Self-Care for Educators: Taking Care of Yourself During a Pandemic

Taking care of your mental health is something that all people can benefit from regardless of your profession. However, for educators, it is way too common that we put that self-care aspect on the backburner while we scramble to do a million other things.

It may seem impossible to carve out time in your busy schedule just to do something for yourself but in reality, taking the time to care for yourself can actually boost your productivity, not dwindle it.

The Importance of Self-care

Self-care is vital to maintaining a balanced and healthy relationship with yourself. It improves all elements of health including physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological, social, and professional health.

Practicing good self-care is important always but especially in times of uncertainty and stress like we are in right now.

Living and trying to teach during a global pandemic is very overwhelming and can be a huge source of stress in your life. Now more than ever, it is imperative that we all take the time to care for ourselves.

“Teaching is consistently recognized as an incredibly high-stress career, which is only compounded by the fact that many of you are not doing things that would help you manage that stress.” -Jennifer Gonzalez, Cult of Pedagogy

Tips for Self-Care

There are many different things that you can do to help manage stress and work on bettering yourself. These things can be simple acts such as taking a minute to just focus on your breathing.

Here are a few options of things that you can do to help take care of yourself and your wellbeing:

        • Go for a walk
        • Get plenty of sleep
        • Pet an animal
        • Read a book
        • Watch a TV show or a movie you like
        • Do some physical activity
        • Practice positive self-talk
        • Meditate
        • Listen to music

This is just a short list of examples that you can do. There are countless ways that you can destress and be kind to yourself. Figure out what your goals are and where you can carve out time for yourself in your day. Add your self-care into your daily routine.

Here is a video on how to go about creating an action plan to integrate self-care into your life:

A Self-Care Action Plan

Self-care can seem like a daunting task when you’ve already got a lot on your plate, so let’s take a little time to reflect on what works best for you, and m…

Being a Role Model for Your Students 

Lastly, having a healthy relationship with yourself and caring for your own wellbeing is, of course, an amazing thing you can do for yourself and it will make you feel happier and healthier but it will also benefit your students.

Research has shown that practicing mindfulness actually makes you a better teacher and helps create a more positive classroom environment as well as a more positive student-teacher relationship.

Your students can tell when you are stressed or overwhelmed and they will feed off of that and it can create more problems. On the other hand, students can also sense when you are happy and healthy and that helps them feel more comfortable. They are able to learn and engage more.

There are countless benefits to practicing good self-care. We are living in very stressful times but establishing a good self-care regimen now will actually help you even when this pandemic is over.

Take care of yourself, you deserve it!