Teaching demands resilience, but resilience is not endurance alone. It is the skill of restoring balance under pressure. A balanced teacher is a more effective teacher. Looking after yourself is part of your responsibility to your students and to the wider profession.
Teaching is often described as a vocation; a calling that demands energy, patience and empathy. Yet for many teachers, those same qualities can also become the source of exhaustion. The profession asks you to give constantly – to students, to parents, to colleagues – while maintaining performance standards that leave little room for rest.
Succeeding as a teacher means maintaining wellbeing and equilibrium while working in a demanding educational environment. Here, we reproduce some strategical steps listed by health experts that can be useful to teachers to protect their mental health and strike balance while managing workload.
Understanding the Pressures
There is a study which reveals that almost 80% of teachers reported feeling stressed, with workload as the dominant factor. More than half said they had considered leaving the profession because of it.
Pressure in teaching takes multiple forms…
– Workload pressure: marking, data entry, lesson planning and administrative tasks that spill beyond contracted hours.
– Emotional labour: supporting pupils in distress and maintaining professional composure.
– Performance scrutiny: formal observations, pupil progress data and inspection accountability.
– Boundary pressure: difficulty separating professional identity from personal life.
Teachers need immediate tools to manage the demands of the job.
Audit Your Energy, Not Just Your Time
Teachers often track time but overlook energy. Fatigue accumulates through long hours as well as constant emotional engagement. Begin by identifying the activities that drain or restore your energy.
1. List your typical week. Include teaching, preparation, marking, meetings and pastoral duties.
2. Mark energy patterns. Note the times of day when concentration drops or stress rises.
3. Identify unnecessary drains. These might be avoidable tasks, duplicated work or digital distractions.
4. Schedule energy renewal. Place restorative activities in your timetable as firmly as meetings. A brief walk at lunch or five minutes of quiet before class can restore focus.
Energy management recognises that teaching is cyclical. Small intervals of recovery sustain performance far more effectively than waiting for school holidays to restore balance.
Establish Practical Boundaries
Boundaries protect both personal wellbeing and professional longevity. Without them, work expands to fill all available time.
Know when to walk away from your work, and stick to your boundaries.
1. Define your work hours. Decide when the teaching day ends and when you will no longer respond to emails. Inform colleagues politely but clearly of these limits.
2. Create physical separation. Avoid taking marking or planning into personal spaces where you rest. A clear boundary between school materials and home areas supports mental separation.
3. Protect non-teaching time. Use PPA periods for professional tasks only. Avoid letting them dissolve into informal cover or ad hoc meetings.
4. Set communication windows. If your school uses digital platforms, restrict notifications to working hours. Digital boundaries prevent work from intruding on rest.
Boundaries signal professionalism through sustainability. They are not signs of disengagement.
Build Micro-Recovery into Each Day
Recovery does not require large blocks of time. Short, intentional moments can stabilise your nervous system and improve clarity. Research in occupational psychology supports the benefit of micro-breaks for cognitive renewal.
1. Breathing resets. A minute of deep breathing before a lesson reduces physiological stress. Count slowly to four as you inhale, hold for four, exhale for six.
2. Post-lesson reflection. After each class, note one thing that went well and one adjustment for next time. This keeps focus on progress rather than self-criticism.
3. Transition rituals. Develop a simple routine for leaving school – closing your laptop, writing a to-do list for the next day, then walking away. Such rituals help your mind disengage from work mode.
4. Physical movement. Even brief stretching or walking between lessons counters the effects of prolonged tension.
Manage Workload through Simplification
Many teachers over-commit out of dedication. Simplifying workload is not about lowering standards but about focusing on what has the greatest effect on learning.
1. Prioritise impact. Use evidence to decide which tasks improve pupil outcomes and which serve bureaucracy. Give more energy to high-impact tasks.
2. Plan backwards. Start from the desired learning outcome and design lessons that reach it directly. This reduces time spent on peripheral activities.
3. Use shared resources. Collaborate with colleagues and department teams. Reusing or adapting existing materials saves energy without compromising quality.
4. Streamline marking. Many schools now encourage feedback strategies that rely on whole-class review and verbal feedback. These approaches maintain quality while reducing hours of written marking.
Simplification is a discipline. It requires clear criteria for what truly matters and the confidence to let go of what does not.
Develop Reflective Habits
Stress often builds when teachers feel reactive rather than reflective. Reflection transforms daily challenges into professional learning.
1. Use a weekly reflection journal. Record observations about lessons, student interactions and your own reactions. This creates distance from immediate emotion and promotes perspective.
2. Ask solution-focused questions. Rather than writing about what went wrong, ask what you could change next time. Reflection should point toward improvement, not blame.
3. Schedule review time. Set aside a short slot once in a week to review patterns in your notes. Identifying recurring triggers allows you to anticipate and prevent future stressors.
4. Link reflections to mentoring. Discuss them in professional meetings. Reflective dialogue transforms private insights into shared growth.
Reflective practice grounds emotional experience in professional development, turning difficulty into data for improvement.
Cultivate Supportive Relationships
Isolation amplifies stress. Collegial connection reduces it. Supportive networks act as buffers against professional strain.
1. Engage with your mentor. Use mentoring time to discuss workload balance as well as pedagogy. Mentors often have strategies for managing competing demands.
2. Find peer allies. Identify colleagues who approach teaching constructively. Short informal conversations about strategies can provide perspective.
3. Seek professional support early. If stress becomes unmanageable, contact occupational health service
Support networks remind teachers that they are part of a profession, not working in isolation.
Strengthen Physical Foundations
Mental health is inseparable from physical condition. Sleep, nutrition and exercise strongly influence concentration, mood and resilience.
1. Prioritise consistent sleep. Aim for regular sleep and wake times, even during busy periods. Cognitive function and patience decline rapidly with irregular sleep.
2. Plan simple nutrition. Keep nourishing snacks available at school to prevent energy crashes. Moderate your caffeine intake and stay hydrated.
3. Move daily. A brief walk, cycle or stretching session can stabilise your mood and release accumulated stress hormones.
4. Use weekends for restoration. Reserve part of each weekend for non-work activities. Rest is not a reward but a requirement.
Physical maintenance creates the foundation for mental clarity and emotional regulation.
Redefine Success
Perfectionism is a common feature among teachers. Many equate professional worth with flawless lessons or data outcomes. Sustainable wellbeing requires a redefinition of success.
1. Set achievable standards. Aim for progress, not perfection. Accept that lessons will vary in quality and that learning unfolds over time.
2. Recognise invisible labour. Emotional support, encouragement and stability are part of your professional contribution, even when they are not measured.
3. Celebrate small milestones. A calm lesson, a student breakthrough, a positive parent conversation – each represents meaningful success.
4. Review achievements regularly. Keep a simple record of what has gone well. Reviewing these moments protects against the bias toward noticing only what is unfinished.
Redefining success restores proportion and prevents self-criticism from undermining motivation.
Plan Professional Growth Around Wellbeing
Career development and wellbeing should complement one another. Burnout often occurs when teachers chase progression without assessing sustainability.
1. Align goals with capacity. Take on additional responsibilities only after evaluating workload. Sustainable growth requires pacing.
2. Choose CPD strategically. Prioritise training that improves efficiency or confidence rather than adding pressure.
3. Use appraisal meetings for discussion. Bring wellbeing into appraisal conversations. Framing it as a professional development issue encourages leadership awareness.
4. Set annual wellbeing objectives. For example, aiming to reduce evening workload by one hour or to maintain regular exercise. Treat these with the same seriousness as teaching targets.
Professional growth should enhance wellbeing – not erode it.
When to Seek External Help
There are times when self-management is not enough. Persistent anxiety, loss of motivation or physical symptoms of stress require attention. Teachers sometimes delay seeking help due to professional pride or fear of judgement, but this delay can deepen their exhaustion.
1. Recognise signs early. Ongoing fatigue, disrupted sleep, irritability and detachment are warning signs.
2. Speak with trusted colleagues or mentors. They can help identify whether what you’re experiencing is situational or requires professional support.
3. Contact your occupational health service. Early medical advice prevents escalation.
Seeking help demonstrates professionalism, not weakness. It shows commitment to the sustainability of your practice.
(SHAECH Monitoring Desk I Source Teaching Times)