Self-Care for Teachers

By Keri Cottrell

A parent is at your classroom door at 7:30 a.m. for an unscheduled parent/teacher conference. Your administrator stops you in the hall and would like to discuss your Performance Based Teacher Evaluation TODAY during your plan time. The internet is down, and your devices won’t connect, and you can’t make copies because the copy machine needs toner. And a student hasn’t taken a needed medication and is acting out. As an educator, you are probably saying, “welcome to my world.”

All of these things can quickly increase the stress level in your life. The American Medical Association reports that 60 percent of all illness and disease are caused by stress. This leads one to believe if we reduce the stress in our life, we will be healthier.

Being an educator causes you to constantly be trying to balance your home life and your professional life. If you do not engage in self-care, you will be forced to take care of yourself when stress presents itself as an illness, thus requiring you to seek medical care and take a step away from the classroom to allow your body time to heal. Taking care of yourself should be a top priority. But that is easier said than done.

Here are a few tips:

• Take time to eat a healthy diet to fuel your body and brain.

• Put exercise as a daily recurring event on your calendar.

• Make getting eight hours of sleep a priority. Sleep is your body’s way of resetting.

• Turn off electronic devices at 9 p.m. to ensure you have time to decompress prior to going to sleep.

• Practice mindfulness by becoming familiar with your own breathing.  Use taking a deep breath as an action you use to lower your heart rate during a stressful situation.

• Put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

• Read a self-care book. Some of my favorites are

º “One Word,” by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton, and Jimmy Page

º “Boundaries,” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

• Utilize apps that focus on reducing stress.

º Wysa allows you to have a conversation with a smart bot to focus on lowering your stress level.   

• Develop the practice of keeping a Gratitude Journal.

º List three things you are grateful for and why

º List one to two goals for each day

º Choose a person of the day  Make it a point to have a positive interaction with this person.

• It’s ok to not be ok. When stress overwhelms you, use your district’s Employee Assistance Program to seek professional advice from a counselor or contact your primary care physician.

Buddha reminds us “Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think”. One thing of upmost importance…. take time to take care of you.    

Keri Cottrell resides in Canton with her husband, Tony. They are the parents of two grown children, Andrew and Hannah. Keri received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Culver-Stockton College and later went on to earn a master’s degree in elementary administration from William Woods University. Keri spent 24 years as an elementary classroom teacher in the Canton R-5 School District. Currently, she serves as a member service coordinator for MSTA where she advocates for teachers in 37 school districts in northeast Missouri.