Teachers in Transition - Episode 83 - Stress Management Tips

"10 Relaxation Tips That Zap Stress Fast" by Jeannette Moninger. https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/blissing-out-10-relaxation-techniques-reduce-stress-spot##1

Stress Assessment Tool:  https://kittyboitnott.lpages.co/stress-assessment/

Cheat Sheet - 7 Strategies for Better Managing and Reducing Everyday Stress:  https://kittyboitnott.lpages.co/cheat-sheet-on-stress-management/

Discovery Session Sign Up:  https://teachersintransition.com/calendar.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do. You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach. And I specialize in helping burn out teachers, just like you deal, not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day to day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for teachers in transition. In some episodes, I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes, I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track. These are questions that you need answers to, and I can help you find those answers. My name is kitty. Boitnott welcome to teachers and transition.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Welcome back to eight episode, 83 of teachers in transition. My name is kitty. Boitnott the owner of Boitnott coaching and the founder of teachers in transition. If you have listened to this podcast or watched this YouTube channel in the past, you know, that I alternate topics each week between stress management strategies and career transition strategies, because I am both a certified stress management coach and a heart centered career transition and job search coach. I specialize in working with burnout teachers who are ready to leave the classroom and transition into another kind of career that, that they can find as fulfilling as teaching used to be. Then a whole lot more fun than it is now, if that describes you, or if you resonate with that in any way we should talk. And I'll put my information on how to make an appointment to chat about your particular situation in the show notes today, this week, the topic is stress. And because I've talked so much about all of the various types of stress relief that one can find, uh, it's kind of hard to find anything new, but, and I'm not going to share anything new today, but I am going to share with you an article that, uh, that I found online by Jeanette mananger from web MD. And these are 10 relaxation techniques that zap stress fast. So I'm going to share with you, uh, quickly what the 10 techniques are. And then I'll share the link to the article in the show notes so that you can read further for your own benefit. Uh, as I said, none of these are new, but they're reminders that these techniques do work and you may need to try several before you find one or two that work the best for you. Or if you have sort of run out of luck using a particular strategy, maybe it's time to change up your technique and figure out a new way to manage your stress. Starting with the list offered in the web MD article meditation is the first recommendation finding just a few minutes a day to set apart from the hectic, stressful events that are feeling like they overtake you each and every day that maybe they even overtake your every waking moment and they're even interfering with your sleep possibly. So finding time to set aside a five, 10, 20 minutes, if you can spare 20 minutes to go within, to try to tap into that inner wisdom that we all have inside of us. But when we are stressed, we tend to lose track of it. We forget that it's there. And so we don't tap into it. So taking specific time each day to get still, to ground yourself, to become aware of your body and your breath and your thoughts and set those thoughts that are causing you, the dis there and the stress aside, while you concentrate on thoughts that lift you up and make you feel powerful and remind you that you have more control in your life than you sometimes remember that you have to do a quick meditation. Now, if you need help, if you're a beginner, there's loads of resources online, you can do a walking meditation. You can do a silent meditation at your desk. You can sit in a more comfortable place in your house somewhere where you can tap into relaxation. You can find guided meditations online on your phone. I mean, there are apps that are designed to help you with your meditation practice. So try it out a few minutes, a day can help to relieve anxiety. And there are massive studies that you can find that show that people who are practicing meditation on a regular basis are able to lower their blood pressure and to feel more grounded and in control every day, even when they aren't meditating. So try that meditation along with meditation, this is a second strategy. Don't forget to breathe deeply. You know, we tend to breathe very shallowly when we are under a lot of stress. So if you are feeling stressed out, try to stop yourself for just a moment and remind yourself to take a few deep breaths in through your nose and out again, through your nose, as opposed to through your mouth. I've had two breath ologists to share with me that it's important that we breathe into our noses and out through our noses slowly, um, for a variety of reasons. And so that's just a good reminder in through your nose, out through your nose, not through your mouth. You want to breathe all the way down into your abdomen. And as you do this two or three times, several times a day, you'll feel the tension drain out of your shoulders and neck. It's guaranteed. So do that for yourself. Take a little breath break every, uh, every hour or so, if you can spare the time, it only takes a few seconds each time. Third, the third recommendation is to be present. And again, this can be in conjunction with doing the breath work and doing your meditation, just become aware of your body, of your circumstances of your surroundings and, and cue into what's going on with you. Are you feeling anxious? And if so, what is the cause of the anxiety? Are you feeling relaxed? If so, what can you attribute that to? So just tap into being aware. If you are feeling anxious because of the social isolation that we're being forced to undergo these days, you might want to reach out to your social network, post something on Facebook. That's sure to elicit some response, let people in your circle know that you're struggling so that they can help for support. They can't help if they don't know that you need the help. So tap into your social needs, uh, this afternoon. And I'm having a virtual happy hour with the friends that I normally would. I have been having dinner with. If we weren't experiencing a pandemic and in place of the dinners that we used to have ever since March and stuff, I said, we've gotten on zoom and we've had, uh, a virtual happy hour where we catch up with one another. We find out what's going on with one another. We offer support for one another and you don't have to do a happy hour. You can do it for any reason. I've been doing the same kind of thing with my brother and sister, with whom I normally get together every month to six weeks, we li we live several hours apart and we were making a habit of trying to get together for lunch every day, month to six weeks, since our mother passed away a few years ago, and we had been very, uh, conscientious about it, and then COVID hit. And so we've been meeting virtually via zoom or by phone, uh, this last time, zoom let them, I am my, my sister and my brother doesn't have zoom. So we just did it, uh, conference call and we talked two hours. Non-stop that between the three of us, we had two hours worth of news to share because it had been about a month since the last time we talked. So if you were feeling isolated and anxious because of the ISIS, if you live alone, reach out to a friend, a neighbor, let them know that you are struggling so that they can provide some emotional support. They may not be able to offer physical support, but certainly we want to be there for each other even, right? So reach out tune into your body. If you have aches or pains that might be stress-related, you should tune into what's going on with you so that you can address it. If it's something that Hmm, requires medical attention, you need to make an appointment to see your physician so that, you know, you can take care of whatever the issue might be. If you have not given yourself a chance to decompress or de-stress by doing something fun or something that you enjoy as opposed to, to work, then do that. Find out what it is that can help you decompress for some it's knitting or cross stitch or painting or pottery, but whatever it is for you, it might just be a crossword puzzle, but do something that takes your mind off of work and allow, allows you to escape. Even if it's just for half an hour from the stressors of the day, it's important too, that you find a reason to laugh out loud, at least once a day. It, when you laugh out loud, it releases endorphins into your bloodstream and that makes you feel good. And it helps you to relax. So perhaps just finding a show on TV that you can laugh out loud at, um, on Netflix, if you have a subscription to Netflix or one of the other platforms, there are comedians who are on their own specials and you can watch those. Uh, just last week, I enjoyed it. Wait, uh, Jim Gaffigan. Okay. He was in Canada talking, uh, about what it was like to be in Canada as a Canadian. And I enjoy him and he made it makes me laugh out loud. If you love music, then crank up to crank up the music and listen to the music music that lifts you up and makes you happy and helps you to get moving. And that's, that's another thing you can do. Go for a walk, take the dog for a walk, walk through the neighborhood, go for a hike, physical exercise, also lens self to releasing endorphins into your bloodstream, and that can make you feel, I feel more relaxed. And finally, um, according to the article, one of, one of the important practices is to practice gratitude, no matter what's going on in your life, you can find something for which to be grateful. Just the fact that you woke up this morning is something for which to be grateful, if you are going through grief because of the loss of life, the loved one, you can find something about a memory, a lesson learned, um, something that they left behind, that you can still be grateful for, even though you may miss them. And you're still grieving for them. If you're grieving for what used to be, because we live in this new, normal of social isolation and social distancing, and not, not getting together with friends for dinner, like we used to, or not going to the movies like we used to, if that's creating stress for you, find something that you can be doing, doing that you can be grateful for to make up for the loss of the old normal, you know, this situation won't last forever, but for the next few months I heard a doctor say the other day, maybe even the next couple of years, this is our new normal, because if we don't practice the social isolation, if we don't, if we don't socially distance, if we, if we don't wear our masks, if we don't practice good hygiene, if we let down our guard, we run the risk of either getting sick ourselves or being a carrier, having the virus and not knowing it because we don't have any symptoms, but we're contagious. So we give it to someone that we care about. So we have to be vigilant. And I know it's stressful. None of us can escape the fact that this is not normal, but for right now, it's our new normal. And we have to try to make the best of it. So being grateful for the things that we do have to be grateful for. You know, one of the things that I said at the very beginning of this pandemic is that if we had to be socially isolated, if we were going to be forced to quarantine the way we were those first few weeks, when nobody was going anywhere, unless you were in essential worker, this is the best time in the, in the world to be socially isolating, because we can still be in touch with one another through the magic of zoom and FaceTime and the telephone and all of the other platforms that we can use to get together, to entertain one another, to still be connected to one another. So if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling isolated, there are groups of people that you can go to to join for some social interaction. Toastmasters comes to mind. If you're not a member, check out a local Toastmasters club, many of them are meeting virtually and you can check them out and become a guest and watch the proceedings and see if maybe that kind of interaction would benefit you. There are meetups that you can find. There are loads of ways for you to find comfort and connection. If you're willing to look for it and take action around it. So don't let yourself become totally isolated. Even if you do live alone, that's it for today. I hope that you will have found one or more of these suggestions from the web MD article useful. If you have a desire for the cheat sheet on stress management that I offer as a free gift, if you'd like the stress assessment that I offer, I'll provide links for those in the show notes. Uh, if you would like to talk about your stress and anxiety or a career transition, I haven't had an offer of a 20 minute discovery session that you can sign up for. I'll provide the link for that in the notes. And mainly what I want to leave you with is we're not in this alone. Even if we are isolated, all of us are going through similar situations, similar feelings, similar stress. And so we're not alone. And we can support one another in a variety of ways. These are just a few, if you would please review my podcast, teachers and transition, uh, offer comment, uh, leave a review. I would really appreciate it. Check me out over at the YouTube channel. If you'd like to, you'll find a video of this same message on my YouTube channel at teachers in transition, I'm here to help. And if I can help, I want to. So let me know if I can be of assistance to you and have a wonderful week, stay safe, stay well. And I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1: 19:32

So there you have it, an episode of teachers in transition. I hope you enjoy the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to teachers in transition so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode, I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me@kittyboitnottatboitnottcoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm Katie Boitnott. And this is teachers in transition.