Ten Ideas to Help Teachers Manage Stress

OK, here is an article in the Guardian which aims to look at ideas to manage and offset some of the stress that teaching staff inevitably find confronts them. The ideas ar very simple and mainly focus on shifting attitudes, learning to time manage and also prioritising. Also some ideas are presented with regards to 7/11 breathing but the technique is not explained properly in this article.

Professionally as a Stress Management Counsellor, I think the artcle is far too simplistic. It aims to present very simple ideas which of course may work to an extent but if a teacher is already suffering from stress overload then it means that demands exceed the perceived coping abilities and capabilities of the teacher. As such these rather simplistic ideas are very unlikely to work due to the fact that the teacher's limbic system will be hijacking their neo cortex. In other words the emotional part of the brain will be dominant and the logical plus analytical frontal cortex will be effectively hijacked.

Far better to learn clearly what stress is for example Eustress and Distress. PLus learn the positive and negative effects of stress whilst identifying the particular triggers in one's life that set off stress in you as an individual. Then learn powerful stress busting methods such as Self Hypnosis, Block Breathing, Rag Doll Breathing, Seven/Eleven Breathing (taught correctly) as well as Auto Suggestion.

Prior to that if the teacher is very stressed it is useful to undergo some sessions of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy with a professionally accredited therapist, to calm down the emotions and to allow clearer thinking patterns to emerge.

Lastly the whole School (Academy. College etc) needs to look at stress within the establishment as a whole because a lot of stress is organisational and therefore no matter how much a teacher is resilient, if the organisation does not have in place good working practices, with clear channels of communication and a respect for a healthy workplace then individual stress management whilst somewhat effective will be hampered by that ineffective organisational style.

​https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/nov/06/teachers-beat-stress-10-ideas