On-the-job stress and burnout can strike no matter what your profession . . . and unfortunately, even the classroom is no exception.
Teaching is one profession that can be particularly stressful – teachers can experience detrimental effects on their health, well-being, and job performance from stress and burnout.
So what can teachers do to cope with the stressful challenges they face each day in the classroom?
Robert W. Roeser, PhD, from Portland State University, wanted to see if mindfulness could help.
Roeser and his colleagues investigated whether training teachers in mindfulness would affect teachers’ capacity to perform more effectively in the classroom.
Researchers recruited 55 public school teachers in the United States and 58 teachers in Canada. In each group, participants completed baseline assessments and were then randomly assigned to either the mindfulness training group or a waitlist-control group.
The mindfulness training program involved 11 sessions and took place over 8 weeks. It included five teaching activities: guided mindfulness and yoga practices, group discussions, small-group activities to practice skills in real-life scenarios, lecture and guided home practices, and homework assignments to develop and apply mindfulness and self-compassion.
Participants in both groups completed an immediate post-program assessment and also a 3-month follow-up. All three assessments (including baseline) consisted of self-reported measures of occupational stress, burnout, health, and well-being. At baseline and post program only, objective assessments of blood pressure and pulse rates were taken.
So how did mindfulness affect teacher stress levels?
Researchers found that a mindset of self-compassion and mindfulness helped the participants more effectively manage stress.
Post-program and follow-up results showed that the teachers in the mindfulness training group reported greater mindfulness and a more self-compassionate mindset than the control. Teachers in the intervention group also reported large declines in occupational stress and symptoms of burnout, anxiety, and depression.
The objective assessments of blood pressure and resting heart rate however, showed no significant differences post-program between the mindfulness group and the control group.
It is interesting to note that the results were similar between the groups in Canada and the United States, giving support to the universal benefits of this program.
One caveat, however, is that the self-report measures may have been influenced by social desirability.
We also want to be cautious in viewing the intervention as the sole cause of the results because this study used a waitlist-controlled design.
That’s because with this kind of design, we don’t know for sure if the result was caused by the intervention or by the extra attention that the treatment group got. I’d have preferred to see some kind of non-mindfulness intervention given to the control group.
But the subjects were randomized and the findings are indeed promising.
If you’d like to learn more about this study, it can be found online in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
Have you ever worked with mindfulness to help patients manage on-the-job stress? How about your own on-the-job stress? Please share your experience in the comments below.
I retire after working with traumatized children and families. I used mindfulness every session to help center, relax, and learn focusing. It can be used with all age groups and modified for different developmental issues. I worked with several children who were autistic and I took their cues and centered it around their focal points so they could connect and then led them into other focus area and relaxation: all treated like a game we played. They loved it. Many families enjoyed working together as a group. Mindfulness is a practice that release lots of pent up issues through knowing where to go for help: our own areas, our own minds, our own environments and then how we can reframe into healthier thinking, responding, and relating. It works for me too. Alot of stress in counseling has led me to using a few moments to re-attach to a time I spent using mindfulness. I can utilize mindfulness into several areas of assisting with relief and directness than does not cause defensiveness.
I tend to live in a pretty mindful way, trying to stay in the present most of the time. And I teach mindfulness to many of my clients as a way to handle not only workplace stress, but all kinds of stress. When we worry, we always are worrying about either the past or the future, so mindfulness can help all of us get our minds out of that worrying place.
As a part of a school wide Health & Balance initiative for our school community we have implemented a mindfulness program from Kindergarten to Gr. 12. Most of our students (960) are high achieving, active and engaged in academics, the arts, athletics, service, and more. They are very busy. We wanted to give them an opportunity to have a moment to ‘pause’ in their busy days (Carl Honore’s books are fantastic). We used some of the evidence from Nicbam and the Garrison Institute to show the science and benefits of mindfulness in our traditional independent school. Though we are still growing this program, the results, to date, have been outstanding. More and more students are now asking Faculty for a mindful moment in their class time because they are experiencing the benefits.
I practice the “art of being present” in my daily job and it’s amazing what the experience has been. Actually the “art of being present” is a form of mindfulness in the presence of others. All day long I see business clients who come to our facility for business assistance. My day is fast-paced, often hectic, and quite demanding intellectually. I practice midfulness each day which sets the stage for “being present” for my clients. They feel it. I feel it. And I’m able to spend my days without my energy being sapped right out of me. Some days, I teach 3-hour business classes after a day of seeing clients. These are my 14 hour days (from leaving my house in the morning and returning at night). Mindfulness helps me to focus on what is occuring at the moment and to be fully present to the task at hand. I’m truly blessed to be able to perform this work, enjoy it and be energized by it even though I’m approaching 70.
I am a mindfulness instructor who, besides my own teaching and coaching work, teaches part-time for eMindful.com. We have had great success teaching mindfulness tools in online classrooms to corporate employees to help them manage chronic stress in our Mindfulness at Work® program. One of our major clients is Aetna Insurance, who is offering this program to all of their employees. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini recently spoke with Arianna Huffington on CNBC’s Squawk Box show about how mindfulness has helped him, and how he was subsequently moved to bring these tools to his company.
Quoting Mr. Bertolini from the above interview about the 12-week study that Aetna collaborated on with eMindful:
“‘When employees are in the highest quintile of stress, their health care costs are $2,000 a year on average higher than the average employee,” he said.
“‘We saw dramatic drops in stress after the program was over, and we saw a 69-minute gain in productivity of our employees over a year,’ he added.
“The increased productivity along with reduced health-care costs and lowered employee stress yielded an 11-to-1 return on the program’s investments, Bertolini said, which added up to a savings of about $3,000 per employees per year.
“The other part that we couldn’t measure that I think is far more important is being present in the work environment, and by being present making better decisions for the organization and those decisions depending on where you are in the company take a longer time to have an impact, and we’ll see that over time’ he added.
I am very honored to be able to bring evidence-based mindfulness tools to people who would otherwise likely have no exposure to mindfulness and/or may not be able to afford to pay for classes out of pocket. Aetna and other companies like them are really shaping the future of health care empowerment for the individual while reducing their own costs – complete win-win. We are also teaching mindful eating via our Metabolic Health in Small Bytes® and other mindful eating programs, and are very happy to be part of the solution in addressing the huge obesity and lack of nutritional awareness problem in this country, as well as teaching people strategies that can improve their overall well being.
Please note: The part of the CNBC interview with Ms. Huffington begins at around 3 minutes, 30 seconds.
I train volunteers to support socially isolated mothers in the first year of their child’s life, and the volunteers learn how to become mindful about what is happening within themselves when they interact with the mother, mindful of their relationship with the mother and hope to encourage the same mindfulness in the mother’s relationship with her child.
I like using Daniel Siegel’s definition using the letters COAL to define mindfulness: Curious, Openness, Accepting without judgement and Love
I teach mindfulness to all my clients at the community agency where I work, as well as my groups, including a mental health group called “Coping Skills for Anxiety and Depression” and in my substance abuse relapse prevention group. it is a wonderful skill to teach but challenging sometimes to get people to practice enough to make a difference. That’s one reason that we started a weekly practice group at our clinic, to encourage ongoing use of this valuable tool. But even the idea that “I am not my thoughts and feelings” is a powerful message. That and being aware of self judgement and inviting kindness to ourselves can be powerful tools!
I have been incorporating mindfulness strategies with mindful movement and yoga, and breathing exercises for over 40 years. The applications have been with special education students, athletes, teachers, college medical staff and nursing students. I saw long term effects in my special education students and athletes, who used these techniques consistently over time. In workshops rather than longer tern training, people do not seem to follow up with practice. A long term commitment is necessary to develop this as a viable practice. When it becomes a practice, the brain and behaviors change and blood pressure and heart rate effects become stable.
i do agree that mindfulness is a grate tool to help in those cases. i use for some years the EFT for the same dificulties’ it is simplier’ esy to learn for adults and children. i prefare to use it. ( the EFT IS REALY COMBINING MINDFULNESS with the simple tapping technique.
Hi,
Mindfulness isn’t the same as EFT minus the tapping. That would reduce Mindfulness into just awareness when it is so much more – non-judgmental awareness, knowing when we’re being pulled by craving and aversion, knowing the body, the mind. I am a great fan of EFT too but I wouldn’t see them as the same. LKH