Hey teachers! Happy 2021. We are so excited to be starting the new year fresh with teacher wellbeing and easier lesson planning in focus. There is nothing more important than your health, including your mental health, but with all the stress of last year and the uncertainty of the upcoming year, teacher stress is at an all time high.
According to The Guardian, “nearly ¾ of teachers and 84% of school leaders now describe themselves as ‘stressed’, and more than a third of education professionals have experienced a mental health issue in the past academic year. Almost half (49%) believe their workplace is having a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing.”
Before you head back to school, we thought we would give you 4 strategies for coping with stress in the new year, to improve your wellbeing and start the year strong. You can choose one or several of these methods, which are all scientifically proven to help your mental health.
1. Meditation
Meditation is a stress-busting activity that is perfect for teachers because it doesn’t require much planning or any equipment. Studies report that meditation helps relieve stress and depression as well as improving attention, concentration, and overall psychological well being.
How can it help teachers?
- Meditation promotes self-kindness. The education of an entire class of young people is a huge pressure, and many teachers set very high expectations for themselves. When you meditate you notice your thought patterns and are better able to acknowledge your mental state, which helps you to be kind to yourself on the days when you don’t feel great. Self-kindness has a ripple effect, and will spread to more kindness towards your students as well.
- It improves the quality of your sleep. Let’s face it, no teacher sleeps as much as they would like. Meditation helps you to quell the worries that keep you awake at night, stop racing thoughts in their tracks, and relaxes your body which helps you fall asleep more easily.
- It helps combat anxiety and depression. When over a third of educational professionals are experiencing a mental health issue, teachers need strategies to help keep mental health problems away. While getting help from a counselor, therapist, friends, senior leaders or family is always necessary, meditation can aid in preventing mental health issues and managing them when they come up.
How do you get started?
Find a quiet space where you can sit or lie down comfortably. Pay attention to your body, the way you feel, and your thoughts as they enter and leave your mind. Many beginners struggle with meditation because they think they are supposed to have no thoughts at all, but meditation is about noticing your thoughts and then bringing your focus back to the present moment. Remember that meditation is a practice rather than a one-off activity, and in order for it to work you should build it into your daily or weekly routine.
If you’re a beginner you can try a guided meditation through Spotify, Youtube, Headspace or Google, there are thousands to choose from!
2. Yoga
Moving your body is essential for wellbeing. This year, consider adding yoga to your workout routine as it has scientifically proven mental and physical benefits. Yoga has been proven to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and improves your quality of life. Like other types of exercise, yoga boosts your endorphins and helps you sleep better. There are many yoga routines that don’t require more than a mat, and you can do yoga for free in your home — perfect for a teacher’s timeline and budget.
How can it help teachers?
- Yoga can help reduce headaches or migraines. With a stressful job, little time to sleep, and increased risk of anxiety, teachers often experience headaches. Studies have found that people with migraines who practice yoga have less frequent and less intense migraines than those who don’t.
- Yoga promotes strength, balance, breathing, and overall health. It is accessible and helpful for both regular gym-goers and those who don’t love to exercise, which makes it easy to add to your routine. Exercise makes you feel accomplished, which helps with self esteem, and keeps anxiety and depression at bay.
- Yoga has been shown to improve workplace wellbeing and resilience, both of which are necessary for teachers.
How do you get started?
There are tons of free yoga classes online, simply search for one on Google or Youtube. You can even try searching “yoga for — ” whatever issue you’re hoping to solve that day. Or you can try doing a sun salutation every morning.
2. Laughter yoga
Not to be confused with traditional yoga, laughter yoga is an exercise that involves prolonged voluntary laughter. It is all about cultivating a childlike happiness and laughing for the joy of laughing rather than in appreciation of a joke. Laughter — even fake laughter — will improve your mood, flex your muscles, and leave you feeling good.
How can it help teachers?
- Laughter yoga will bring out your silly side. Teachers often need to be serious, and reign in any silliness in class to keep students on track, but you’re a person too, not just a teacher! Laughter yoga allows teachers to let go and rediscover simple fun when they’re not in the classroom.
- It will help you laugh more easily. There are times when things go wrong in the classroom, or when students say the funniest things, but you feel like you can’t laugh. Laughter yoga helps you to see what’s funny, and to laugh about it. Letting go of control can be very liberating, and will improve your mental health.
How do you get started?
Teacherly did a laughter yoga session with yoga practitioner, Dana Abdel Khalek for our teacher retreat last year. You can follow along with the video here.
4. Journaling
Journaling can transform your mental health and wellbeing. By putting your thoughts onto the page, you stop them from racing around in your head, and journaling is proven to reduce stress and anxiety and improves memory, sleep, and communication. Journaling can help you achieve your goals, reflect on your present circumstances, and make better decisions. It even has physical health benefits as well.
How can it help teachers?
- Journaling improves overall emotional health. Journaling will help teachers connect with their innermost needs or desires and can provide an emotional catharsis, for those days when things aren’t going your way. People who journal have better self confidence and emotional regulation. Journaling unlocks creativity, which will help with your pedagogy and allow you to think outside the box.
- Journaling helps solve problems. Writing things down forces you to think about the issue at hand more slowly, sometimes you don’t know what you’re really feeling until you write it down. When you read over something you’ve written, you will notice how your thinking has changed since you last wrote. It creates critical distance between you and your problems, and allows you to see your own thought processes.
How can you get started?
Staring at a blank page in a new journal can be intimidating. First, you need to let go of the fear that your entry won’t be perfect. Let go of perfect grammar, spelling and punctuation and just free-write your thoughts. You can also start by doing a bullet-journal, or follow journaling prompts.
“Sometimes when I start writing about something from one perspective, I gain clarity of thought, and realize there’s another way of seeing it. All the negativity and all of your problems start to fall into place when you write them down. Journaling allows you to be objective; sometimes you might read back over your own thoughts a few weeks later, and say, oh I can see how I got that wrong. It allows you to get distance.”
— Karl Pupé, Author of The Action Hero Teacher.
If you’re looking for more information about teacher wellbeing, look no further than our Audible Wellbeing courses with Dr. Louise Lambert. We have four courses tailored for teachers at any stage of their careers.
Wherever you are in your teaching career, we hope you’re staying well and taking care of yourself.
Do you want to learn how Teacherly can reduce your stress and make your life easier as a teacher? Request a demo of our platform by emailing us at ashna@teacherly.io or join the community by reaching out to zoe@teacherly.io
