Article by Kamalagita Hughes
Three-quarters of teachers experience work-related stress, with nearly half reporting depression, anxiety or panic attacks at work. At any one time, more than half are considering leaving the profession due to poor health and figures reported are higher for senior leaders.
You don’t need me to tell you this because I imagine that you are experiencing this every day on the front line. You likely already know that something needs to change, that it is increasingly difficult to keep on going in the ways that the education system is currently demanding. So, here’s some good news. Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to:
- Increase teacher/school/college staff well-being including a sense of a purpose, self-care, compassion and physical health.
- Help reduce school staff mental health problems, such as burnout, depression, stress and anxiety.
- Improve the ability to self-regulate, to pay attention and be more in the moment and find calm.
- Help school staff stand back from gripping thoughts and emotions, and respond more flexibly and creatively in the moment.
- Allow school staff to be more effective in the classroom, focusing on concepts and processes rather than content and behaviour, and stay on task rather than be taken off track.
Finding Calm
Have you ever considered that how you are – your mood and associated behaviours and responses – is a huge influencing factor on the atmosphere of the classroom? Often, you’re not fully conscious of your moods, and yet they have an effect on others. By becoming mindful of your internal weather, you can make a difference between being a calm breeze or whipping up a storm in the classroom.
Studies show that your thoughts aren’t separate from your emotions. Emotions, how you are feeling, tend to colour your
thoughts, views, judgement of people, things and events. But sometimes it’s hard to know how you’re feeling, especially in a busy environment like a school. It can feel like you are being bombarded from the moment you walk in, until the moment you walk out, with very little space for introspection.
But emotions, your mood, can affect your lessons, your interactions, your relationships and how well your day goes. So it pays to have some awareness of them. We’re not talking in-depth counselling here; but becoming aware of your mood, your internal weather, can really help in making choices that mean your day going more smoothly.
Tuning in
- Spend a few minutes just tuning in to how you’re doing. This can be done sitting in your car before leaving or arriving for work.
- Close your eyes, or have a soft gaze, and ask yourself, ‘What’s my internal weather right now?’
- An image might come to you, like a rain cloud or a hazy sky. Or you might have some sense of mood – sunny, stormy, bright or dull. Be patient, you might not get an immediate response.
- Whatever you find, it’s important not to judge this state. Acknowledging it gives you information and from there you can decide what would be helpful today. In this way, you can start to make choices about your day.
- Gently open your eyes if they’ve been closed, or refocus, to the broader environment around you.
- Whatever you’ve discovered, try not to fix this mood, to think that’s how it always is or always will be. Your moods are like weather systems; they can blow through and change.
What did you notice?
- What was the initial forecast or mood?
- What happened as you gently acknowledged it – did it stay the same or change?
Again, it doesn’t matter which, just notice.
Why this matters
Giving yourself a bit of space at the start of, or during, the school day can make all the difference to how positive and purposeful you feel. Often, when you focus on your mood, or how you’re feeling, if you perceive it to be negative then there’s immediately a sense of judgement. You think you should or shouldn’t be feeling like this, you may want to push it away. Or you may focus on what you need to do to ‘fix’ it, to ‘turn that frown upside down’.
But think of a snow globe: when you shake a snow globe, there’s a blizzard with snow flying everywhere. You can’t see anything clearly. That’s how your mind can feel sometimes; all over the place. You think it shouldn’t be like this and that you need to do something to change it. However, if you just leave the snow globe, the snow will gradually fall to the bottom and settle. It’s the same with your mind: if you acknowledge what’s going on and give yourself a bit of internal space, anything you’re feeling will just naturally calm and settle.
Mindfulness is not a panacea; it won’t solve the world’s problems. However, it is a capacity that we all have and can cultivate that has been valued through time as promoting the happiness that comes from being authentic. It can help us manage difficulty, be kind and lead a meaningful life based on our values.
About the Author
Kamalagita Hughes has been practicing mindfulness for 25 years and teaching it for 15. She is a qualified teacher and lecturer with substantial experience in the classroom and in teacher training, further education and higher education.
Kamalagita is also the education lead for Mindfulness in Action and a lead trainer for the Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP).
Mindful Teacher’s Handbook: How to step out of busyness and find peace, is out now. PB, £16.99, Crown House Publishing
