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If you are a teacher struggling to educate your students during these challenging times, this is for you. I am writing this for those of you who are working in school classrooms and for those of you whose classroom is in your living room and you are staring into a screen.
You are being heroic. I know that you are under tremendous stress and that the anxiety and related emotions are very difficult to handle. You are a teacher because you love to teach and your passion is to help your students master the information and skills that will gain them better futures. You are trying to teach the students that you care so much about while struggling to keep all of you and them safe. You are trying to balance your teaching responsibilities with the responsibilities that you have to your family and to yourself to stay safe and to stay healthy. It is hard. It is very hard.
I have tremendous respect and appreciation for all of you. I serve as a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of problems including anxiety, depression, anger, and PTSD, i.e., all of the challenges that you are currently dealing with.
We have known for a long time that these problems interfere with our quality of life and our ability to make proper analysis and decisions. We have also known for a long time that these problems interfere with our health and our ability to stay healthy. Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe showed in 1967 that stress leads to a significantly increased risk of developing an illness. Subsequent research showed that stress impairs the immune system by, in part, an increase in corticosteroids suppressing the immune response and making us more susceptible to infections which, of course, is exactly what you do not need right now.
I am, therefore, writing this to share with you 10 keys to helping you cope more effectively with the tremendous stress that you are under. It is essential for your welfare and for the welfare of your students, colleagues, families, and friends that you cope effectively with it.
Pace yourself. Despite what some politicians want us to believe, this is obviously a marathon, not a sprint. The best advice I received before I ran my first half marathon was to start slowly. If you run too hard initially, and you will want to do so because of your intense desire to help, you risk exhausting yourself mentally and physically. You will then be unable to help over the next weeks and months. So do your best but pace yourself so that you can finish the race. Get your rest when you can. Try to eat nutritious food. Do the rest of these 10 keys.
Don't internalize your anger. Of course, you are angry that you are in this situation. You are being asked to potentially literally risk your life if you have had to return to the school classroom. You are being asked to work in a situation where you know that you are unable to fully protect yourself and your students from getting infected.
You are not alone with your anger, though many people will try to minimize or deny their anger. The worst thing you can do is to internalize it, i.e. hold it in and redirect it at yourself. Sigmund Freud said a lot of stupid things. (Penis envy? Seriously?). But he said some brilliant things including that anger turned inwards is depression. So, please do not hold it in.
Please, also, do not displace it by taking it out on others. Find healthy and appropriate ways to express it. When that friend, family member, or colleague asks, “How can I help?” respond with, “Listen to me while I vent my anger and get some of it out of me." Anger and other emotions have energy. If you do not express them in a healthy and effective manner, you may express them in an unhealthy manner, such as taking them out on yourself or on family or friends, taking risks that you wouldn’t otherwise take, or drinking, drugging, or eating too much.
Use your anger to motivate you to act constructively. Vote if you have not done so already. Reach out to people who share your frustration.
Let people help you. You are absolutely a hero. But you are not a superhero because they only exist in comic books and movies. Do not hold unrealistic expectations of yourself. When you finish work, you may be physically and mentally exhausted. You have been in a state of physiological arousal all day as you have dealt with the risk to your health. You are drained. So let people help you. They desperately want to. Let them shop for your groceries or do your errands if they offer to do so. Save your time for important things like getting sleep, spending quality time with your loved ones, eating, and recharging.
Admit that you are afraid. Fear is motivating. Fear makes our heroic hospital workers put on their PPE carefully and properly. It makes you analyze situations more carefully and, unless it gets too high, more accurately. Of course, you are afraid of getting sick. Don’t try to pretend otherwise. No one is going to believe you anyway and you will deprive yourself of using the tools that will decrease your fear and improve your functioning.
Assume that you will get the virus — or assume that you won't. We do not function as well with the unknown. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you have already made one of these assumptions. We do this to try to decrease our fear. Recognize and admit to yourself which of these assumptions you have made and understand how it is affecting your behavior, decisions, and interactions with others. Determine whether you are benefitting from the one that you have chosen. Remember that you cannot predict the future so that you do not truly know which of these will be correct. Be careful if you have chosen the former that you do not do things that will create a self-fulfilling destiny.
Try not to catastrophize. Humans do not like the unknown. It frightens us and makes us feel too vulnerable. This is hard-wired into our DNA. The caveman who heard a noise and went outside assuming that it was a dangerous beast was prepared to deal with it, survive, and make more children passing on his or her DNA. The caveman who heard a noise and went outside assuming that it was the wind got eaten. So we are programmed to catastrophize. Be alert to it and correct it when you can.
Use cognitive techniques. An event occurs causing us to have specific thoughts that give rise to specific feelings, including mad, sad, glad, and scared, then to specific behaviors. These thoughts can be automatic or planned, positive or negative, accurate or distorted, and functional or dysfunctional. When people are anxious or depressed, they tend to become overloaded with automatic, negative, distorted, and dysfunctional thoughts. You are intelligent and, therefore, used to assuming that your thoughts are accurate because they almost always were accurate. This is potentially a time when you will have more distorted cognitions. Try to be aware of it. Let your colleagues and coworkers help you catch them. You will absolutely make mistakes because you are human. Try to identify, challenge, and correct your automatic negative thought and correct them using the evidence available to you.
Address all three parts of anxiety and emotional pain. These are physical, emotional, and cognitive. Try to get some exercise to burn off the physical stress but be certain to do so safely. Do whatever behaviors help you to relax and don’t judge yourself about them. This is not the time to start your diet or to quit smoking. This is the time to use whatever will help you get through this pandemic and the incredible demands on you successfully. Acknowledge the emotional aspects and talk to people about them. Don’t internalize. Use cognitive therapy techniques to address your anxiety-inducing thoughts and try to keep them accurate. Don’t isolate yourself. It is crucial that you maintain your connectedness to others. You have heard the phrase “misery loves company." This is because we can all help each other get through these very difficult and, especially for you on the front lines fighting the virus and trying to help keep people safe and alive, miserable times by helping each other do the things I am writing about.
Stay mindful. I realize that mindfulness has become very trendy. But there is a good reason for it. Mindfulness is essentially based on the concept that we do better and make better decisions when we stay in the moment. Take it one moment at a time. Do the best you can in this moment then move on to the next one. You will undoubtedly make great decisions and terrible ones because you are a human being doing the best you can. Learn from baseball’s relief pitchers and football’s placekickers. Have a short memory. When you make a mistake, try to learn from it and move on so that it does not distract you from making the next decision correctly. Stay mindful. Remember, you are a hero but not a superhero.
Savor the victories. As I write this, well over 200,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19 and related underlying problems. It is possible that over 200,000 more people will die if our leaders don’t start doing a better job. The losses are staggering. I personally have already lost a relative and a longtime friend to COVID-19. Please savor the victories, even the small ones.
Create your own victories. Recognize that it is very very difficult to teach under these circumstances. Nobody can do it really well. Rejoice when your students master some idea or skill. Celebrate when they complete their homework and do well when you test them.
Help, in your personal life, someone in need. Wear your mask. Socially distant. Help prevent the virus from spreading to someone less physically able to fight it. No victory, no success, no correct decision will make up for our losses. But they will get you through the night!
I thank you and wish you success and great mental health! Please pass this post on to your teaching colleagues and coworkers!
