How can schools look after their teacher's mental and physical health and promote cultures of well-being?
Robertson, F (2023, March 06). Teacher well-being. Retrieved from https://www.structural-learning.com/post/teacher-well-being
Recently I was invited into a school by a head teacher who was struggling to, in her words, “be responsible” for everyone's mental health and well-being. She asked me to lead a workshop with the team about well-being in their school.
The first thing I did was play some music, to be precise, I played Heather Small's “Proud”, which contains the lyrics “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”. This resulted in many of the team within the school staff moving without any thought about what they were doing.
I then shared with them the power of dance in making you feel good - it raises your feel-good or happy hormones - and I also shared how dancing is now said to ward off dementia. In other words, this physical movement can improve both physical health and psychological health; thereby having effects on teacher wellbeing.
The song was deliberately chosen to remind the team to celebrate all the micro successes. Every single one. We tend to celebrate the big wins and let the little ones pass us by. Why? We don't let the small moans pass us by. However, by celebrating every small win we embed those good memories into our neurological thinking.
So when complaints come in or something goes wrong, we have enough of the “good stuff” recorded in our thinking that we can cope. You can celebrate every micro success by either recording in a journal or with a physical movement. That might be a pumped fist or star-shaped pose.
Imagine you are just about to win that race and you are heading over the finish line. What would you do? The physical movement registers in your brain physiologically and produces happy hormones, bringing about positive well-being and emotions. Ultimately this impacts on your life balance and will also improve your sense of job satisfaction.
I then asked two fundamental questions: what is mental health and well-being in schools and who is in charge of it? This resulted in much debate as you can imagine. Before you read on, I ask you to stop and think about these two questions. Simply pause and consider:
What does well-being in schools mean to you? What does good well-being of teachers look like for you? Is that the same for everyone in your school? Senior leaders? Education support staff? Who is responsible for your well-being? Can anybody else have an impact on your well-being?
Put simply, “well-being” is about how we are doing both now and also how sustainable that is in the years ahead. It is about feeling good and functioning well. The English Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy”. In many ways here is the challenge. How can you ensure that you and your team are “comfortable, healthy and happy”? In reality I suggest that you cannot.
Well-being is about a wide scope of sectors of a person’s life, including their emotional and social state, their physical state, their spiritual state, their financial state and also their digital and environmental state. All of the above will have an impact on the lives of teachers. The individual must take responsibility for much of this within their daily lives.
The culture of your school does have an impact on how it can manifest itself. All staff will contribute to the culture. For example, is there a culture of positive gossip rather than negative gossip in your school? Do you see feedback as an opportunity to grow and develop or as a negative experience?
All staff can have an impact on the culture within the school. Indeed this can then in turn impact on the potential for positive well-being of you and your team and enhance your emotional experiences and emotional lives.
Negative gossip in school - and by that I mean that talking about people rather than having direct conversations - results in people believing what they think is being said. This can result in negative effects.
Your thoughts about what people are saying are just that, thoughts. They are not facts. Remember you will never speak to anyone more than you speak to yourself, so be kind when you speak to yourself. Relationships between teachers matter. Relationships on teacher well-being impact on everyone in the building. Co-incidentally they will have an impact on job satisfaction.
I suggest that it is everyone’s responsibility as a whole school to feed into that state of being comfortable. In other words, everyone in the school is responsible for the well-being of themselves and each other. In other words, positive teacher well-being is impacted by everyone.
How we view the world impacts on this. Those internal working models we create about what we think is happening matter. How we construe what is happening around us has an impact on this positive teacher well-being.
As already mentioned, if you view feedback as an opportunity rather than a negative experience, you will seek feedback rather than reject it. If the culture of your school sees mistakes as a chance to learn rather than an error then this positive approach will have a positive impact on wellbeing. John Medina comments that optimism can extend life by eight years. Education settings that promote a positive gossip approach will generate improved positive teacher well-being and I suspect prevent burnout in teachers.
However, even with a positive outlook and a yearning to grow and develop all of us can have days where our well-being is not so good. Being aware of what happens in your body physiologically can support this. Fundamentally when you are having a stressful day, the stress hormone - cortisol- rises in your body. Low levels of this is okay however when levels of this hormone rise too high, then we tend to react and not respond. So can we, as education staff, impact this hormone ourselves?
Well, in short, we can. We can impact this by increasing the happy hormones that are in our bodies. So what can we do?
Regular-paced breathing increases the serotonin and DHEA levels in our body. Try breathing in for four, holding for three and breathing out for seven. Do this for three minutes ( you can begin this exercise for shorter periods of time to start with). How do you feel now? You will notice a difference in your body. You will feel calmer. Positive emotions are building. You can do this at any time you feel stress coming over you. Just focus on your paced breathing and nothing else. Breathe.
Another way to alter the hormonal balance in your body is to move. I have already mentioned dancing. This will do it. This increases serotonin levels in your body. Now it may not always be possible to dance so if you cannot do this there are other ways to move. Go on a walk even if only for ten minutes. Remember the very time to relax is when you don't have time for it. Life balance is important. In my workshop we worked through lots of examples of how movement makes a difference. We also looked at how posture and the way we stand and sit changes our hormones.
When you have a tricky situation looming, another way to counterbalance the stress hormone is to visualise the situation and the outcome. Visualisation activates neurology and reduces stress hormones. The more vivid this is the better. It may take practice; however, it is worth it. Again in the workshop, we did some of this with powerful results, enhancing that sense of staff wellbeing.
Interaction with others lifts dopamine and oxytocin levels in your body which also counter the stress hormones. This is why talking something over with another person can be so powerful. It is why coaching can have such powerful effects. That thinking partner helps keep the “happy hormones” in place and reminds you to celebrate all the micro successes all of which counterbalance the raised cortisol levels that can occur when under pressure.
Many school leaders already take up coaching for this very reason. It is perhaps something that teachers should consider to. Schools can consider a coaching approach to leadership. Brene Brown says that “we don't have to do it alone, we were never meant to”.
In other words, our brains can control and have an impact on our well-being. There are things we can do to ensure that we maintain this sense of being comfortable for as much as possible. Being aware of this in itself aids our well-being. Moving more, being creative and ensuring we relax - diarise it if need be alters the hormones in our body and this will impact on how we are feeling.
Sleep also has an impact. During our sleep our brains are washed. The toxins that build are flushed through by our cerebrospinal fluid so a lack of sleep means this may not happen. Sleep allows our bodies to recuperate. As education professionals, we all need to pay more attention to our own well-being. We deserve it.
In summary, simple exercises, changing the way you look at a situation can result in changes of thinking and this results in changes to behaviour which in turn can make a massive difference to your well-being. If you are experiencing enhanced well-being this will of course impact on others’ well-being too. I would suggest this then improves your personal relationships and interpersonal relationships. It will aid better mental health, provide for better life balance, improve the lives of teachers and prevent burnout in teachers. You are worth it.
Recently I was invited into a school by a head teacher who was struggling to, in her words, “be responsible” for everyone's mental health and well-being. She asked me to lead a workshop with the team about well-being in their school.
The first thing I did was play some music, to be precise, I played Heather Small's “Proud”, which contains the lyrics “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”. This resulted in many of the team within the school staff moving without any thought about what they were doing.
I then shared with them the power of dance in making you feel good - it raises your feel-good or happy hormones - and I also shared how dancing is now said to ward off dementia. In other words, this physical movement can improve both physical health and psychological health; thereby having effects on teacher wellbeing.
The song was deliberately chosen to remind the team to celebrate all the micro successes. Every single one. We tend to celebrate the big wins and let the little ones pass us by. Why? We don't let the small moans pass us by. However, by celebrating every small win we embed those good memories into our neurological thinking.
So when complaints come in or something goes wrong, we have enough of the “good stuff” recorded in our thinking that we can cope. You can celebrate every micro success by either recording in a journal or with a physical movement. That might be a pumped fist or star-shaped pose.
Imagine you are just about to win that race and you are heading over the finish line. What would you do? The physical movement registers in your brain physiologically and produces happy hormones, bringing about positive well-being and emotions. Ultimately this impacts on your life balance and will also improve your sense of job satisfaction.
I then asked two fundamental questions: what is mental health and well-being in schools and who is in charge of it? This resulted in much debate as you can imagine. Before you read on, I ask you to stop and think about these two questions. Simply pause and consider:
What does well-being in schools mean to you? What does good well-being of teachers look like for you? Is that the same for everyone in your school? Senior leaders? Education support staff? Who is responsible for your well-being? Can anybody else have an impact on your well-being?
Put simply, “well-being” is about how we are doing both now and also how sustainable that is in the years ahead. It is about feeling good and functioning well. The English Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy”. In many ways here is the challenge. How can you ensure that you and your team are “comfortable, healthy and happy”? In reality I suggest that you cannot.
Well-being is about a wide scope of sectors of a person’s life, including their emotional and social state, their physical state, their spiritual state, their financial state and also their digital and environmental state. All of the above will have an impact on the lives of teachers. The individual must take responsibility for much of this within their daily lives.
The culture of your school does have an impact on how it can manifest itself. All staff will contribute to the culture. For example, is there a culture of positive gossip rather than negative gossip in your school? Do you see feedback as an opportunity to grow and develop or as a negative experience?
All staff can have an impact on the culture within the school. Indeed this can then in turn impact on the potential for positive well-being of you and your team and enhance your emotional experiences and emotional lives.
Negative gossip in school - and by that I mean that talking about people rather than having direct conversations - results in people believing what they think is being said. This can result in negative effects.
Your thoughts about what people are saying are just that, thoughts. They are not facts. Remember you will never speak to anyone more than you speak to yourself, so be kind when you speak to yourself. Relationships between teachers matter. Relationships on teacher well-being impact on everyone in the building. Co-incidentally they will have an impact on job satisfaction.
I suggest that it is everyone’s responsibility as a whole school to feed into that state of being comfortable. In other words, everyone in the school is responsible for the well-being of themselves and each other. In other words, positive teacher well-being is impacted by everyone.
How we view the world impacts on this. Those internal working models we create about what we think is happening matter. How we construe what is happening around us has an impact on this positive teacher well-being.
As already mentioned, if you view feedback as an opportunity rather than a negative experience, you will seek feedback rather than reject it. If the culture of your school sees mistakes as a chance to learn rather than an error then this positive approach will have a positive impact on wellbeing. John Medina comments that optimism can extend life by eight years. Education settings that promote a positive gossip approach will generate improved positive teacher well-being and I suspect prevent burnout in teachers.
However, even with a positive outlook and a yearning to grow and develop all of us can have days where our well-being is not so good. Being aware of what happens in your body physiologically can support this. Fundamentally when you are having a stressful day, the stress hormone - cortisol- rises in your body. Low levels of this is okay however when levels of this hormone rise too high, then we tend to react and not respond. So can we, as education staff, impact this hormone ourselves?
Well, in short, we can. We can impact this by increasing the happy hormones that are in our bodies. So what can we do?
Regular-paced breathing increases the serotonin and DHEA levels in our body. Try breathing in for four, holding for three and breathing out for seven. Do this for three minutes ( you can begin this exercise for shorter periods of time to start with). How do you feel now? You will notice a difference in your body. You will feel calmer. Positive emotions are building. You can do this at any time you feel stress coming over you. Just focus on your paced breathing and nothing else. Breathe.
Another way to alter the hormonal balance in your body is to move. I have already mentioned dancing. This will do it. This increases serotonin levels in your body. Now it may not always be possible to dance so if you cannot do this there are other ways to move. Go on a walk even if only for ten minutes. Remember the very time to relax is when you don't have time for it. Life balance is important. In my workshop we worked through lots of examples of how movement makes a difference. We also looked at how posture and the way we stand and sit changes our hormones.
When you have a tricky situation looming, another way to counterbalance the stress hormone is to visualise the situation and the outcome. Visualisation activates neurology and reduces stress hormones. The more vivid this is the better. It may take practice; however, it is worth it. Again in the workshop, we did some of this with powerful results, enhancing that sense of staff wellbeing.
Interaction with others lifts dopamine and oxytocin levels in your body which also counter the stress hormones. This is why talking something over with another person can be so powerful. It is why coaching can have such powerful effects. That thinking partner helps keep the “happy hormones” in place and reminds you to celebrate all the micro successes all of which counterbalance the raised cortisol levels that can occur when under pressure.
Many school leaders already take up coaching for this very reason. It is perhaps something that teachers should consider to. Schools can consider a coaching approach to leadership. Brene Brown says that “we don't have to do it alone, we were never meant to”.
In other words, our brains can control and have an impact on our well-being. There are things we can do to ensure that we maintain this sense of being comfortable for as much as possible. Being aware of this in itself aids our well-being. Moving more, being creative and ensuring we relax - diarise it if need be alters the hormones in our body and this will impact on how we are feeling.
Sleep also has an impact. During our sleep our brains are washed. The toxins that build are flushed through by our cerebrospinal fluid so a lack of sleep means this may not happen. Sleep allows our bodies to recuperate. As education professionals, we all need to pay more attention to our own well-being. We deserve it.
In summary, simple exercises, changing the way you look at a situation can result in changes of thinking and this results in changes to behaviour which in turn can make a massive difference to your well-being. If you are experiencing enhanced well-being this will of course impact on others’ well-being too. I would suggest this then improves your personal relationships and interpersonal relationships. It will aid better mental health, provide for better life balance, improve the lives of teachers and prevent burnout in teachers. You are worth it.
