Dealing with Stress
Coping with stress is an essential tool. I keep a stress journal. This helps me to identify the regular stressors in my life and the way I deal with them. Each time I feel stressed, I keep track of it in my journal, which I have on my IPhone. As I keep a daily log, I will begin to see patterns and common themes, which I write down. (What caused my stress, how I felt, both physically and emotionally, how I acted in response and what I did to make myself feel better.
I agree that stress is something that has to be managed in the classsroom. Especially in assessment heavy classes students can get stressed easily. I think that keeping a level head is such an important piece to helping the students maintain self control. I attempt to show the students with my body language that i am calm even in a stressfull situation. I like to act "chill" and then discuss with them later that i was actually a little stressed, but didn't want it to get to me, or let it affect their learning by messing with my teaching....
One of the ways I cope with stress is by taking ballroom dance classes. I have a standing weekly class in my calendar. There are some times when the day gets away from me and I think, "If I cancel my dance class, then I'll have more time to do ___________________." And sometimes I actually used to cancel them and end up being more stressed and frustrated. Now that I keep my weekly dance class, I find that it's a fantastic stress reliever for many reasons.
First, not only is it exercise, it's fun exercise. They play great music and I'm not stuck walking on a treadmill.
Second, the instructors are very friendly and funny so even after a really bad day, they can make me laugh and forget about the outside world for an hour.
Third, once I started going regularly, I started making friends. So now my one hour dance class can sometimes turn into going out for coffee with a few other people afterwards so I now have a social network to share things with.
Stress relief doesn't have to be serious!
