Protecting Your Mental Health

Most of the time, I am offering resources, talking about best practices in education, etc. This blog post will be immensely different, and I hope you are okay with that.

As someone who has left the past two teaching positions before the end of the year–I think it is important to discuss Mental Health as a Teacher. How can we protect our mental health? How can we advocate for ourselves? How do we survive? I am sorry, but I do feel like most teachers are just surviving sometimes. The coffee cart and stale donuts don’t make it “worth it.” So let’s do some real talk. HONESTY. If you LOVE teaching and never have a bad day–this post may not be for you. However, it may be perfect because you won’t always have good days.

1. Find Your Sanctuary

No, I am not getting religious on you. However, you need a place to decompress. Actually, TWO places. You need an afterwork place, this might be your home, or it might be something like the gym. A place to shake off the day. The other “sanctuary” needs to be at work. However, I will caution you–chatting with other teachers (although fun and a great serotonin boost) doesn’t need to be the place you decompress. For example, I LOVED chatting with my co-workers but every day, I had to take 5-10 minutes, turn the lights off in my room, lock the door, and just breathe. I might take that time to send a text to my hubby or mom. This time reminded me that my identity is not “being a teacher.” I am a person, wife, mom, sister, daughter, and teacher. Being pulled at all day be young kids can drain you really fast. Taking this time is crucial.

2. Teach in a Way You Love

I know this seems like something you might not have control over, but you do. You do not have to teach the same way every other teacher does it. If your method of teaching is different than the teacher that does all of the room transformations; THAT IS OKAY! If you LOVE room transformations; THAT IS OKAY! The important thing about teaching is–the students. If the students are learning and feel loved, then your method (whatever it may be) is working! Don’t exhaust yourself just to impress your admin or the teacher next door.

3. Eliminate Choas and Stressors

I am not just talking about classroom management. I also mean anything during the day that might cause chaos or stress. For example, you can be helpful to other teachers BUT if there is someone who is always piling work on you, taking up your time, or being disrespectful–you do not have to keep interreacting with that person on a daily basis. I learned this the hard way and almost lost my mind trying to be “everyone’s best friend.” Go to work, put your energy into your teaching and your students–the rest can fade away. Now, part two to this IS classroom management. Look at your daily classroom management process/procedures and make sure you are doing everything you can to make the classroom a calm place for you and for the students. I know that isn’t always possible, especially when administration isn’t helpful, but just taking a mindful look at how you manage your classroom might give you some ideas of things that could be better. Trust me, spending 8 hours in a high stress classroom isn’t fun for anyone!

4. Ignore Toxic Positivity

Listen, I will be the first to tell you that being positive is a good thing. However, toxic positivity oozing from admin, some teachers, and people that are really just out of touch with reality will drive you INSANE. Below are some examples that toxic positivity is in the air.

• Telling someone to smile, think positive, or be optimistic when they are feeling sad, angry, or hurt
• Saying “everything happens for a reason” or “you have nothing to be stressed about” to someone who is going through a tragedy or a hardship.
• Pretending everything is fine (as a leader) when it is not and change needs to occur.
• Minimizing other people’s experiences with “feel good” quotes or statements
• Only posting ideal photos on social media or using hashtags like #GoodVibesOnly or #PositiveVibesOnly

Again, being positive isn’t wrong–but people making you feel bad because you might be having a bad day is not okay. So, ignore it.

5. Finally, Medicine?

You may stop reading at this point or it may be exactly what you need to hear. I am going to be 100% transparent and tell you–during year 5 of teaching, something went wrong inside of me. I don’t know what…other than I had changed schools and it was a school where kids “tested” to get in. Mostly GT students and scores were demanded to be HIGH. Not passing, but HIGH. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I stopped eating, felt sick to my stomach all of the time, cried non-stop (at home) and finally, my mom (thank goodness) took me to the doctor. Yes, at 27 years old, my mom took me to the doctor. She had been on medicine and knew what was wrong with me. I was DETERMINED to not get on medicine. It was a sign of weakness to me. Long story short, it changed my life. I wouldn’t be here today without it. Now, did it make teaching all rainbows and unicorns? lol, NO! It isn’t for that. However, if you are struggling in life…and you know if you are…consider visiting with your doctor. The funny thing was, after I got on medicine–I confided in a few people, and THEY were on medicine too. It made me feel better. Now, 11 years later and I still take the medicine and probably will forever. My doctor told me to look at it like high blood pressure or diabetes. I am treating something that is wrong with my body.

Conclusion

I know this doesn’t have fancy pictures and links to all kinds of cool things—but sometimes we just need to chat. Teaching is hard. Period. People expect us to be happy all the time about our job, but we are underpaid, underappreciated, and that makes our job harder than it already is. Take time for you. Teach the way you teach best. Ignore the stressors and toxic positivity–and if all of that isn’t enough, it is OKAY to visit with your doctor to see if he or she can help.

I hope in some way this helped you. I hope in some way you gained a piece of information that you can take with you. 🙂

xoxo,

Hillary