How and Why to Look After Your Wellbeing as an Education Leader
Education leaders feel immense stress, and it can have serious impacts on headteacher wellbeing. Here's why that matters and what to do to improve your wellbeing.
There are many different ways that eucation staff can manage their stress levels. Self-care, exercise, and quiet time alone are all common methods. Another way that can help to improve teacher wellbeing is meditation. Meditation is used worldwide in many cultures to reduce anxiety and stress while providing emotional stability. It can help you deal with the stressful moments that come out of nowhere and help you stay engaged and energetic for your pupils.
Meditation is a practice used to relax the body and mind. It can involve focusing on and being aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations in the present moment. It may also centre on losing focus on busy thoughts, or simply concentrating on the breath.
When you start a meditation session, taking a few deep breaths is usually best to relax your body and mind. This allows you to recognize your thoughts and feelings without judgement or criticism.
The goal is to be mindful of your current experience and accept your thoughts and feelings without letting them control you.
There are many different ways to implement meditation to improve education staff wellbeing. You can add it to your daily routine and meditate in the morning or the evening. Alternatively, you can meditate after a challenging class, meeting, or lunchtime.
Stress is nothing new to teachers. However, you might be surprised to know that teachers experience twice the average level of workplace stress compared to other professions. Unfortunately, these high-stress levels result in many teachers leaving the profession.
Meditation for teachers can be a great way to improve wellbeing and decrease stress levels.
You can break down the benefits of meditation into two types, immediate and long-term. Some of the primary benefits of meditation are:
These immediate benefits can help you navigate particularly stressful experiences or intense times during term, for example, when you have to mark mock GCSE exams. You can experience these benefits by meditating after a stressful class or as soon as you get home.
The long-term effects of meditation are just as impressive. After a few weeks or months of consistent meditation practice, you may start to feel:
These effects build on each other to create a profound sense of wellbeing. The long-term benefits can prevent you from feeling stressed in the moment and help you keep calm even in the most challenging classes. It's important to note that meditation works for many people, but it is not a one-size fits all solution.
Many different types of meditation can improve teacher wellbeing. You can experiment with different meditation methods and identify the best type that suits your needs and routine.
Mindfulness meditation is one of the most common and popular types of meditation. This form of meditation encourages you to be completely aware and present in the moment. While practising mindfulness meditation, you become aware of what you feel, think, and do without getting attached to your thoughts or emotions.
Mindfulness meditation is perfect for the end of the day. After the final student walks out the door, you can reflect on the day and identify your feelings. This practice can help you process your emotions and prevent them from overwhelming you in the long run.
This type of meditation involves focusing on the breath and using it to relax. It teaches you how to control your breathing, which can help you stay in control during stressful times.
Breath awareness meditation is a preventative type of meditation. Controlled breathing is one of the most effective methods of reducing stress.
Visualization meditation uses your imagination to create a calming and peaceful environment in your mind. You can use it to escape from stressful situations or use it as a way to practice positive thinking.
Unlike mindfulness meditation, mantra meditation requires a more active approach. You repeat a word or phrase you want to embody during mantra meditation while focusing on your breathing. This type of meditation helps you calm down, eliminate unwanted thoughts, and embrace new behaviours or characteristics.
This form of meditation can be beneficial if you have a particularly stressful class or have an upcoming parent meeting you are stressed about. Before the class or meeting, you can take a few minutes to repeat your mantra and clear your mind. You can enter with a positive mindset and a good attitude.
Walking meditation is an excellent method if you have difficulty clearing your thoughts and focusing on your breathing. You can complete a walking meditation by putting in your headphones, listening to calming music, and concentrating on walking and breathing.
You can practice these types of meditation for five minutes at a time and gradually increase the duration as you get more comfortable with it.
The best part of meditation is that you can start practising it today. You don't need to take complicated classes or read heavy books to start.
It's important to remember that meditation is a practice, and like most things, practice makes perfect. It takes time and consistency to experience the full effects.
If you are interested in exploring ways to improve your mental health, why not sign up for the Welbee Wellbeing Toolkit to access helpful free resources to help you improve your wellbeing?Education leaders feel immense stress, and it can have serious impacts on headteacher wellbeing. Here's why that matters and what to do to improve your wellbeing.
The Education Support's 2023 Teacher Wellbeing Index has, once again, highlighted some of the key challenges facing education staff, but what can leaders do to help prevent workplace stress and improve the wellbeing of those they lead?
This guide explores how you can achieve excellence in people through the seven stages of the employee lifecycle.
Working in education and perfectionism often go together, but striving to be flawless can hurt teacher wellbeing. Check out our tips to manage your inner perfectionist.
Discover some of the key steps you can take to better protect and improve your own wellbeing in this useful guide.
Compassionate leadership is an essential component in creating the organisational culture for positive staff wellbeing. Find out more in our complete guide to compassionate leadership.
Take a look at our helpful guide containing tips, ideas, and resources for managing your finances.
Watch the video to explore the impacts that a lack of sleep can have on your physical and mental wellbeing.
Workplace relationships have an immeasurable impact on wellbeing. Learn more about repairing old relationships and building new ones today.
Discover the importance of setting boundaries for school staff, including the types pf boundaries, key principles, and how to sustain healthy workplace boundaries.
Discover how to create the foundations for excellent wellbeing in this useful guide.
Education staff are often with others all day, but loneliness still impacts teacher wellbeing. Learn more about how loneliness impacts you and what you can do to combat it
Discover how you can use Mental Health Awareness week to kick-start conversation around mental health and highlight the importance of staff wellbeing.
Compassion fatigue in education can lead to poor education staff wellbeing and job burnout. Learn how to recognise and combat it with this useful guide.
Read this useful guide to deepen your understanding of why boundaries for education leaders are vital and how establishing boundaries can help combat issues within schools.
Discover how you can help your staff avoid burnout in this helpful guide.
Although the terms are often interchanged poor mental health is not the same as having a mental illness. Watch this video to explore what mental illness actually is and how it differs from mental health.
It can be difficult to know how to start a conversation with a colleague or someone you manage about their mental health. Watch this video to discover 10 useful tips to help.
Watch the video to explore when a low mood may be a normal response life stressors and discover the evolutionary purpose of low moods.
Anxiety can both be a normal reaction to the stressors of day-to-day life, or a sign of a mental health illness. Watch this video to learn how to tell when anxiety is 'normal'.
What exactly is mental health and how does it differ from mental illness? Watch this video to find out.
Listening is a key skill for leading in an empathic way which supports employee wellbeing but there are many things that get in the way of listening effectively. Explore 7 of them in this video.
Recent UK-wide statistics on the wellbeing of school staff indicate the importance of feeling appreciated and supported in the workplace. Watch this video to discover why creating a culture of appreciation is important.
Watch this video to discover why sleep is so essential for positive mental and physical health.
Discover some of the most common sleep problems in this useful video.
Watch this video to explore the Interest Based Rational Approach to "principled negotiation" which encourages parties to use joint problem solving techniques, rather than positional bargaining.
Discover what burnout is and how to avoid it in this useful guide.
Saying no can be difficult! Read this useful guide to discover the importance of saying no and learn how to say no confidently and professionally.
Managing parents who are difficult or aggressive is stressful for anyone working in education. Use these tips to improve family relationships and protect teacher wellbeing.
Relaxation is crucial for positive mental health but how can it be achieved amidst immense pressure? Watch this video to hear 5 top tips.
This compassionately written guide explores the sensitive topic of suicide and suicidal feelings.
Secondary trauma has a profound impact on today's schools. Learn more about the symptoms of secondary trauma in education staff and strategies to cope with it.
Do you struggle with sleep? This guide will help you understand why sleep is important, the common causes of sleep disturbances, and how to improve your sleep quality.
Discover the powerful connection between physical activity and education staff wellbeing in this useful guide.
Watch the video to explore some quick tips for cultivating and maintaining a positive mindset.
In this video we explore The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80:20 rule and how this can help you manage your workload.
Delegation is a key skill for leaders, but what limits does it have? Watch this video to explore if authority, responsibility, and accountability can be delegated.
We often about the importance of being empathetic, but what exactly is empathy, and why is it important? Watch this video to find out and discover the 5 elements of empathy identified by Daniel Goleman.
