We all have opinions on how best to support teachers and improve education. When we ask what we can do for teachers and not to teachers, we will find that for some, it would be better pay. For others, it would be more support through social workers, psychologists, and better relationships with students and families. And still other educators need their work to be less stressful. For those teachers, we can address the stress they experience in schools and support them with Radical Self-Care.
In my book, Warm Demander Teachers: Healthy, Whole, and Transformational, I explain how to focus on teachers’ health, through strategies of Radical Self-Care. It is the first step in fostering highly effective relationships between students and teachers. When teachers address strategies to manage and minimize stress, they first benefit from experiencing better physical and brain health. With better health, teachers can experience an improvement in relationships with students, which are essential to effective classroom culture and instruction. Engaging and authentic relationships are documented as a significant predictor of success.
Strategies to support teachers and their relationships enhance every aspect of excellent schools.
Radical Self-Care is intentional and consistent attention to the actions that nurture health. The approach is individualized because each teacher will identify one small consistent action to improve their health. Ultimately, they will experience the interconnected benefits of physical and brain health. The simplicity of consistent improvement through small steps is both a common-sense and a radical idea because we have accepted that we do not have time to improve our health in a significant way. Importantly, Radical Self-Care is manageable. In fact, when implementing Radical Self-Care we ask, “How can we make being healthy easier and continuous?”
This basic idea is also radical because it is contrary to the expectation that teachers do everything, all at once. Meanwhile, we overlook the impact of stress on teacher’s health and subsequently their relationships with students and the school community. Yet, if teachers aren’t healthy, how can we expect them to create transformational experiences for themselves and their students?
Teachers can select among many areas of health and wellbeing to implement Radical Self-Care, starting with one small, consistent, and effective step. Since sleep deprivation is a common malady, and not just in schools, let’s use lack of sleep as an example of identifying that one small step to create long term improvement. Consistent sleep improves your physical and brain health.
Stress contributes to a lack of sleep, and not enough sleep elevates stress. This is a cyclical relationship we want to disrupt. The use of phones and digital devices interrupt the development of melatonin, a natural hormone that supports sleep. Other distractors are falling asleep while watching television or using digital devices immediately before falling asleep.
How can you begin to make small changes to improve your sleep? First make a commitment to implement a minor change with a focus on consistency. Small steps do make a difference and lead to bigger and easier changes.
- One step is experiencing sunlight within 30 minutes of awakening or at sunset as it has a positive impact on setting our circadian rhythm and improving sleep.
- Commit to creating a “bedtime routine” that programs your brain to sleep. Select one of the following:
- a consistent time to put your phone and devices away, starting at 30 minutes before you sleep, and increasing the time when you are successful with 30 minute),
- a consistent time to go to sleep. Start 30 minutes earlier than you are going to sleep currently. Later, plan to start sleeping 6-8 hours before you typically wake up to start the school day. If you are sleeping less than 7 hours a night, you will benefit from more sleep time.
- See your change in bedtime routine (or the action you have selected) as a first step to a myriad of health benefits. An overall advantage is creating neuroplasticity which makes implementing other health changes easier and foundational to understanding Radical Self-Care.
Remember to make success achievable. Identify your area to improve and analyze it until you find a simple step that can enhance the area of health. Implement the small step daily. On the days you are not successful, recommit to starting the step again the next day. Plan to be consistent, no matter how small the step. Consistency of a small action is more transformative than perfection or big life-changes. Create a supportive community, encourage other teacher’s goals and let them encourage you. Let the oxytocin generated through mutual care and encouragement move you to success. Remember, just as you encourage students not to give up as they learn a new skill, you can encourage your colleagues to develop their new skill with consistency. Finally, celebrate small successes because there are really no small successes. Every victory contributes to your achieving good health.
