Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 157 - A New Resource on Stress Management

March 30, 2022 Kitty Boitnott Season 1 Episode 157
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 157 - A New Resource on Stress Management
Show Notes Transcript

Link to The American Institute of Stress:  https://www.stress.org/

Calendar link:  https://teachersintransition.com/calendar.

The Rosch Stress Profiler - $19.95 

Stress Mastery Quiz - $19.95


Speaker 1:

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 boy. Not I'm a career transition and job search coach. And I specialize in helping burnout out teachers just like you deal, not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day to a 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. 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 boy, not welcome to teachers in transition.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to another episode of teachers in transition, the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is kitty boy, not I am the owner of boy, not coaching. And the founder of teachers in transition. I consider myself a heart centered career transition. Then job search coach, who specializes in working with burnt out teachers who are ready for career change, but don't know how or where to begin. I am also a certified stress management coach. And so in operating this podcast in YouTube channel, I alternate topics each week, one week I will, will talk about stress management strategies. And then on alternating weeks, I speak to career transition strategies. This week, the topic is stress. And as I have shared with you before, I often feel like I've said everything I know to say about stress. And I stress out about not knowing what to say. Do I offer something new and different when I'm pretty sure I've said everything I know to say about stress and stress management that said, I did think to first, uh, offer that I am reading a book by Sanja G doctor Sanja Gupta, uh, about keeping sharp and you know, he, he is a neurosurgeon, a neurologist, and he, uh, has written this book to help people understand that at any age, you can start taking better care of your brain so that it will serve you and keep you sharp well into your old age. And that a moderate amount of forgetfulness is not anything to stress out about, but there are certain symptoms to be on the lookout, especially if you have an aging parent who maybe is forgetting more than average and needs to be tended to and tested for dementia or Alzheimer's. Um, the statistics of the number of elderly people who wind up eventually developing Alzheimer's is alarming, frankly. And Dr. BTA is trying to help people be proactive and behave in such a way with good health habits and keeping the, the mind sharp that maybe perhaps they can for all that development or avoid a it all together. So when I was thinking about sharing that by way of helping you manage your stress, I decided to go looking for information about Sanja Gupta and stress. And instead, what I came up with was the website for the American Institute of stress. Now this is a website that I knew about, but I had forgotten about, and I don't believe I've ever mentioned it. And in my perusing of the website, after I stumbled across it this morning, I decided to take one of the two tests, quizzes that they offer they had to on their main webpage. They have two potential quizzes that you can take. One is the RO, I guess that's how you pronounce it. R O S C H stress profiler. And the other one is a stress management quiz to see how I guess, to see how well you are already managing your stress and what you might be able to do to manage it better. Each one costs 1995. So I just invested in the one today. I might, I might invest in the other one for another episode to share. And I just wanted to share a little bit about my, so that you can consider. If you'd like to take the profile for yourself. My results showed that overall, I am experiencing low stress, which was good news. My score was 146, and I don't know what that's out of. You know, how high or hello and relatively speaking, I don't know what 1 46 means or stands for, but then they go on to say, easygoing, you usually don't let stress bother you. And you probably have a reliable method for blowing off steam, which is true. Then they offer their 10 sections. So there are questions that go with each of these sections to help to determine the stress in a particular area of your life. So control was one section. How it, in other words, do you feel like you're in control in your life more often than not support? Do you have a, a proper support system change? How do you manage change? Do you take well to change? Not everyone does financial stress, which is a problem, especially for many teachers who are struggling with perhaps two or three jobs to make ends, meet time pressure. How well do you manage your time? Are you more often than not late for appointments or, and do you show up prepared, worry and fear, as in do you wake up in the middle of the night feeling fearful or worried about something that keeps you from going back to sleep anger? Are you easy to anger? Do you get angry quickly or do you have a slow fuse? Do you, um, manifest your anger by throwing things or having tantrums? They ask the, that kind of question, stress symptoms. Do you have a stiff neck at the end of the day? How do, how do you particularly manifest your stress, stress outlets? Do you have hobbies and friends that you can, uh, go to, to do you have someone to call? If you have something on your mind, those are examples of stress outlets and then finally stress resilience. So even though I scored overall as easygoing, there were a couple of places where I, you know, I answered honestly. So there were a couple of sections where they offered some, um, concern and some suggestions for what I might be able to do if I, um, want to address a particular issue. And one of them was, uh, anger in the question was to get angry at incompetent people. Uh, and truthfully the answer is, yes, I don't have a high threshold of tolerance or patients with people who are blatantly incompetent. I just have very low tolerance for it. And I answered that. Honestly, the other one was, do you get angry in the car when you're driving? And sometimes yes, I do. Along with most of the rest of the drivers out there who are, uh, running behind, you know, I don't, I don't have that many places to be these days. So I don't run behind anything as far as scheduling, but people who are slow pokes, you know, they're going 15 miles under the speed limit and you can't get around them. That is irritating to me. The people who come screeching up behind you and act like they're gonna Ram you in the rear end and then swing around you, even though it's not parti safe, that kind of thing can get Meri. So I, I was honest about the things that get me going and thankfully the things that don't bother me outweigh apparently the things that do otherwise. I don't think I would've been given a score of easy going. Um, the reason I'm sharing that with you is that not for 1995, which is not a lot of money, you could do a similar assessment of yourself by going to the website for the American Institute of stress. I'll offer the website in the show, show notes today, so that you can use it as a source. If you're not interested in the Roche or rush stress profiler, you might take a look at the other quiz that has to do with stress management strategies and see how well you do on that. I may invest in that on another occasion. I just wasn't ready to do two quizzes back to back when I was preparing for this podcast. So the point is that there are plenty of resources out there. You just have to take advantage of them. Sometimes you find them deliberately. Sometimes you stumble across them the way I did this morning, uh, and stumbling across the American Institute as stress. And the main point is to seek help when you feel like you need it. That was one of the questions. Do you feel like you could seek a, you know, some professional help in the event that you really felt stressed out and overwhelmed. And of course, you know, it feeling stressed out and overwhelmed is affecting your health. It's affecting your relationships. Why wouldn't you be willing to go to a counselor, a therapist, a minister, a mentor, someone that you can share with, you know, sometimes just talking about issues that have got you bothered, just getting it off your chest, just getting it out of your head can make a huge difference. You can feel a load of relief just by sharing what's going on instead of letting it rumble around inside your head and cause you unnecessary, perhaps upset. And cuz sometimes when you talk things through you realize, well, you know, it's not as big a problem as I thought it was, it's it it's manageable. It's something that I can address. It's something that I can fix and talking it out with someone can make a tremendous difference in how you approach a particular problem. That's plaguing you at any given time that's causing you to feel stressed out. So look for those strategies, what they may be. And if you need to speak to a physician cause you are frequently feeling anxious, I will have to admit, I think I've talked to more teachers this year than ever before. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised because the great resignation is going on. Teachers are walking out of their classroom and not going back on a day to day basis. I've had, I just got an email this morning from one of my clients. She she's turned in her resignation. She will not be going back next year. She's got a new plan. She's ready to make a change in her life. I had another client who wrote the me a couple of Fridays ago. She had had it. It was one of those days. She walked out. She told'em she would not be back, but I've had other teachers who are on medical leave, who are on anxiety medication, who are just unable to make themselves go back to the classroom and are desperate to find another route for themselves to take. Um, and if, if you find that you're in that category, we need to talk. We need to chat about how my jumpstart, your job search program might be the answer for you. It might help you figure out what it is that you wanna do next in your career, as well as what steps you need to take in order to make that change happen. So whether you're looking to address your stress or you're looking to change your job or both at the same time, and many people are looking for solutions to both their stress and their job problems because they may be connected. Um, if you would like to chat, I offer a complimentary discovery session. Doesn't cost you a thing, but 20 minutes of your time, you can sign up. I'll put the link to the calendar that you can sign up on. And if you don't see a time that works with your schedule cause of uh, time zone change or, uh, a scheduling situation that doesn't accommodate isn't accommodated for in the calendar. Email me and ask me for another time because I can be flexible and help out in finding a different time for you. So check out the American Institute of stress, check out the calendar that I'm offering for you. If you'd like to talk about your stress or your career change ideas and that's it for this week, have a wonderful week, continue to stay safe, stay well. And I will see you next week.

Speaker 1:

So there you have it. An episode of teachers in transition. I hope you enjoyed 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 at kitty boy, not boy.coaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm kitty boy not. And this is teachers in transition.