I have written before about the worrying increase in the rates of chronic stress, exhaustion and burnout among the teaching profession. An educator’s work is highly demanding, requiring high levels of physical, mental and emotional energy.
Yet the majority are failing to take time to switch off and recover, with massive implications for health, quality of life and job performance.
Studies show that psychological detachment is the central experience of recovery from work-related stress. Just as the body requires sleep to physically replenish, the mind needs periods of detachment to recover from the mental and emotional demands of work.
Regular detachment from work reduces the levels of stress hormones in our body, decreasing feelings of anxiety and increasing a sense of control over our lives. It also improves the immune system, making it easier to fight off illness, reducing our chances of developing heart disease and other long term health conditions.
Psychological detachment is the central experience of recovery from work-related stress.
Yet my own (unpublished) research is indicating that 75 per cent of educators consider their inability to switch off to be the major contributing factor to a poor work-life balance and 89 per cent worry it may be affecting their health. So why is it hard for us to switch off? Research shows the main barriers to switching off are the following:
- Long working hours combined with poor home-work boundaries and constant accessibility.
- Emotionally intense working conditions coupled with lack of emotional support.
- Rumination over things that have happened or might happen.
- A general inability to relax.
How can we switch off?
The ability to switch off can be learned and improved over time. We know that tiny changes to habits can have a big impact, if they are implemented consistently and built up incrementally. These lifestyle changes should focus on reducing working hours, establishing work-home boundaries and seeking emotional support to help manage the emotional demands of the work.
The ability to switch off can be learned and improved over time.
They should also include using strategies to help us decompress, by embedding relaxing activities or employing relaxation practices, being intentional about finding “me time” and engaging in hobbies and pastimes that bring a sense of purpose or achievement. Finally, we should develop techniques to help reduce rumination and break the cycle of overthinking.
Work-home boundaries
Less than a quarter of school leaders feel they have good work-home boundaries in place. The key to establishing effective boundaries these days revolves a lot around our use of technology. Starting the day with non-work thoughts is a highly effective strategy to delay the initiation of our stress response and set us up for a calm and positive day. This means putting off reaching for our phones on waking and instead engaging in brief physical exercise, taking a bath, journalling or eating breakfast in the garden.
Less than a quarter of school leaders feel they have good work-home boundaries in place.
Likewise at the end of the day, we need to build friction to make the use of technology harder and reduce our accessibility. I have learned from others that the following techniques can be highly effective.
- Setting the Do Not Disturb function on your phone.
- Having a separate work phone with clear guidance to colleagues and parents on the times you are available and when it is “emergencies only”.
- Using a Digital Detox Box – a physical box or drawer where you lock way your devices
- Removing all but essential notifications.
- Deleting apps, such as school email, from the homescreen to make it harder to check.
- Limiting engagement in school-related WhatsApp groups and resetting the expectations of colleagues around this.
- Leaving the laptop at school or using a different computer, browser or profile for home
- Employing apps specifically designed to help manage device use such as Opal, Freedom, StayFree, Forest and OneSec.
- Using an old fashioned alarm clock to keep the phone out of the bedroom.
One school leader told me recently that she has a child lock on her laptop in the evenings and weekends and only her husband knows the password. She finds this highly effective.
Reducing rumination
In a recent study I conducted, 77 per cent of school leaders report that they always or usually ruminate over things that have happened or might happen at school. Overthinking is highly damaging to our health and job perfomance, causing insomnia and in the longer term contributing to high blood pressure and heart disease. We know that we experience more stress ruminating in the aftermath of a meeting with a colleague or parent than we do in the meeting itself.
Techniques to reduce rumination include:
- Recognising and acknowledging you are ruminating, asking yourself: “Am I problem-solving, or just going in circles?” This labelling helps activate the brain’s regulation system rather than the stress response.
- Externalising your thoughts by writing them down.
- Using “worry time” or a “worry window” of 10-15 minutes when you allow yourself to ruminate, and postpone ruminating outside of that time to the next “worry window”.
- Physical movement – to disrupt the rumination loop and bring a fresh perspective.
- Cognitive defusion – this puts a distance between you and your thinking and can include saying “I am having the thought that…because…”, saying the thought in a funny voice or repeating it aloud until it loses meaning.
While the educator’s work remains so highly demanding, learning how to embed these switching off practices gives us back some control over wellbeing and provides us with opportunities to unplug, reclaim our lives and restore our balance.
To find out how well you switch off and receive feedback and tips, take part in the survey Unplugged: How well do school leaders switch off?
Former international school leader and lawyer Helen Kelly is a researcher, writer, speaker and consultant in the field of school wellbeing. Through her work as The Positive Principal, she provides practical support to teachers, school leaders and others to enhance wellbeing and maximise the potential of the whole school community.
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