Self-Care Tip For Early Childhood Educators

Self-Care Tips for Early Childhood Educators

Author: Annie M. Brown

Early Learning Coalition of Hillsborough County

As early childhood educators, working with young children can be rewarding, but also comes with challenges that can be exhausting and take a toll on your spirit, mind, and body. Because educators are encouraged to focus so much energy on taking care of and educating others, and so little on themselves, self-care is necessary to maintain good physical and mental health and avoid burnout.

Self-care means you are mindful of your own needs, and that you are implementing strategies for meeting those needs so you can be healthy, help and care for others, function well on your job and are better able to support the people you care about.

Self-care can be a great way to prevent or treat teacher stress. Approximately 30% of teachers report feeling levels of stress at any given time during the school year (Blazer, 2010). When left unattended to, teacher stress can lead to burnout and play an adverse role in teacher turnover. Self-care is crucial for teachers. It helps teachers maintain an adequate quality of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, and reach full potential in the classroom, which will positively affect student’s outcome. Below are some tips that may help you as you consider your thoughts for self-care.

1. Exercise regularly. Exercising can help release endorphins and burn off adrenaline, which can help reduce unhealthy hormones that can lead to stress. Plan time to exercise at least 30 minutes or more each day. The best exercise are those that uses your arms and legs, such as dancing walking, running, or swimming.

2. Eat Healthy foods and get good quality sleep.

Our health play an important role in our ability to deal with the difficulties we face in life. Having a healthy body increases our ability to cope with these challenges. To help keep your energy level up, you should be eating a balanced diet and receiving plenty of sleep. A lack of sleep can make it harder to maintain emotional balance. If you are not already, plan on getting at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night.

3. Make time for yourself every day. Self-care is all about doing something that makes you feel good physically, mentally, or emotionally. Take work breaks whenever possible. Spending 10 minutes of your day centered around yourself can make a big difference. At the end of a busy day, take the time to relax and decompress.

4. Spend time with people you enjoy being with.

Usually, these people are the ones that support you and your career. Use this time to connect and engage. This can be a safe time and place for you to network with peers, express your thoughts, feelings, ideas, and receive feedback. 5. Know your stressors. Be aware of and recognize situations that cause you the most stress. This will allow you to identify the unique signals that your body give you during stressful situations, such as stomach ache, feeling anxious or headaches. Identifying your stressors will play an important role in prevention and coping with stressful challenges that may occur.

6. Take Control of your nerves. It’s important that you know that you can calm yourself. Knowing how to calm yourself relieves anxiety. If you feel nervous or experience some of those unique signals, do some mindful breathing.

Start by taking deep breaths, holding each breath up to 5 seconds before releasing while focusing specifically on each out breath.

Continue for 3 to 5 minutes or as needed.

7. Ask for help when you need it. As much as you’d like to think so, you may not be able to do everything without help. If you need support, please ask for it. It is important that you do have someone to share your feelings with. This could be a spouse, family member, friend, or a Pastor.

If you feel it will help, join a support group of educators like yourself or seek professional help as needed.

References: Blazer, C. (2010, August 31). Teacher Burnout. information capsule. volume 1003. Research Services, Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://eric. ed.gov/?id=ED536515#:~:text=Burnout%20within%20the%20 teaching%20profession,burnout%20at%20any%20given%20time