. – slowing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure & muscle tension; and regulating breathing to activate a sense of calm (Viki Thondley, 2017).

Knowing this, it can be of huge benefit to all stressed-out teachers.

Like gratitude journaling, there are many variations of meditation and all have wonderful outcomes. Whatever style of meditation you perform, research shows that meditation helps the nervous system to deal better with stress, as well as reducing the mental chatter, softening the mind to be more centred and calm.

This is great news for any overwhelmed teacher!

Here’s a guided mindfulness meditation for YOU from Calm. Try this if you’re new to this type of activity. Meditate: Be Present:

Here’s another Guided mediation from headspace for you.

Using Affirmations for Mindfulness

Affirmations, simply put, are statements you recite out loud to help reframe your thinking.

Naturally, your mind will focus on negatives and fallacies, but you can use a variety of positive reframe statements as a proactive way to help revert the mind away from these untruths, unhelpful thoughts or ruminations.

I have found that affirmation statements will assist in many situations and the field of Positive Psychology has been using this helpful technique for many years as a way to assist people to retrain their minds and get over past trauma and stress.

Affirmations are also a great way to think about areas of your life you’d like to CHANGE. You can use them to turn the negatives into positives.

Here are some examples of how to re-frame the negative inner dialogue and then use each as a positive affirmation statement to read in your day:

Old Statement (inner self-talk)	New Reframed Statement
I’m not good enough	I am worthy
I can’t do this	I can do difficult things
I’m stupid	I will make mistakes but that’s ok

BONUS TIPS from Mindtools.com to help you get started with using affirmations:

Positive affirmations are a way to overcome self-sabotaging thoughts.
To use affirmations, think firstly about what THOUGHTS and BEHAVIOURS you’d like to change in your life.
Next, when writing your own statements, come up with positive, credible, and achievable affirmations that are the OPPOSITE of these thoughts.
Repeat your affirmations several times per day, especially if you find yourself slipping back into negativity.

Mindfulness for Teachers Activity 6: Use a Weekly Planner

Many teachers organize their day with a planner, but did you know that this is a mindfulness technique?

When you write down the details of tasks and appointments for the day, week or month, you bring to the forefront of your mind what is important and what you’d like to achieve.

Planner use is an effective way to operate ‘in the moment’. It also helps with your productivity and time management.

So keep using your planner, teachers!

Visualization Mindfulness Techniques for Teachers

According to neuroscience, your body doesn’t know the difference between an event you are ACTUALLY experiencing or one you are imagining (Viki Thondley, Mind Body Food Institute, 2017). To put this in simple terms, thinking and doing activate the same parts of the brain.

This is very helpful to know, particularly when you want to feel calmer in a stressful situation. It can also help when you’re going through difficulties in your day, because you can ‘trick’ your brain into a calmer state.

If you’re feeling stressed or anxious in your teaching day, you’ll need to begin your own visualisation technique.

This is done by IMAGINING yourself feeling calm or in a peaceful place. To do this, think of specific memories of when you have felt calm and relaxed.
Close your eyes if you need to. Then, imagine this place of calm. Maybe it’s in the bath or at the beach, or even imagining yourself on a tropical island – whatever helps settle you.

This technique of visualization will trigger your body to respond accordingly to your thinking. It also helps settle the nervous system from this heightened state of stress.

So teachers, start to visualise yourself feeling calmer. Think it into existence, and your body will respond. You’ll experience slowed blood flow & rapid heart rate, relaxation of your muscles, and reduced blood pressure.

Regularly give this wonderful visualization technique a go, and you’ll be on your way to managing your stress and feeling much calmer.

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Body Scan Mindfulness Activity for Teachers

Similar to a self-check-in, a body scan is done exactly how the name suggests. Regularly throughout the day, stop and stand still while you concentrate your thoughts on each part of your body (while scanning from top to bottom or in reverse).

For example, as you stand in position, focus your mind on your toes or your feet. Assess how they feel. Start to wiggle your toes. Then move up to your ankles or calves and consider how this part of your body feels. Continue scanning each part of your body, through to your knees, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, head, etc., thinking about how each part feels as you go.

This is a great way to release tension or tight muscles that have built up over the day!

Spending Time in Nature

Taking some time-out to spend in nature can be very therapeutic for your soul. To make it more of a mindful experience, leave the technology at home and focus all of your 5 senses while you’re outside.

Using your senses to engage in what you see, feel, hear, touch, and smell is a wonderful way to connect with yourself and the world around you.

You could also include your students in this activity. Get out of the classroom and take a mindful nature walk to engage them in the world at large. It’s a beautiful experience, especially to get their heads up and notice what’s around them.

Mindfulness for Teachers is Your Respite During Busy Days

Mindfulness for teachers works best when it stays simple and repeatable, because consistency beats intensity. Start with a daily mindfulness practice that fits real life. Something like a short meditation before the first period or a reset between classes can make a big difference. Then, watch how your stress levels respond over time. Also, name what you feel in the moment, since emotion regulation helps you respond instead of react. Try it for one week, share what shifts with a colleague, and notice what changes when you show up as your steadier self.

By practicing the skills of mindfulness, you’ll create a better work-life balance, reduce your cortisol levels, and see significant improvements when it comes to how you react to negative emotions that may have previously sent you on a spiral.

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