It is important for teachers to learn about how to reduce stress because being a teacher demands a lot of dedication and work on the side for those who diligently do it. Therefore, all teachers must become knowledgeable about stress management.
At any level of education, teaching is a huge job that calls for a lot of commitment and work. It is virtually impossible to not feel under pressure while carrying out the teaching task with the unending lists of names of students from various courses that must be memorized, class planning, homework correction, test preparation, and more.
Since work stress is an illness that is affecting an increasing number of people today, all teachers must be informed about how to prevent it.
In this article, I mentioned 6 Practical and helpful tips for teachers to reduce stress and enhance positive general well-being.
6 Tips to Reduce Stress as a Teacher
1. Know the Cause of Your Stress
Just as Zizi Abok said, “You can’t solve a problem you don’t understand”. Knowing the exact causes of stress is necessary before you can manage or reduce it.
Make a note of everything that stresses you out and categorize them into things you can manage and things you can’t. With the help of realistic and positive goals, you can concentrate on finding solutions for the things you can manage and the ones you can’t.
2. Try Engaging in a Relaxation Exercise
There are various mindfulness practices you can implement to slow down and lower your stress levels if you are the type of person who is not used to meditating or doing yoga or pilates. I’ll mention 2 of these practices;
One of them is to get to the classroom a few minutes early, sit at your desk, and play some soothing music. Try to think positively about the day ahead and picture yourself remaining as composed as you can when necessary in situations involving your students, coworkers, or superiors.
The second is to use the 7/11 technique. This exercise involves you breathing in seven deep breaths and breathing out eleven quick breaths. By extending the exhalation, you aim to become more composed before reacting hastily to a challenging circumstance.
These two simple exercises help reduce stress and keep you calm in certain situations.
3. Take Each Day As It Comes
If you constantly allow stress to overwhelm you, you won’t be able to appreciate the delights that teaching gives, and you might later regret not having taken more pleasure in the year. Do your best to take each day as it comes rather than letting the minor things get to you.
Recognize that you have little control over most of what takes place in the classroom, and always ask for assistance when you require it.
4. Discuss it With Your Colleagues
“A problem shared is a problem half solved.” It’s important to occasionally have an open discussion about workload and stress with other teachers, even though complaining about work all the time during lunch or breaks isn’t particularly useful. However, teachers should relate with you on the appropriate and inappropriate workloads.
Also, you can ask your colleagues about how they manage stress and maintain the balance as a teacher, most of them would give you one or two of the best strategies that are working for them which you can also implement into your day-to-day activities.
5. Set Achievable Goals Everydayness
If you set out to complete a huge amount of unachievable tasks each day, you will always feel defeated or underperforming when you get home. Therefore, make a list of your goals for the day at the start, making sure they are achievable. After the day, evaluate what you were able to accomplish and what you weren’t, and in the end, consider why you weren’t able to complete the task.
For example, if you failed to complete the day’s task because you spent more time explaining a topic to a particular student who needed more help, you have to realize that it was not intentional and that you did a good job.
6. Leverage a School Management System Software
There are a lot of tasks you can spend less time on with the help of a school management system. Stressful tasks like marking notes, attendance, students details, report cards, etc are made easy with a school management software. Less workload, reduced paperwork, customised learning, time effectively and more are the benefits of a school management system.
For example, you can process the students results faster, the school management system helps teachers with the computation of results, grading, performance rating, and ranking. The results are then submitted for the school administrator to review and publish.
Rather than the whole stress of marking, arranging, recording and filling in a report card every midterm and end of the term. That’s time saving and less stressful. Isn’t it?
Conclusion
Teaching is never an easy job but you can be able to reduce the stress and improve your productivity with the above-mentioned tips.