What do you do if teaching stress is impacting your resilience in the classroom?

As an educator, you might experience all kinds of stress from performance anxiety to imposter syndrome and those sneaky intrusive thoughts like "is this how my voice sounds?". Turn frustration into inspiration! Find confidence in the fact that by default you are in control here, you have authority as a recognized pro, and there is an audience willing to listen and learn from you. People literally line up to study your technique! It is an absolute win-win situation, and you are at the helm. How cool is that? You can totally do this.

Si enseñar el estrés está afectando tu resiliencia en el aula, aplica las 3 R: Retírate, Reposa y Regresa con energía. Primero, retírate temporalmente de la situación estresante. Toma un descanso corto, sal a caminar, respira profundamente o practica una breve meditación para calmarte. Luego, reposa y desconecta por completo del entorno educativo. Haz algo que disfrutes, como leer, escuchar música o pasar tiempo con amigos y familiares. Finalmente, regresa con energía renovada y una perspectiva fresca, listo para enfrentar los desafíos del aula con mayor resiliencia y eficacia.

Effectively managing your schedule is key to reducing stress. Prioritize tasks and establish achievable daily goals. Avoid overcommitment and understand when to decline commitments. Use productivity tools or apps like Todoist, Evernote, Trello, Google Calendar, and Forest to track deadlines and responsibilities. By managing your time effectively, you can minimize overwhelm and carve out moments for self-renewal, fostering resilience in your educational role.

Effective time management is extremely important to success both inside and of the classroom. Over time I've learned the little things I do daily in my personal life often adds to my stress. One of those things is watching tv. Watching tv can actually take up too much of one's time, then things become hectic. Over time I've learned to manage my tv time by simply turning it off or not turning it on. I've also learned that by taking time to outline my goals for the day and then taking account of them by the end of the day helps to me to recognize strengths and weaknesses and to get a better handle of how to work smarter, not harder. Self-monitoring needs to be an on-going tool that you use for and on yourself yet it is time well spent!

In my experience, teachers simply do not practice self-care enough. Eating healthy, getting enough exercise, having hobbies simply falls by the waist side. I've built up new hobbies to help me focus my attention elsewhere. I've also learned that eating and sleeping are directly correlated. Here are a few suggestions based on personal experience: 1. Keep track of what and when you eat. 2. Try to set an eat/sleep routine. 3. Build in some light exercise, even if it's just to walk the dog. 4. Experiment with a non-traditional hobby, such as a monthly massage, art classes, wine sommelier. 5. Most importantly, involve family. Last, have fun doing it! Teaching is stressful yet living as a teacher shouldn't be!

One thing I've found helpful is to clearly establish boundaries - teaching is what you do, not who you are. Start with some simple things: 1. In the morning tell yourself, "today I'm going to do my best" and then focus on that. 2. Separate who you are from what you're doing and, most importantly, from your students. I made it a point that I never shared any private or personal information with my students because I needed that separation. The students simply did not belong in my private life. 3. When the work day is done - Go Home! Take off your work clothes, shower if necessary but become YOU! Yes, you may need to grade or do some other school-related things but now you've eased out of teacher-mode and into YOU-mode! Big Difference! :)