Manage Your Stressors

MATs and schools are busy places and many staff face challenges – teaching is one of the three most stressful occupations and many support staff also face challenges, including financial ones. It is why there are such recruitment and retention challenges. The information shared on this page will help you and staff in and across your MAT or school. Please do share the page url if you think it will be helpful to:

• Understand the difference between pressure and stress
• Identify the main causes of workplace stress and likely personal stressors
• Better manage the key risks of stress and as a result be more effective

This is not a comprehensive or detailed solution for anyone who has mental ill-health or other diagnosed illness. If you suspect you or others have mental or physical ill-health then you or they should seek advice or support from a professional practitioner.

Pressure

You will regularly experience pressure at work. This comes from having specific tasks to deliver within a timeframe or having deadlines to meet. It can also be something you put on yourself, through having high expectations or from being a ‘perfectionist’. Excessive workload and overwhelm can also lead to feelings of ‘being under pressure’ and lead to stress.

However, pressure can be positive and a motivating factor, and is often essential in helping you to carry out your job, particularly when something needs to be done quickly. It can help you to work at your best, achieve your goals and perform better.

Without it you may procrastinate, perform more poorly or not achieve those things you want in life. So it is entirely normal and while it can cause physiological changes, these should be temporary as your body will return to its normal state.

Stress

Stress occurs when this pressure becomes excessive and it is a natural reaction which is often referred to as our fight, flight and freeze response. It is our reaction to being put under or feeling under pressure.

It is part of evolution and is a design to help protect ourselves from danger. It is present in all animals. When we feel under threat our bodies react by releasing certain hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones mean:

• We feel and are more alert, allowing us to act quickly and more decisively.
• Our heart beats faster, quickly sending blood to where it’s needed most.
• We are more likely to escape or deal with dangerous situations.

Usually, after we feel the threat has passed, our bodies release other hormones, which help us to relax and return to our more usual state.

This process is something that happens automatically in our bodies, and we have no control over it. So stress is not an illness but a state. It can become acute when faced with a very challenging situation or where we are significantly outside our comfort zone, such as a job interview, exam or giving a public speech, and again this is normal (and natural).

Usually this will be short lived, following the process above and you will return to your more usual state. However, for some people, this heightened state remains, and can become chronic, with the body not returning to its natural state.

This can lead to both physical and mental symptoms of distress (shaking, behaviour change, anxiety, panic, etc.) and mental and physical illness can also develop.

We often use words like stressed, nervous, anxious to describe how we feel. Most people feel anxious at times and it’s particularly common to experience some anxiety while coping with pressure, significant events or changes, especially if they could have an impact on your life and work.

Yet it is important to try and differentiate between what are normal feelings that most people have in dealing with work and home life and the inevitable busy periods and challenges they face and when these become overwhelming or you feel unable to cope.

If you think about your current life and how much pressure and stress you believe you are facing. How much of this do you believe is normal and how well are you are able to manage this?

Give yourself a score of between 1 and 10, where 1 is you are overwhelmed and believe you are unable to cope at all and are finding things very difficult to deal with and 10 is where you are fully in control and able to manage everything that is thrown your way.

This is not designed to be a scientific test but just to raise your awareness of where you are now as you work through the rest of article.

Take some time to reflect on events and feelings that could be contributing to your stress (you could do this on your own or with someone you trust). Working these out can help you anticipate problems and think of ways to solve them. Even if you can’t avoid these situations, being prepared can help.

Some common stress triggers include.

• Issues that come up regularly, and that you worry about, for example paying a bill, attending an appointment, or having to give a talk.
• One-off events that you are facing or are on your mind a lot, such as a job interview, taking an exam or moving house.
• Ongoing events, like being a carer, the hours you are working, workload or issues you have with your line manager, students or others at work.

You may or may not be surprised by some of your triggers and just how much you are dealing with at once. Not having enough work, activities or change in your life can be just as stressful a situation as having too much. We often simply do not stop to think about them.

Below you can click to open up more information in four areas on the risks and management of stress.

While it may not be easy, only you can take responsibility for managing your challenges. By following the suggestions for managing workplace and personal stress you can take significant steps to improve how you are able to identify and manage your stressors. You can also follow the tip on creating more positive self-talk here.

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It’s OK if you are still not sure and would like more information first – just email support@welbee.co.uk and we will share the features and benefits of Welbee and how these help deliver the evidence proven benefits of higher staff retention, lower staff absences, better financial performance and further raise student outcomes. All starting with DfE Staff Wellbeing Charter recognised measurement.