Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 164 - A Little Taste of Chocolate May Help With Your End-of-School-Year Stress

May 18, 2022 Kitty Boitnott Season 1 Episode 164
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 164 - A Little Taste of Chocolate May Help With Your End-of-School-Year Stress
Show Notes Transcript

In this week's episode, Kitty acknowledges teachers who are winding down the 2021-22 school year. Those who have stuck it out should give themselves a pat on the back because not everyone did.

During these stressful last weeks of the school year, Kitty offers that a little bit of chocolate may go a long way in boosting lagging energy, not to mention morale. It's a known fact that chocolate directly affects dopamine levels. Research points to the various ways that chocolate can lift your mood and your energy level. One such article can be found here, titled "Chocolate and Dopamine."

This is perhaps the busiest time of the school year, and making plans for next year may be the last thing on your mind right now, but once school is over if you want to talk to Kitty about career options, make an appointment at https://teachersintransition.com/calendar for a complimentary Discovery Session.

If you have ideas or suggestions about future episodes, please contact Kitty at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.

And please rate and review the podcast to help other people find it.


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 a 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 in 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 boy, not welcome to teachers in transition. This is kitty boy, not with teachers and transition and welcome back to another episode of teachers in transition, the podcast and the YouTube channel. I own boy not coaching. And I'm also the founder of teachers in transition. As you may have heard, if you've listened to this podcast before you know that I am a heart centered career transition and job search coach who specializes in working with burnout teachers who are ready to make a career change, but don't know how or where to begin. I'm also a certified stress management coach. So on this podcast in YouTube channel, I alternate topics each week, one week, I will talk about career transition strategies. And on alternating weeks, I talk about stress management strategies. This week, the topic is stress, and I want to acknowledge that we are in the middle part of may for many teachers. That means you're on the home stretch coming down to the end of the school year. And depending on where you live in the country, you may be winding up around, uh, labor day. I mean, uh, Memorial day, or you may be winding up later on in June. I know I worked in a district, um, that generally didn't wind down and stop until the well into the middle of June, but wherever you are, what, whatever the calendar is for you, you are well, you know, you're on the home stretch. Uh, it also means that you are into one of the busiest part parts of the school year. You are working frantically to try to keep up with the testing and the proctoring and the taking care of the kids who missed the test on test day and now have to make up the test. You also have to take care that all of your special ed kids are tested in a proper environment where there are accommodations or all net. You have reports to fill out. You have paperwork to fill out. You have P grades to prepare. You have, uh, in some cases, conferences to complete. And then there are all the other things that happen at the end of the school year, we used to do a field day and that would take up a, an entire day that the kids would be outside and having fun. And somebody would have to organize, you know, the races and the games and all the rest. Um, there will be special performances and award ceremonies and all, all kinds of things that infringe on your regular routine kids will be jacked up. They're more excited than you are, perhaps because they're looking toward the end of the school year. I don't know. Maybe, maybe you are more excited than they are depending on what kind of year you've had. And I, it occurs to me and I've said this before. I've said just about everything I know to say about stress, stress management, the importance of taking care of yourself, of self care, how self care is not selfish, how you need to take care of your body and your mind and your spirit, especially this time of year, when it's such a challenge for you to do so, you need to get enough sleep. You need to get enough exercise. You need to get enough, uh, good, good food into your system so that you can operate efficiently. The one thing that it occurs to me that I haven't mentioned that might be a particular help during this stressful time of the school year. And I'm, I'm not speaking facetious, although maybe on some level I am, but it's the benefit of chocolate. Uh, it, it's true that for most of us, chocolate offers a little bit of a dopamine hit. It helps us to lift our spirits a little bit. There's just something special. I know there are people who don't love chocolate or say they don't love chocolate, but most of us do have sort of a soft spot when it comes to chocolate treats. So as you enter this stressful time of the school year, one of my recommendations might be to have on hand, a few little Hershey bars. You know, the many bars that you can get at at the store, not to overdo. I'm not recommending that you get a whole bag of them, but that you have them on hand for that afternoon slump. When you feel like you just can't make it to the end of the day. And maybe that would help a little bit to lift your spirits, lift your mood, to help you to feel a little, a little more in control. As you wind up this school year, know that I know how hard you're working, how much effort you've put in to making this a successful school year. How in many cases you feel like you have fallen short, and I, I just want to applaud you for hanging in there. You know, a lot of your colleagues didn't hang in there for the whole year. And if you are still plugging away and you're going to make it to the end of the school year, that is not nothing for you to, to give yourself a pat on the back that you made it through another school year, when you are ready, then at the end of the year to think about whether or not you want to go back next year, that may be the time you need to make an appointment to chat with me. I offer a complimentary discovery session. It will cost you nothing but 20 to 30 minutes of your time to talk about your specific situation, to talk about whether or not you wanna go back next year, whether it's too late for you to not go back, at least for part of the year before you find something more suitable. And, um, we can talk about your particular situation and whether or not you can make the move that you're looking to make. If you have decided you wanna make a move. So make the appointment. If you'd like to chat@teachersintransition.com slash calendar that's teachers in transition.com/calendar. And let's talk if you have suggestions or ideas for other podcast episodes, you'd like to hear email me at kitty boy Knight, gmail.com, please review and rate this podcast. So other people can find it more easily, whether you're on iTunes or Stitcher or Google play or wherever it is that you listen to your podcast. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful rest of your week, and I'll see you next time. 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 Nott at boy Nott, 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.