Stress Management and Teacher Resiliency

Stress Management and Teacher Resiliency

Historically, Performance Plus has showcased strategies outlining what you, as an educator, can do for your students and how you can improve as a teacher. This month, we ask you to take time to do something for yourself.

The constant challenges and demands you face as an educator can take their toll on your sense of well-being. When you feel strong, capable, creative, competent, and confident, you have the energy and internal resources to deal with whatever classroom problems arise. A survey of teachers identifies the following major effects of stress: feeling exhausted, feeling frustrated, feeling overwhelmed, carrying stress home, feeling guilty about not doing enough, and/or feeling irritable. In this issue, discover tips to manage stress and improve your resiliency.

Tips on how to manage stress

While stress is a fact of life, there are many ways to reduce its burden and renew your body, mind, and emotions. Read on for time-proven activities and strategies for stress management, personal renewal, and professional resiliency.

Strategy No. 1: Plan, Prioritize, Organize, and Simplify

• Plan: Managing your time is really about managing your energy. The key is to gain more control of both by learning to plan appropriately. Set realistic goals. Rather than thinking, “I will grade 25 papers tonight,” grade five per night over five nights. Setting and meeting small, attainable goals takes planning and is usually more successful and less stressful than setting one big goal.
• Prioritize: An essential part of reducing stress is learning to set and maintain priorities. If it is helpful to you, make a “to do” list, purchase a personal organizer, learn to say no, and avoid procrastinating.
• Organize and Simplify: Is your life too cluttered, fast-paced, or out of balance? You can improve the quality of your life by organizing and simplifying such areas as your lifestyle, personal time, shopping, work, finances, and health. Is it critical that you bake six different types of cookies for the school bakeoff? Can you buy and donate cookies instead? Or can you volunteer to help with the bake sale itself rather than being the baker?

Strategy No. 2: Relax
Relaxation is a powerful antidote to stress. Relaxing is not always as easy as it may seem. You may have to learn to give yourself permission to relax and just be. The following activities have proven to be effective for deep relaxation.

• Meditation: Meditation relaxes your mind and body, making it less likely that you will get caught up in so many of the stressors of everyday life. Meditation can lower blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and adrenaline levels. Even if you can find only a few minutes between classes or before school, meditation can provide a boosting benefit.
• Deep Breathing: When you are under stress, your breathing becomes more shallow and rapid. Therapeutic breathing is perhaps one of the easiest, most effective, and most cost-efficient means of reducing stress anywhere, anytime. Practicing slow, deep breathing techniques can help promote a sense of well-being.
• Physical Relaxation: The purpose of physical relaxation is to increase your awareness of being in your body rather than focusing on the external distractions of everyday life. Through heightened body awareness, you can gain a sense of relaxation.
• Guided Imagery: Guided imagery, sometimes called “visualization,” was pioneered by French psychiatrist and philosopher Pierre Janet in the 1890s. It developed from the discovery that a person’s imagination can affect his or her inner state of being. Certain images stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system to experience feelings of calm and well-being.

Strategy No. 3: Get Support
In times of stress, support is a necessity. Many individuals do not realize how important it is to have someone with whom they can share their emotions and inner reality. The inability to express emotions in healthy ways is directly linked to a rise in stress levels. It is also linked to an increased incidence of certain diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. Having a support network can play a valuable role in the process of learning to release emotions in a positive way.

• Support Systems: No one should have to cope with stress alone all the time. Create a strong support network for yourself and draw comfort from it in times of stress. The basic support systems available to you might include healing professionals, friends, family, support groups, pets, and hobbies.
• Peer Coaching: Peer coaching involves a collaboration between a teacher and a respected colleague. The process of peer coaching enhances the development of teacher performance and job satisfaction. Peer coaching also creates valuable opportunities for teachers to be favorably recognized—for both their accomplishments and their perseverance.

Bernshausen, D., & Cunningham, C. (2001). The role of resiliency in teacher preparation and retention. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Dallas, TX. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED451191).

Lapp, J., & Attridge, M. (2000). Worksite interventions reduce stress among high school teachers and staff. International Journal of Stress Management, 7(3), 229–232.

Lumpkin, A. (2007). Caring teachers: The key to student learning. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 43(4), 158-160.

Source: The above tips are based on PLS's graduate course Classroom Management: Orchestrating a Community of Learners®.For more information see "Related Graduate Course" to the right.

Performance Learning PLUS is a monthly e-newsletter by Performance Learning Systems (PLS), a comprehensive educational services company that has provided a full spectrum of programs, products, and consulting services to educators and business professionals since 1971.