Search results matching tags 'teacher' and 'self-care'

Supporting Teachers My Way

welleducator — Sat, 07 May 2011 17:03:00 GMT

The Institute for Educator Wellness has added a new division - Teachable Moments Transition Coaching.

I will be offering wellness classes and coaching just for educators, because, let's face it, we have a tough job!

Prevent Burnout: How to Say No

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:27:41 GMT

It’s easy to tell people, “you just have to say no – set some boundaries!” It’s another to put that into practice. I think the reason that is so difficult for educators is because we are in a caring profession – we want to help people.

The reality is, though, that you can’t be all things to all people, and if you are going to do your job well, you have to put some limits on your job, and what you will allow people to expect of you. If you don’t, sooner or later it will take a toll on you. It might even be a toll you can’t undo.

So, if you’re planning on being a teacher for the long haul, then you simply have to get good at setting some boundaries, and saying “no” some of the time. Deciding to do this is the easy part.

Now for the hard part. How?

Remember that you have a choice, and you are making one by either saying yes or no.
Take some ‘think time’ -You don’t have to respond immediately. Take some time to consider the request. Your time is limited, so when you say ‘yes’ to something, you are forcing yourself to say ‘no’ to something else. Taking time to consider this balance helps you to prioritize, and to make the best choice.
Counter-offer – if you can’t or don’t want to say yes, you might offer to do something else, or something small that is not overwhelming
Be honest – you can certainly express that you would like to take part in the activity, but that you are simply already overcommitted during that time period.
Be proactive/preventative – tell people up front that you are pretty busy, but that if you have time, you’d love to ___________ (whatever the request might be.) This helps them to know that it’s not that you don’t still ‘love them,’ but……..

Jennie Bayliss, on her website post “The Graceful Art of Saying No” offers the following tips, and I think they are good ones.

• Begin your sentences with: “I…”
• Keep all of your sentences short.
• Keep it to the point – extra details just weaken what you are saying.
• Avoid starting with: “You…” or “Why don’t you…”
• Avoid justifying yourself with: “But”

Once you get the hang of it, it will come easier. Remember to do what you say you will do – this will help those around you to know you mean what you say, and that pestering you will do no good.

Now, give it a try. You can do this!

Prevent Teacher Burnout: How to Say No

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:27:41 GMT

So, if you’re planning on being a teacher for the long haul, then you simply have to get good at setting some boundaries, and saying “no” some of the time. Deciding to do this is the easy part.

Now for the hard part. How?

Remember that you have a choice, and you are making one by either saying yes or no.
Take some ‘think time’ -You don’t have to respond immediately. Take some time to consider the request. Your time is limited, so when you say ‘yes’ to something, you are forcing yourself to say ‘no’ to something else. Taking time to consider this balance helps you to prioritize, and to make the best choice.
Counter-offer – if you can’t or don’t want to say yes, you might offer to do something else, or something small that is not overwhelming
Be honest – you can certainly express that you would like to take part in the activity, but that you are simply already overcommitted during that time period.
Be proactive/preventative – tell people up front that you are pretty busy, but that if you have time, you’d love to ___________ (whatever the request might be.) This helps them to know that it’s not that you don’t still ‘love them,’ but……..

Jennie Bayliss, on her website post “The Graceful Art of Saying No” offers the following tips, and I think they are good ones.

• Begin your sentences with: “I…”
• Keep all of your sentences short.
• Keep it to the point – extra details just weaken what you are saying.
• Avoid starting with: “You…” or “Why don’t you…”
• Avoid justifying yourself with: “But”

Once you get the hang of it, it will come easier. Remember to do what you say you will do – this will help those around you to know you mean what you say, and that pestering you will do no good.

Now, give it a try. You can do this!

8 Tips for Preventing Teacher Burnout

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:27:14 GMT

Teachers and others in the caring professions have to walk a fine line to build and maintain their resilience if they want to prevent burn out. In the education world, a popular figure subscribed to teacher burnout is one out of two teachers leave the profession within the first five years of their career.

The odds are good that if you are a teacher, you will encounter or experience burnout in your career.

There are no guarantees that you can prevent yourself from burnout out if you are a teacher. However, there are some safeguards you can put into place to lessen the likelihood that you will leave teaching due to burnout.

Set firm boundaries between your life and your work. Would you expect a banker to be available to you after work hours? No. Teaching is your profession, not your identity.
Speaking of identity, you need to have one outside of work. Cultivate relationships outside of work – join a group of people who enjoy a hobby you enjoy. Don’t let those lifelong friendships wither. Get involved with a cause you care about.
Cultivate relationships at work. Take the time to know your co-workers. Giving them the gift of your time and attention is more valuable than anything else you could give them. Collaborate on projects. Isolation is one of the key reasons teachers quit teaching.
Be selective about extra work commitments. You do not need to be on every committee, or involved in every single decision. Be selective. Choose an area you are most interested in, and focus on that.
Avoid making frequent assignment changes. Clearly you do not have total control over the teaching assignment you are given. Especially in this economy, it’s not likely you will get to be choosy about your assignment. However, you need to be careful to not change your teaching assignment if you don’t have to. Teachers who frequently change assignment, or end up teaching outside of their specialty often end up – you guessed it – burned out.
Take the time to meet your needs. Get enough sleep. Get some exercise. Give yourself some quiet time every single day. Eat food that is good for you. Drink your water. Make time to use the bathroom – teachers have a high incidence of urinary tract infections. Use your sick days or personal days.
Remember why you became a teacher. These days it’s not so easy to become a teacher, so nobody enters the profession by default. What drove you to work so hard to get that teaching certificate? What do you love about what you do?
Have a Plan B - Of course everyone has a bad day or week. Sometimes you get a particularly difficult class, or a difficult administrator and have a bad year. If you start having several bad years in a row, then you need to have an alternative in mind. You should always have a backup plan to teaching. How did you earn money before you became a teacher? What are your interests outside of work?

All you can do is your best. By taking care of yourself, you can share your best self with your students, your co-workers, and the important people in your life.

You can also find this article at Selfgrowth.com

Resilience:The Right Nutrients for You

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:23:05 GMT

Part of staying resilient involves getting that just-right combination of nutrients in this machine we live in called our body. It affects not only our physical health, but our mental state as well.

For example, if you feel like crying all the time for no good reason, you might not need anti-depressants. You might just be shy of vitamin B12. Researchers are finding out more and more about how vitamin deficiency or it’s opposite – overuse – can affect us.

Dr. Lendon Smith, author of Feed Your Body Right, has some very specific ideas about this.

“People would think it absurd if someone were to suggest they buy a generic dress or move into a generic home, yet they are perfectly willing to follow a generic diet.”

Smith lines out a plan for determining what is right for you in his book Feed Your Body Right: Understanding Your Individual Body Chemistry for Proper Nutrition Without Guesswork

Have you taken the time to figure out what makes your body work at it’s optimum? Many people don’t even pay attention to it!

One of Dr. Smith’s suggestions is to smell supplements before you take them. If they smell good to you, or have no smell, you need to take them. If they smell bad to you, your body doesn’t need that supplement right now.

The best place to begin is to start paying attention to what you are feeding your body, and how it affects you. You may notice some interesting patterns.

Avoiding Burnout: Anxiety Assessment

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:49:34 GMT

One of the people I began my teaching career with began to have severe, debilitating and bizarre anxiety attacks about five years into her career. It had been a stressful career to begin with – we were part of a large group of people hired to replace others our first year, and the staff went on strike our second year. I moved on after that, but she stayed, and I can’t imagine what else must have gone on in that setting. When I caught up with her, she was in a mental health facility, under strict supervision, and I could only bring her things that she could not possibly harm herself with. She did progress out of the facility, by the way, but I’m not certain she was successful at handling her anxieties. She unfortunately went on to have a whole host of health and mental health issues later in life.

Anxiety is a very real concern for educators. We work in one of the highest stress environments out there – right up there with nurses and police officers among others. I think it’s simply the nature of working with large numbers of people. How do you handle anxiety?

First of all, step back and assess your anxiety levels. Some people are comfortable simply being reflective of their state of being. Others like a more focused approach. Axis-One provides a free online anxiety assessment. There are others out there, but I like this one because it is ‘quick and dirty.’ (No comments from the peanut gallery, thank you.)

Start with that. Where are your anxiety levels?

Avoid Burnout: A short stressbuster

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:07:53 GMT

During your busy day it can be really difficult to find time to quiet your mind. A meditation session can be downright impossible to fit in. Here is a short little meditation activity I found that anyone can use no matter how busy the day.

This comes from a Prevention article by Sarah Mahoney.

“ Sit upright, focus on your breath, and pay attention to a physical sensation, such as the feel of air in your nostrils. When your mind wanders, notice the disruption, then return your attention to that simple sensation. Jha herself now meditates 5 to 10 minutes at a time, several times a day.” – Amishi Jha, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania

Give it a try. This professor says that she has encountered Marines who do this even while deployed in a war zone. If they can do it, you can too.

Self-care Reminder Again

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:45:57 GMT

I know I can’t be reminded enough to slow down and take good care of myself. I’m one of those people who is a single mom, and have aging parents, so the plate gets pretty full pretty quick. Not as full as the plate of a practicing teacher though!

So this is your reminder to slow it down this weekend. Take the time to do something to take care of yourself in some way. Only you know if you need to quiet your mind, get some exercise (or more sleep) or if you just need a good laugh. Whatever it is, take some ‘me time’ this weekend. It’s all about refilling your reservoir.

I’d love to hear what you will choose to do.

Avoid Burnout: Practice Kindness

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:29:29 GMT

Earlier today I was perusing blogs related to “burnout.” I wanted to see what other bloggers were saying, suggesting, and maybe make some connections.

I stumbled upon this one blog – the author IS burned out in her job. She has applied for a different job, and has totally checked out of the current one, showing up in body only. From her own description she has one crappy attitude. Then she has the audacity to complain that nobody pays attention to her.

Frankly, I can’t blame them. I wanted to put my eye out with a sharp stick rather than read any more of her whining. Being the problem solver that I am though, it got me thinking.

I have been in situations where I hated my job. We all have. One of the things you can do to make a horrid work situation more tolerable for yourself, others, and the situation is to stop looking inward, and start looking outward.

Observe

The people with whom you work
The boss
The tone of the work environment and how it changes throughout the day

Reach Out

Initiate conversations
Listen to others, and let them know you heard in some way (paraphrasing can be a bit overkill, so get creative about this. Asking more questions about what was said shows your interest.)
Remember some detail about what you were told, use it in conversation with that person to let them know you remember

Practice Kindness

Show interest in other people
Do something nice for the group or more quietly for an individual
Do something nice anonymously for someone who needs a little boost

When you practice kindness,

you take your attention off of your own ‘misery.’ (As one of my friends frequently says “Get over yourself!“)
you can watch the atmosphere of your work environment change for the better.
perhaps the job will not improve, but there will be at least something enjoyable to look forward to, making it a little easier to endure.
you will develop a strong, positive reputation amongst your peers and your employer – making you a desirable employee.

My daughter shared this with me, and I think it is an appropriate sentiment.

Give it a try. See how acting with kindness changes your world.

Resilience: Kicking an Addiction

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:39:49 GMT

Ceasing an addiction is SO VERY DIFFICULT. In order to succeed, I think you really have to want to do it. It has to be on the heels of a transformative experience – you know, one of those experiences that causes you to sit back and take a good hard look at your life.

I’m trying to stop with the coffee. Not caffiene – but coffee. It’s been the bane of my existence since my early teaching days back in the mid 80′s. That’s where it started actually, with that horrible Folger’s type of brewed coffee the school provided.

There is so much evidence out there that coffee just isn’t that good for you, though, if you look. Some researchers contend that coffee is good for you. I would question that assertion. I also wonder who is paying for those studies. I know it’s not as harmful as say, cigarettes or cocaine or meth or something like that, but are we sure about that?

“just one caffeinated drink – whether it’s a soft drink, caffeinated tea or coffee – will put your body on the caffeine rollercoaster. When you consume caffeine, the drug begins its effects by initiating uncontrolled neuron firing in yourbrain, according to Stephen Cherniske in his book, Caffeine Blues. This excess neuron activity triggers your pituitary gland to secrete a hormone that tells your adrenal glands to produce adrenalin.” excerpt from The Hidden Dangers of Caffeine NaturalNews.com

So while I know that coffee causes me no end of stomach problems, and certainly hypes me up, making me talk like Twitchy the Squirrel from the movie Hoodwinked when I have the caffeinated variety – the plain and simple fact is, I like the taste of coffee. I like the social aspects of meeting a friend for coffee. I have no end of emotional attachment to pie and coffee.

Yet, it really torks me off when Starbuck’s refuses to brew decaf in the afternoon (isn’t that when most people want decaf?) and insist instead on giving you a decaf espresso drink? Think there’s more caffeine in that? You bet there is. A few years back Starbuck’s was in hot water for spiking their tea products with extra stimulants, so I don’t put anything past them. They are as bad as the cigarette companies when it comes to addicting people….. and when coffee houses in general started charging about $4 for lattes. Another good reason in the ‘quit’ category.

So, how can I go about this in the most successful way possible?

The first part, I”m finding is behavioral. I have to stop habitually going to coffee houses. There are enough tea houses in this area that if I really want a suitable place to get out and visit with my friends, a tea house will suffice. And, I can start limiting my coffee intake at home, by being really really disciplined, and making a smaller pot of coffee the night before, setting the automatic brew feature on my pot. Maybe I should get one of those “coffee for one” setups.

The second part has to be mindfulness. I have to be attentive to the way I think about coffee, and the way I treat coffee. Think of all the money I would save if I do not drink it at all.

And the reason I’m putting it out there for you all to bear witness to? If you all know about it, then I HAVE to hold myself accountable. I don’t want one of you to catch me drinking coffee now that I’ve told you I’m trying to quit.

Have you ever tried to quit an addiction? How did that go? What was successful for you? I’d love to hear what you experienced.