The Teacher as an Effective

Stress Manager

Stress-as a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way.

It should noted that stress does not always seem bad. It can come in the form of being chosen to represent the school in a contest, getting your bedroom renovated or having your closest friends stay in your house for an entire week. Therefore, we can say that stress can be caused by good things happening to you as well.

Common Causes of Stress• Arguments• Disagreements• Conflicts• Illness• Pushing you body too

hard• Changing weather

conditions• Pollution• Tobacco use

• Puberty• Taking responsibility

for another’s action• Lack of basic needs

For female teachers, pre- and post-menstrual syndrome, pregnancy and post-partum become stressors.

Different Types of StressEustress (Positive)

Distress (Negative)

Eustress improves performance,

motivates and focuses energy and energizing.

Demotivating and displaces energy,

causes anxiety, and worry, or concerns and

decreases overall performance/ability

Laura Schenck (2011)

Principles of Stress Management

1. Self-Knowledge It involves knowing your

capabilities and your limits, your personal temperament and typical coping styles, and your values and goals.

2. Self-acceptance and confidence

Being able to accept yourself as you are, free of any demand that you will be different, provides the basis for confidence in your abilities. Confidence, in turn, will enable you to risks, try new things, and direct your own life.

To accept yourself acknowledge three things:1. You exist,2. There is no reason why you should be any

different from who you are.3. You are neither worthy or unworthy.

3. Enlightened self-interest

The principle of enlightened self-interest take into account both parts:o You place your own interests first.o You keep in mind that your own

interests will be best served if you take into account the interest of others.

4. Tolerance for frustration and discomfort

High tolerance will keep you from overreacting to things you dislike. It will help you tackle problems and issues rather that avoid them. It will enable you to take risk and try new experiences.

5. Long-range enjoyment

To avoid distress, you have to experience pleasure.

6. Risk-takingTo grow as a person and improve your

quality of life means being prepared to take some chances. Here are some important areas of risk-taking that relate to stress management:• Learning new things which may challenge

existing belief.• Tackling task which have no guarantee of

success• Trying new relationship• Doing things that the risk the disapproval

of other people.

How is risk-taking relevant to stress

management?Risk-taking is necessary for self-knowledge. To discover your limits, you need to take some risks and try yourself out. You can open up fresh opportunities to increase pleasure and avoid problems.

7. Moderation

The principle of moderation will help you avoid extremes in feeling, thinking, and behaving.

Importance of ModerationExtreme expectations- too high or too

low, will set you up either constant failure or a life of boredom. Addictive or obsessional behavior can take control of you, creating new distress.

8. Emotional and behavioral responsibility

People who see their emotions and behaviors as under their control are less prone to distress than people who see themselves as controlled by external forces. This principle can help you take charge of your emotions, your actions, and in turn your life. It involves taking responsibility for (1) what you feel, and (2) how you act.

9.Self-direction and commitment

Taking responsibility for the direction of your life involves:• Choosing your goals, making sure they

are your own.• Actively pursuing your goals, rather

than waiting and dreaming.• Making your own decisions.

• Choosing to work at managing stress, developing your potential, and changing things you dislike, rather than just drifting along or expecting a miracle to occur.

• Not condemning any person (including yourself) when things go wrong in your life, even though you or someone else may be responsible; but rather identifying any causes and looking for solutions.

10. Flexibility

Flexible people can bend with the storm rather than broken by it. They know how to adapt and adjust new circumstances that call for new ways of thinking and behaving. They have resilience – the ability to bounce back from adversity.

11. Objective thinking

Flexibility and openness, as well as the other principles, require freedom ways of thinking that are narrow-minded, sectarian, bigoted and fanatical; or that rely on uncritical acceptance of dogmatic beliefs or magical explanations for the world and what happens in it.

12. Acceptance of reality

To accept something is to (1) acknowledge that it exist, (2) believe there is no reason it should not exist, and(3) see it bearable.

All of these principles highlight different perspectives that strengthen the belief that each person has the capacity to encounter stress but not end up overcome with it. No person becomes a master manager overnight. It will take many experiences and a lot of mistakes along the way before one can truly become better at coping with stress.

Time Management

“Put the First Things First”

Stephen Covey

Many people feel that they continue to do a lot and yet end up accomplishing nothing. This can be due to the fact that what they are doing is not really what is important but what seemed to be important at the moment. These urgent matters and not urgent matters are important.

Urgent Non-Urgent

Important Deadline driven projectsCrisesImmediate ProblemsMeetings

Q1

Problem PreventionRelationship BuildingFinding your life partnerBuilding your dream careerPersonal developmentHealth improvement Q2

NotImportant

InterruptionsCertain phone callsPopular activitiesSome meetings, reports

Q3

Time wastersSurfing TV channelsMindless web surfingTrivia

Q4

A devised time management matrix by Covey

Quadrant 1 (Urgent and Important)

• Quadrant of necessity• Things you have to do right away.• Writing a to-do list everyday is very

helpful at attending to these things.

Quadrant 2 (Non-urgent and Important)

• Quadrant of quality and personal leadership.

• These are the things that have to be done even if they are not urgent because they are important to your goals.

• These include items that don’t really act on you but are things that you have to act upon.

• These may include what small steps can take to achieve long-term goals.

Quadrant 3 (Urgent and Not Important)

• Quadrant of deception• Activities are urgent seem to be

important but what we have to stop and think whether they are worth doing at all.

• If you seem to lack at time for doing important things, reallocate time from activities that fall in Quadrant 3 and Quadrant 4 because those in Quadrant 4 are not worth doing at all.

To facilitate time management decisions, ask yourself the following questions:o What is the most important to you?o What gives your life meaning?o What role do you play? Which of

them would you like to play well?

Always remember to keep the first things first. As a future teacher, look into your goals and manage your resources to keep stress at bay and make sure your time is well-spent.

ATTENTION !!

I need to remember the following:

Stress is inevitable but manageable.

Stress manageme

ntWe make enlightened

decisions when we anchor them

on our goals, values and

principles of stress

management

Management of stress begins in making the right

decisions.

We can manage stress if we can manage time

wisely.