Are you stressed, my teacher friend? Read for some easy-to-implement stress management tips for teachers that will change your life.
Teaching is stressful! We know that.
But how will you help yourself to stay replenished and renewed to minimise the impacts of stress in your life?
This is an important question to ask yourself.
Because whether you like it or not, if stress is not managed carefully it will cause you to burnout.
Why deal with teacher stress?
High levels of stress ate away at my health for many years and I continue to seek help, as many of you do, to find strategies to help with this insidious attack on the health and wellbeing of teachers.
Related Article: Why is it so Important for Teachers to De-Stress
Bonus: Get your free Printable Stress Management tips for teachers cheatsheet here:
To give you some insight into some easy stress management tips for teachers, I found the following Youtube clip by Brett Williams from Yoga Psych. He shares some profound solutions that I feel will help you to be the ‘change agent’ to manage your work stress.
Brett shows a clear understanding of the demands on teachers.
In the video, he shares his thoughts concisely and in an everyday way to help you to stay replenished and minimise the draining, depleting, and exhausting burden teachers face in a ‘stressed-out’ profession.
A must-watch stress management video
His stress management tips for teachers are so helpful, that I thought I’d summarise them for you too.
This amiable ‘shrink’, as he refers to himself, discusses the necessity to stay replenished and renewed, by continuing the behaviours that we often intuitively attend to while we are on school holidays. But then, when we get back to school, slowly but surely our other ‘got-tos’ take over.
I’m sure you know all those tedious jobs that can pop up.
I’ve ‘got-to’ read all of those emails. I’ve ‘got-to’ mark the homework. I’ve ‘got-to’ plan for the (insert any subject here) program. etc.
These ‘got-tos’ make us feel so burdened, to the point of overwhelm!
We need to break this cycle.
Do you want this? To stay replenished? To stop the drain?
Start some new healthy habits in your effort to relieve stress with this free printable Stress-Busting Tips for teachers:
Stress management tips for teachers
Stress Management Tip No.1 – Add replenishing behaviours to your to-do list
Write a list of all the replenishing behaviours you need to keep following in term time.
He says that to be the agent of change we need to make sure that we add the replenishing behaviour to your ‘got-to’ list, like any other important priority. The necessities are:
- I’ve ‘got-to’ get 8 hours of sleep
- I’ve ‘got-to’ eat healthy – read here for some Ideas for Quick and Healthy Snacks
- I’ve ‘got-to’ make sure to go for a walk each day – see other stress busters here
- and include any other healthy habits you need to follow to recharge yourself and stop the drain.
I really like that he says we need to make OURSELVES the priority because often all the urgent things override our own self-care.
Dr Mathew Allen in his book Self-Care for Teachers also discusses the importance for teachers to take care of themselves, as a priority.
It’s not new.
Ellen, from Self-care for Teachers is passionate about self-care too, as am I.
Add yourself to your to-do list, so YOU don’t miss out!
Bottom Line: YOU are responsible for your own self-care and no-one will do it for you. Make the change needed so that stress won’t take over and you won’t go into burnout.
Stress Management Tip No. 2 – Build Relationships
Find a peer or colleague at your school that you feel connected with so that you can give and show appreciation to each other.
Brett says that we should meet up with a teaching friend on a regular basis and talk about our family and our lives. Appreciate them. Tell them how important they are.
The benefit of this will be to shut down the feelings of unappreciation that many of us feel in the teaching profession. This will help keep us feeling replenished.
I like this!
We need to make time for this one! Add it to your list.
Now, to stop your cup emptying too fast…and to stop the drain.
Stress Management Tip No. 3 – Create Boundaries
I see this as the biggy and a difficult one for many teachers.
Brett recognises that teachers find it difficult to set boundaries for themselves.
I know I have struggled with this in the past.
What about you?
Knowing when to stop. Setting a limit on your working hours. Saying good-enough has to be enough. Not taking your marking bag home – Every. Single. Night.
Because we all know that the job could and will take over your life if you let it.
Related Article: How to Set Boundaries as a Teacher and Why It’s So Important
He suggests that we need to set these good and healthy limits to help stop the drain. I think this is such a necessary part of maintaining a healthy work-life balance for all of us.
Bottom Line: For you to be the agent of change in your life, set clear working limits to stop the drain, depletion and exhaustion that sets in.
Only YOU can do this for yourself!
Be the agent of change!
These stress management tips are simple. Think about them…and start to make YOURSELF the priority.
If you don’t start making changes in your own life to help minimise the drain that teaching has on us, Stress. Will. Take. Over, and then burnout will ultimately follow.
I know, because that’s what’s happened to me. I’ve had to make some difficult changes in my life to slow down and put myself first, all to help improve my own health.
I know it’s not easy!
Like Ellen from Self-care for Teachers says, “You’re a person first and a teacher second.”
MAKE THE SHIFT – follow some good healthy habits to help replenish and renew your energy so that you can keep doing the wonderful work that you do each and every single day.
Still not convinced?
These tips are quite profound.
If you read them quickly you may think that they won’t help. Or you may think, “I already know about these strategies.”
But often you can think that just by knowing something, that’s all you need to do to move forward. But this is not necessarily true.
This is just head knowledge.
I believe it’s in the DOING of something that makes the difference.
If you truly start actively adopting these stress management tips for teachers, they could be the link between the chasm of chronic stress and the healthy balanced life that you long for.
But, it will take practise!
The only way to get to the other side of this great-divide is to deliberately practise them over and over.
Stop being a martyr, as I have for so many years.
Adopt new healthy habits
Be fearless – Start some new healthy habits today and little by little, the change will start to happen. (I’m speaking to myself here too!)
Make sure you follow these tips:
- keep up with some much-needed replenishing activities throughout your term,
- find a caring colleague to build a relationship with
- set the necessary boundaries for yourself to help manage the stress that you know comes as part of the territory of teaching. Good luck!
PIN IT FOR LATER!
Remember you are worth it!
Michelle xx
Other Articles of Interest
- 9 Quick Wins to Boost Teacher Energy, Naturally
- The Top 10 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Teacher [To their face, anyway!]
- 3 Empowering Mindset Shifts for Teachers [That Will Change Your Life]
- Exposing 12 Self Care Myths: Important for Teachers to Know
- 6 Important Lessons I Learned from Teacher Burnout
Let me know how you’re going with managing your stress in the comments. Is there anything that is helping you?
DON’T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE STRESS-BUSTING TIPS PRINTABLE. IT’S ALSO IN THE FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY ALONG WITH MANY OTHER GREAT RESOURCES. IT’S FOR SUBSCRIBER MEMBERS ONLY!
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