Is your health hurting your teaching?
Yes, poor health can kill your classroom performance!
We’ve heard it all. “I am so burned out! School is killing me! I have no time to exercise. This year has been terrible. The kids are out of control. There have no consequences for their behavior. Parents give me no support. I have piles of tests to grade and it just seems to be growing! I snapped at a group of students doing nothing more than moving slowly to class, PDs are making no sense, and I was just observed last period on a Friday! Sure I have a glass of wine or two a night, but don’t most people? And to tell the truth, teachers deserve a glass or two a night, maybe a bottle just to relax! I went to the gym the other day but was so discouraged by how I felt and what I looked like, I left after a half hour, went to the bagel shop and got a bacon, egg & cheese, coffee and a danish and said to myself, “I’m not ready. I’ll go back when I lose a few pounds and can handle a longer workout.”
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. And it is not always the kids, or the principal, or the job or the work piling up that raises your stress level or lowers your productivity level. It is more likely poor health and your body’s inability to cope with stress. Fixing your health is one of the - if not the #1 - best ways to improve your teaching performance!
As a chiropractor, science teacher, and consultant, I’ve always done my best to teach patients and teachers how staying healthy is important not just for the body, but for the mind. Have you ever spent time around people who go to the gym, or run around the block or work out in their yards and who seem to be perpetually happy, or better yet, annoyingly bubbly and exuberant? It is because their bodies are doing things that your body, if you are not very physically active, is not doing. Believe it or not, their bodies are getting them high! No, not like back in the 70’s. Their bodies are getting turned on by endorphins!
*** Disclaimer - scientific discussion to follow on how to get happy!! ***
Did you know (even if you are not a science teacher) that when your body is under stress, or in pain, or even unhappy it has a way of treating itself naturally - by creating endorphins! Endorphins are chemical neurotransmitters. They transmit messages from the brain to the body to make you feel good! And pain or stress are not the only factors to create these hormones. They are also created and released during pleasurable activities, such as exercise, massage, sex and eating. Now you know why you are so happy when eating your favorite meal.
The word endorphin is a combination of endogenous (within the body) and morphine (an opiate pain reliever), so endorphins are natural pain relievers. The chief complaint of all teachers is stress. We complain about stress all the time, because we experience it all the time. I am not here to negate or minimize complaints of stress, but to see what we can do to fix it! The best way to do this is to exercise! Exercise creates endorphins and endorphins help us feel better. Feeling better helps us cope with stress more effectively. By handling stress more effectively, we deal with students better. If we can be better with students, our teaching improves!
So what can we do today to improve both our health and our teaching?
Let’s take the easiest way to exercise - increase our cardiovascular functioning. This is easily accomplished by taking a brisk walk. According to Alex Davis, co-creator of Ryan and Alex Duo Life. "Generally, 1 mile (or roughly 2,000 steps) walked equates to [burning] 80 to 100 calories. There are 3,500 calories in 1 pound. This means to lose 1 pound, you'll need to walk roughly 35 miles or 70,000 steps. Over the course of a week, this means targeting 10,000 steps a day," says Davis. At this rate, you could lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. If you are interested, the Ryan and Alex Duo Life website is great for helping you make these kind of daily healthy changes in your life!
It takes an average person 15-20 minutes to walk a mile (so about 4 miles/hour). In any average school year, there are about 40 weeks. By cutting out sweets and making small changes to your diet (including cutting down or cutting out alcohol), and walking about 1 hour after dinner, an average person could lose up to 40 pounds in a single school year by just taking a brisk 1 hour after-dinner walk every evening - and greatly increase your cardiovascular efficiency!
The National Institute of Health says that “low cardiorespiratory fitness (correlates to) a 64% higher risk of depression than high cardiorespiratory fitness.” In a job where depression is not uncommon, teachers cannot afford low cardiorespiratory fitness. NIH also states that, “Physically inactive individuals showed significantly lower scores in motivation, emotion regulation, and in some dimensions of health-related quality of life.” Most of us know this, but we still let ourselves go - especially during, and near the end, of the school year. When we are in good shape we feel better, think more clearly and are better grounded emotionally. Think about how most of us feel coming back to school after a summer of fun and exercise (and a few pounds lighter). We feel great! The students are great, motivation is up, low-stress teaching is happening! Then what happens? You fall back into the routine of poor health. Motivation falls, kids act up and teaching becomes stressful.
Those daily morning runs stop and you are way too exhausted after school for those invigorating trips to the gym. The school stress levels rise and next thing you know… a drink or two before dinner sounds pretty good and there you go. The year becomes progressively more stressful until you post on your wall, the Countdown until the End of the Year! The Kiss of Death - yikes! But the end does come. Summer sun, barbeques, running starts again, Planet Fitness membership is back in full swing and you feel great! You’re in a good mood, the dog loves you again and all is right in the world. Until September 7th, when the cycle begins all over again.
So, the question is, “How much does neglecting your health affect your ability to teach at the top of your game?” Think about it. Is it possible that some of your dissatisfaction with school is coming from not being as healthy as you could be?
While in practice I had one year where I had lots of speaking engagements and events planned, so I decided that I would quit drinking (though it was not that much anyway) and drinking coffee (that was more!) because I learned by doing this it would improve professional performance. It turned out to be my most productive year ever and I felt great!!
As a teacher, I started the Science Olympiad program at our school. Up at 4am, I would leave home by 5 am, get to school by 6 am, finish teaching by 2 pm, and Science Olympiad would go until 5 pm. A 2-hour drive got me home by 7 pm, eat and go to bed. Sound familiar? No exercise and a beer here and there during the week and then on the weekend. It was killing me. I couldn’t do it anymore because it was affecting my teaching. I was whipped! I decided to make the change and get healthy again! I started getting up earlier, went to Planet Fitness and alternate days running as well. I also made the decision to have NO alcohol during the school year - ZERO. This was a game changer! I dropped weight, felt great and could have done after school until 10 pm if they didn’t kick us out. Teaching became effortless, ideas abounded and students responded better (because with a higher energy level, I was responding differently to them!) If you “older” veterans think this not possible, I was 58 when I made these changes (herniated discs and lots of spinal arthritis!)
The bottom line is that you cannot have a healthy frame of mind without a healthy body. Yes, there are exceptions, and if you are willing to roll the dice on an exception, be my guest. I’m sure I will hear from detractors who say you can still be overweight and out of shape yet still be happy and mentally clear. You may get away with it for a while, but it will catch up with you. So start today! Take that step to getting healthy. It will change how you teach!
New teachers, many of you experience the “College Freshman 15” when you are so consumed with lesson planning and preparation for the next day, that by the time you end it’s 11:30 pm (if you’re lucky!), you’re whipped and gaining a few extra pounds. There are just so many hours in a day, so when you leave school, dragging your behind out of an environment that “teacher college” could never have prepared you for, it takes all you have just to catch a breath and get ready for the next day. I get it, that first year is rough! But if you are past your first year of teaching, your break is over. Now you must get serious about your health to maximize classroom performance!
And you veteran teachers, I know it is not easy, but nothing worth having comes easy. Start slow. To be honest, if I were going to suggest one thing to change to be able to improve my outlook on teaching, it would be to stop drinking (and/or getting high for you younger teachers!) That makes everything easier, then start by taking a walk, a run, a trip to the gym, some tennis or maybe pickleball, an extra afterschool activity or anything else! I know, we all have arthritis and bad joints, it hurts to move and we are easily winded and. So you know the #1 fix for arthritis is exercise and motion! It’s not easy getting started, but the journey gets easier as you go along! It hurts too much to exercise, so you don’t do it. Yes, it hurts to begin, but gets better as you progress. Without exercise it is only going to get worse.
People like to say, “I’m going to start on Monday or January 1st, but it doesn’t really matter. Just start. Don’t worry about the magic starting date. There is none! It may not work out and you’ll have to start all over again, but that’s ok! We’re human. Just keep in mind how good you’ll feel a couple of pounds lighter, or with a little more pep in your step, or starting your first morning class with a clearer head! You’ll feel better and you’ll be surprised how less annoying students become when you are healthier!
And for those of you who say, “I can’t”, here is a photo of Richard. He is over 80, an amputee with a walker, and is brought by his aide to my Planet Fitness every day! I can’t think of any greater motivation than seeing Richard coming into the gym every day!
Have a Happy, Productive and Healthy New Year 2024!!
Looking for exciting and worthwhile Professional Development ideas? Call me!
Dr. Cubbin
Website - schoolgoalswork.com
Substack articles (like this one!) - schoolgoalswork.substack.com