Turbulence ahead: put your oxygen mask on first

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight ‘AUT-1’. As your Captain, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve successfully taken-off and are now making our initial ascent. Please be aware that some turbulence may be ahead - do fasten your seat belts as we could be in for a bumpy ride. Remember – in case of an emergency, the oxygen masks will drop down: for safety reasons, please ensure to put your own mask on before helping others.”

Just like those in-fight warnings, whilst putting yourself before others in difficult situations might seem counter-intuitive, it’s absolutely essential if you’re to survive and indeed thrive long-term in the teaching profession.  Teaching is often fraught with a degree of stress and anxiety – it’s what compels us to strive for the best outcomes for our learners; day in, day out. 

Recognising Stress

Ironically, recognising and identifying your own stress levels can often be the hardest part.  We’re all-too-eager to pop down empty platitudes of our own making – swallowing mantras like, ‘it’s just a busy time of year’; I’m fine – I’ve just had a bad day,’ or ‘It’ll get better once X is done,’ to name but a few.  Often, it seems like we’re one perilous line away from the ‘I must work harder’ maxim of Animal Farm’s work-horse Boxer.  However, the simple truth is that whilst short-term pressures and stressors are an indelible part of the profession, perpetual and long-term stress and anxiety certainly should not be.

The Yerbes-Dodson stress curve illustrates this perfectly – once stress tips over from its (useful) ‘optimum’ balance, we swiftly enter a dangerous territory.  Stress then rapidly becomes harder to tip back into the ‘safe’ zone and – if we’re not extremely careful – can often take over and plummet us deep into overwhelming feelings of overload and ultimately burn-out. 

You only need Google ‘teachers leave the profession’ for several thousand case studies of this.

The key issue here is that that whilst we’re all too keenly aware of the stress factors and overall mental wellbeing placed on our young learners, we often seem wilfully-ignorant of it in ourselves.  It’s as if we deliberately turn a blind eye to our own tragic flaws as professionals – wanting to do the very best by our learners and never letting anyone down – and then we’re shocked when it brings us perilously close towards the knife-edge of burnout.

The brain waves goodbye to stress

You might - or might not - already know that the human mind has five distinct brainwave patterns.  If you’re unfamiliar, think of brainwaves as different frequencies of thought; from rapid to slow.  Here, understanding a beta and alpha waves in particular - and identifying these within yourself - are key to identifying and combating work-related stress.

Beta brainwaves occur in the brain when we’re in an alert, conscious state of being: it’s our natural state when fully awake and functioning.  Sounds fine, right?  As a general rule - yes; however, extended and periods in this state can lead to high levels of stress and anxiety and consequently inability to relax. 

Your inability to ‘switch off’ wherever you are?  High beta.  Losing your sense of humour and constantly feeling stressed? High beta.  Not being able to sleep because you’re constantly churning out thoughts?  High beta. 

You get the idea.

The truth is that whilst the alert-focused-problem-solving-reasoning aspect of the beta brain might seem useful, over an extended period of time, it can be extremely detrimental to our mental wellbeing.  Think of it as a computer with one too many multi-tasking tabs open at once: the CPU fan whirrs exhaustedly in a desperate attempt to slow and cool the wholdarn thing down.  Eventually, if the user takes no notice, the whole system just unexpectedly shuts down: Fatal Error.  Alpha brainwaves, on the other hand, occur when you close your eyes, breathe and relax for a moment.  Literally - your brain and its thoughts slow down; continue this for long enough and you’ll slow your brainwaves down enough enter into a more meditative state and its accompanying theta frequency.

Training yourself to be consciously aware of how you’re feeling in relation to the stress-curve, or indeed considering what brainwave frequency you’re likely in might seem unnecessary or indeed trivial when you’re slap-bang in the middle of a crisis at work (however objectively big or small it might be), but it can often be a first and vital step in quickly addressing an underlying issue.  Only then can you quickly resolve the underlying issue in your own mind before the outer situation escalates itself unnecessarily.

Ways to quickly de-stress at work:

•          Exercise: No one’s suggesting that you have to run a half-marathon at school.  Simply walking at a moderate-to-brisk rate in your spare time at work will instantly reduce overall feelings of stress.

•         JOM-TYS: Just One Minute To YourSelf! Find a space where no one can disturb you.  Close your eyes and count your breaths for a minute (alpha brainwaves, here we come).

•          Talk: Establishing a network of people you can genuinely talk to, without fear of judgement or repercussion is absolutely sacrosanct to your wellbeing at work.  Line Manager, colleague, friend, SLT – it doesn’t matter so long as you feel comfortable and you TALK.
  

Long-term strategies for well-being:

•          Become expert at recognising and identifying your individual stressors and triggers at work – and do something about them;

•          Plan your wellbeing activities into your weekly calendar (e.g. hitting the gym).  Stick to them whatever happens and make absolutely no excuses about it;

•        Delete your work email app.  It’s too addictive to check, nothing good will ever come of it – and you know it;

•          Always, always talk to your line manager or a member of SLT.  If you honestly feel that you ‘can’t’ then you should seriously consider whether you’re at the right school.

Cabin-crew: prepare for landing:

The truth is that turbulence is absolutely to be expected in this profession and so you should never feel ashamed in asking for support during difficult times. 

You have to recognise when you’re struggling for air and ultimately make the decision put your own oxygen mask on before others - however difficult that might initially feel.

Just remember: those around you once had to put their own oxygen masks on before you too.