Feeling Stress?
Posted by Kim Murphy on 17 Feb 2009 | Posted in: Life After School, Teachers and Teaching
This is me after Jazzercise. I’m tired, I’m sweaty, and my photographer is standing really far away from me—so I’m probably a little stinky as well. I try to exercise whenever possible, but let’s be honest, shall we? I would rather be sitting on the couch eating a cheesecake and watching reruns of House. (I just love that surly physician!) There are two reasons why I force myself to work out—the first being that I don’t want to buy larger pants. The more important reason is to reduce stress. Teachers have a lot of stress in their lives! What about teaching stresses you out the most, and how do you combat that stress? Do you exercise? Talk to coworkers? Bite your nails? Take bubble baths? Go to professional development workshops? Drop me a quick message and let me know. And if you happen to have a good cheesecake recipe, I would be tickled if you would tuck that in as well!
Your exhausted blog host,
Kim Murphy
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25 Responses to “Feeling Stress?”
More Comments Pages: [1] 2 3 » Show All Comments
More Comments Pages: [1] 2 3 » Show All Comments
I know what you mean about being stressed at school and then coming home to more. I am a pre-k teacher to children with disabilities and have a 13 year old boy, a 9 year old girl and two step-daughters 6, and 4. I love to get outside!! Mowing or working in the flower bed or just sitting on the front porch watching the birds. This is a great way for me to destress. I also do yoga.
This is coming from Ghana, West Africa. I teach Yr.1 in a British Prep School. Very long hours, 7:30 to 5:00pm each day. This brings a whole set of stress alive. What i do to combat it, is walk a very long distance around an area, where i can admire stuff on my way. It works for me.
I work in Oklahoma,& our teachers are paid at the bottom of the scale, yet we have to achieve at the top of the nation. I do not get a smart board like the math teacher & have i buy my own vcr,dvd,projector, dictionaries, etc..I am against merit pay because all teachers have helped the student to achieve not just one teacher, and again I will be discriminated against. I know the rate of heart attacks & cancer is rising for teachers, yet our retired teachers do not earn enough to retire other states where their relatives might reside, nor do our retired teachers receive full paid health insurance like other states. We are prime examples of STRESS that kills.
Wow! I have read 22 replys to this “Feel Stress” article. I am a teacher and I have taught in three states,two countries and all grade levels. One thing that I have learned is teaching causes stress, for all the reasons previously mentioned. For ten years I have tried exercise, food, diet, walking, sleeping etc… The closest cure mentioned is “Don’t sweat the small stuff” and I can add “Don’t worry about things you can’t control”.
I am surprised however that no one mentioned the obvious “meditation”. Stress is an emotional-mental dis-ease that causes physical pain. So, the cure must be mental as well. Thinking of your self first is what meditation is, if you take 20 minutes first thing in the morning, before doing anything else, by going inside yourself, feel the inner you, give yourself peace and tell yourself that you will not allow stress to enter your day, you will begin to see and feel a difference in your day and your students. Once the students know they can’t stress you out they will stop trying. If you need an extra boost during the day, give yourself another 20 minutes somewhere quiet.
I am in grad school part time (with what seems like a full time course load) studying Adolescent Education and I work full time in telcommuncations. I too get stressed and I anticipate being stressed when I start teaching 6th grade mathematics this upcoming fall. Stress is something that all people deal with and it was very helpful reading this because you all are where I hope to be and the suggestions offered were humorous yet valuable… My stress reliever is sleep
I was over stressed too. I landed myself in the hospital with horrible chest pains. I felt like a failure. Now I destress and realize I am not superteacher!! I can’t do everything and I can’t fix everything. I am walking again, watch what I eat, and sleeping more. If I don’t take care of me no one will. So when I got the “good” news that I was getting a difficult student from another classroom. I just said “Okay” and that I would do what I could(but I not going to try to fix her). Her problems started before she came to me and they with be there after she leaves my room. Take care of yourself and the rest will take care of itself. You can teach from a hospital room (I tried). Peace
I leave school AT school. Yup, I know, it seems crazy. But once I leave that building, that’s it…no more school stuff. I work really hard to use all my time efficienty during the day so that I don’t have anything left over to do at night or on the weekends. This has been the biggest stress relief ever!
Also, ASK for help. Three teachers got together and we all help each other out. We share room moms, plan together, and make copies for each other. It is a major help.
i just wanted to say that I love this site
I know what you mean, about being stressed. I recently had and anxiety and stress attack- due to too much on my plate. My doctor advised me to walk for 3 miles each day, and to “not sweat the small stuff”. That’s difficult to do when you work at a preschool with 24: 3-4 year olds and have 2 children at home, and one being a 14 year old! Good Luck!
I do Karate! It is great to stretch out the stress and move your body. I don’t do it for the violent aspect I do it for the goals to reach and the workout. I also learn great self defense techniques that make me feel confident about my body in space as well as my capabilities as a strong woman. Confidence is a great stress buster as well. I do it with my five year old which means we spend some time together. It is hard to wrangle 16 kids at school and then go home to the same thing. I teach Pre-K so it is indeed stressful. This helps me have a personal goal that is my own and that helps me de-stress. Also I practice my Katas (forms) in the morning before work. They only take 10 minutes and it helps me stretch. I hope this helps. It may also help you to know that I am 6 months pregnant and still going strong. I get my green belt at the end of the month!
I feel very stressed when I come home from work. It seems to be that the stress is not just from work, but also at home. We teachers spend our days with children, and when you have children at home as well, there just doesn’t seem like there is enough time to take a break for yourself. AS much as we love our jobs, there needs to be time to de-stress. With little time during the day, I find little increments of time throughout my day. As a preschool teacher, we have an hour and 45 minutes rest time to take advantage of. My co-teacher and I eat our lunch and do some Yoga. I used a digital voice recorder to record one of my favorite yoga routines and while the kids are resting we relax and focus on our breathing. This helps us get through the remainder of the day. Once I get home, I feel I have a little more energy than usual. I find my 20 - 30 minutes to walk with Leslie Sansone, as well. It is a convenient way to exercise no matter what the weather. During the warmer months, I try to encourage the whole family to go for a walk together after dinner. This aids in digestion and we get some family time to talk about school issues, upcoming events, or our next family time trip! It really pays off to find the 20 minutes a day to devote to yourself because you are the most important person in your life and you should come first!
Well, first of all you must have chocolate at least once per day! I keep some in my desk drawer at school. After school I try to do some sort of exercise…stability ball and yoga are great stress reducers and with routines that are only 20-30 minutes it’s not hard to squeeze in. During school, I can walk around the track while the kids are at recess. I try not to do school work every night, but rather a couple of nights per week or just weekends. This allows me time to step away from school and concentrate on other things. I also watch my carb intake. I find that a high carb diet is very draining. I try to eat a high protein diet, very few if any sodas and eat quality snack a couple of times a day. This keeps me from getting really hungry and helps to sustain my energy level. I would highly recommend getting a massage once in a while. If you live in a place where there are massage schools, you can have a student give you the massage and the cost is very minimal. Hope this helps.