"We are all burnt out."
This statement was expressed to me by a colleague at the beginning of March. She looked me in the eyes, barely able to lift her shoulders from her knees, and explained why I was receiving email upon email questioning the validity of the professional learning activities we had planned for the coming month. It wasn't that people weren't capable of doing the work, or even that they didn't want to, she said. It was just all too much. It was one more thing. And people were reaching their breaking points.
I left her room in a cloud of disappointment and frustration. How was I supposed to combat the exhaustion that is so typical of the beginning of March? If my internship was going to be a success, people had to complete the activities that I was creating and assigning them. There had to be something I could do. Upon returning to my office I dimmed the lights, closed the door and huddled on the couch. I opened my Calm app and began an open-ended meditation to help relax me.
About 3 minutes later, my eyes flew open as my mind, freshly relaxed and re-energized, rewarded me with a new frame of reference and empathy.
My own Burnout
I had reached a very real burnout experience in the week before Christmas break. Between juggling a new role which lasted well into the evening, 2 Graduate level courses that were held on a college campus 45 minutes away each week, personal struggles with my son, and trying to maintain a functional relationship with the rest of my family, I had severely neglected my own wellbeing. Horrified, I realized that for 3 straight days I had ingested nothing but coffee. No water. No solid foods. Just coffee. And while this had certainly kept me physically going, I felt as though I were moving backwards. From there, I made some changes. During Christmas break I cut out all caffeine (and very nearly died in the process...slightly dramatic, but true), turned off all notifications on my phone, and started a Yoga & meditation routine with the Calm app. I hadn't realized just how important self-care was up until this point.
The Solution
With the Calm app, I was onboarded to their new initiative: Calm Schools. The people behind the Calm app have the amazing goal of reaching and impacting 100,000 classrooms this year, and tout the benefits of teaching mindfulness to help children thrive in a stressful and anxiety-ridden world. While their app originally was targeted for adult use, the Calm team is building out sections in the app specifically designed for k-12 use in the classroom. By taking a few minutes during the day (most of the time between 3 and 11) to reflect and calm my mind, I find that I am much more relaxed and capable of handling disruptions and frustration. I can also bounce back from difficult situations more easily and quickly. I have also been using the Sleep Stories to help turn my mind off at night, leading to almost double the sleep time that I was tracking by December (thanks Apple Health for creepily tracking the amount of sleep I get each night).
The Change We Need
Back to the issue that I started with: my faculty's burnout. By adjusting the schedule for the months of March and April, I was able to remove an additional expectation from their lists (Cross-Curricular Design Teams) and instead offer the gift of time. During the sessions we originally had earmarked for the Design Teams, we instead gave the teachers back those times. I am also offering Mindfulness sessions during these times, and I have been approached to offer sessions during the day as well to our office staff. As of right now, 6 additional teachers have signed up for the Calm app onboarding process, meaning up to 500 students could be experiencing mindfulness in their classes. This also means that 6 more teachers are experiencing the benefits of mindfulness for themselves.
Sometimes, the best things we can do for our faculty is to give them some time and tools to take care of themselves. Let the smiles return!
Emily