Plug In and Recharge

Burnout is real, but are you viewing your recharge productively? 

On the Calm app there is a daily mindful meditation called The Daily Jay. A recent practice was on burnout. Jay started with a statement regarding batteries and how they recharge. He stated that you have to connect them to a power source to recharge them. You don't leave them laying around doing nothing with them and hoping this give them more charge.

We are the same way.

We need to connect to a power source. We need to recharge with something that gives us energy.

In this mindfulness session Jay shared the story of a woman who was feeling burnout. This woman felt that she needed more rest to recharge so she began napping and resting more. This did not help her feel recharged but rather lethargic. She then began exploring what gives her energy, recharges, and makes her happy. For her it was clearing out the ivy in her yard. This gave her purpose and cleared her mind from what was burning her out.

While a rest feels good, for a while, and if useful, we need to do more than rest.

What recharges you?

The list at the top of this blog gives you some ideas of energy takers and energy givers. It isn't everything. I am sure you have something to add to each list that is specific to you and your life.

For a lot of people in education an energy taker is sound. A quiet car ride home give them energy. Perhaps its children that take energy and you crave adult conversation. Maybe making decisions at school all day takes your energy and you long for someone at home to make the choice of what's for dinner.

This time of year an energy giver for me is my garden. Knowing that as summer progresses I will see the fruits (or vegetables) of my labor. I can then makes my sauces, salsas, and freeze what will keep. This knowledge reenergizes me.

One night this week after dinner dishes were done, Leila and I watered the garden, planted new flowers (pesky rabbits ate our others so this time we planted a kind they hate), and then played her Bluey game. This wasn't more stuff to do and less time for me; it was refreshing and recharging. I felt accomplished with the flowers. I love passing along the garden joy to Leila. It is a love my father has shared with me and I am happy I can share with my daughter. And it is always fun to play a game with my children and see them grow, learn, and have fun.

This week I want you to think about how you can recharge. What power source do you need to plug into?

Have a rest, then figure out what you need to plug into to recharge. Below is a graphic I made to help us take time to list our own ways to recharge. We can also think about where we are at on our battery life. We can ask ourselves how much of an activity we need to get to a charge that helps us feel ready to go.

How can we finish the year fully charged and not running low on battery charge? 

After you have made you list take a mindful minute and breathe deep. Then start your recharge.

 

Magic of the Mind to the Finish Line

 The end of the year holds a lot of hope, excitement, and also the feeling of rushing to the finish line.

It may seem impossible to arrive to work on time, get everything done, and then make it home to relax at the end of the day. While it seems impossible it is not. Or at least it doesn't have to be impossible.

According to neurosurgeon James Doty, we can manifest a better life. In fact he states that "when our attention is intentionally focused on what we want and why, change is possible."

Dr. James Doty is a Neurosurgeon, author, and founding director of Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. His story starts in poverty, trauma, and suffering. Statistically he should not be wealthy, world renowned, or successful; yet he is all of this and more, he thrives. In his book Into The Magic Shop, he shares the life lessons that changed his life. Lessons from the mother of a magic shop owner.

Doty, shares that one day, while riding his bike away from the mess at home, he found a magic shop. The owner was out and the shop was being watched by the owner's mother. This woman told Doty she did not know anything about the magic in the shop but she could teach him another kind of magic, mind magic.

After that day Doty would keep returning to the magic shop. He states he went because the woman offered him cookies and her full attention. She was present. She was present for him. And having someone in his life give him their full attention mattered to him. That was what he needed and lacked.

That time in the late 1960's started Doty's path to where he is today. 

Through his education and research Doty has learned and shared with us a fact we all need to know and practice, "when you are caring and focused on others, this actually is when your brain networks function at their best."

Dr. Doty states that our attention can be directed and redirected in a way that can change our brains. He shares that we can strengthen our grey matter; which is the neuro tissue that helps us learn and grow.

Doty talks a lot about the idea of manifestation. While this sounds like a magical type of thinking, it isn't. It is rooted in brain training, goal setting, growth mindset, visualization, optimism, and mindfulness.

How does all of this apply to us? How does it apply to our school and our students?

We can start by taking in the simple lesson of the woman from the magic shop. Our full attention matters. Our students know when we are giving them our all and when we are phoning it in. As we creep to the end of the year we too have wandering minds. Spring Fever doesn't just afflict our students. We want to be done too. We want to have a break too. Our minds are wandering just the same as our students. So how do we help our brains so we then can help our students' brains?

Mindfulness. Growing our own grey matter. Visualizing how we want to end the year. Coming in each day with optimism. Setting our own goals for success. Manifesting what we want. And focusing on the students.

There is a lot out there that wants to steal away our attention. We need to utilize the tools we have to help redirect our attention. 

When you put on mindfulness for your class, participate. Join in. Do it. Be mindful.

Try An Inner Explorer to help set your minds on the right, positive, finishing line bound track.

K-1: #160 Choices

2-4: #155 Tricks on the Mind

5-8: #159-160: Positive Outlook and Purpose

I was done with my blog and almost ready to send when I found the following 5 Reason I Stopped Counting Down to Summer Break.

As I read this short post I felt it fit well with our topic. The overall idea is to be present (mindfulness). Be with your students. Give them your full attention. 

I encourage you to take some time to read the short post. It really has me thinking about how present I really am this time of year. I am feeling I need to take some more time to be mindfully present. Summer break will come with or without our count down. Our students need our presence and attention. We need to take time to fill them up before sending them off for the summer.

Supporting Mental Health with Mindfulness

 May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

1 out of 6 youth experience mental health conditions. Only half of those youth will receive treatment.

50% of all lifetime metal health begins by the age of 14.

The average delay between onset of symptoms and treatment is 11 years.

In 2020, 1 in 5 youth reported that the pandemic had a negative impact on their mental health.

In 2020 there was a 31% increase in mental health related ER visits among adolescents. 

According to the CDC:

In 2021 4 in 10 students reported they felt persistently sad or hopeless.

In 2021 1 in 5 students reported seriously considering suicide. And 1 in 10 students have attempted suicide.

The US Department of Health and Human Services reports that the most common mental health concerns for youth are; anxiety, depression, ADHD, and eating disorders.

How can we support our students and their mental health?

2 out of the top 3 ideas on the list put out by the CDC are; mindfulness and social emotional learning. Two things we already promote at as a school. Are you promoting them in your class? Do you take time to practice mindfulness with your students?

If you haven't started utilizing Inner Explorer, start! During the month of mental health awareness make it a point to promote positive mental health habits. 

Did you know that research shows, what we focus on expands? This goes deeper than always being positive and the power of positive thinking. Studies show that those without depression symptoms tend to form more positive memories and have more positive memory recall. By utilizing mindfulness we expand the positive parts of our brain and promote positive memories and positive recall. 

Mental energy matters. 

I am sure many of you have heard the expression, neurons that fire together wire together, in short this means that the more we expand the positive parts of our brain the more we wire our brain for the positive. Mindfulness promotes the expansion of the positive and the increase in positive wiring. 

A good mindfulness practice is a simple one that follows three steps. 

Pause

Reframe

Kindness and Compassion

💓

Pause to think and reflect. (without judgment)

Reframe the thought. (we do not have to be positive but we can reframe a situation to see more than the negative.)

Kindness and Compassion toward yourself for where you currently are and where you would like to be and for how you are working on getting there. Be kind to your current self. Show compassion as you work toward a more positive future. 

Remember the best way to teach this to your students is to first teach it to yourself. 

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Braver Leaders ROAR

Braver Leaders.

In a 10 year research study, Brene Brown asked various companies and organization one question "who will be around, taking over in 5-10 years?" She shares that overwhelmingly the answer was "we need braver leaders" braver leaders will be taking over.

As Brene continued to dig into this idea of braver leaders she came up with four key points.

1. Rumble with vulnerability. Brene states that this means that in the face of uncertainty, when things get hard and challenging, we do not tap out. We have the hard conversations. We do the challenging tasks. We push forward even when we are scared. 

2. Live into our values. Brene shares that our behaviors need to support our values. We cannot simply say that we have integrity, we need to show it and live it daily. 

3. Building trust. We cannot have a cohesive team that works well together when we do not have trust.

4. Reset after failure or disappointment. We all face disappointment. We call fail. How do we handle it, how do we fair? Can we reset or do we stay in the failure? 

Brene Brown has long been a favorite of mine. She is a social researcher with a lot of helpful things to share that can help us as adults. The things she shares can also help us support our students.

Whitney Houston once sang "I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way"

We are responsible for teaching our students well so they know how to lead the way. We need to help them put into practice the four pillars of a brave leader.

Last night our oldest child had a Marine recruiter come over to talk about his options. During the time they spent together they went over that the Marines call "tags." These were simply tags on a keychain which held different traits, qualities, and values. The recruiter asked they be put in order of importance and then they reviewed them together. After it was over a comment was made along the lines of "he just keep going deeper and deeper." The recruiter kept asking "how do you handle failure?" "how to you display poise?" etc. If we reflect on what Brene's research shows this aligns perfectly. Our students will be asked about how they handle themselves. They will be asked about reset, living values, and they will be asked to open up and be vulnerable.  

Let's take the time to teach these skills now. Let's build into our students.

Mindfulness is a research proven way to help build these skills and traits into us all. 

This week I found a great website created by a teacher. The website is called Fortheloveofteachers.com. I encourage you to take some time to explore.

One of the things I found was titled cultivating mindfulness, teaching children to learn from failure.

This post had a great mindful practice that the teacher shared she uses daily with her students. They meet in the morning for a class meeting and they review ROAR.

You can take ROAR and review each step to help build resiliency, vulnerability, and learn from failure.  

R: Recognize. Failure is normal. It happens to everyone. 

O: Own it. Learn to be responsible for your action, no matter the outcome.

A: Accept. The only people who fail are those who do not try. Accepting your failures helps you learn to move on from them.

R: Reflect. This is the time to see how to fix, change, and try again. This step creates growth. This step creates recovery.

The next time a student is struggling and believes they are failing (and maybe they are) take some time to ROAR!

Tests and Screen Time

 We can utilize mindfulness for ourselves as well as our students. During testing season a little extra mindfulness can help us all. 

A quick reminder; Inner Explorer under the Transition section has mindfulness for testing. They are short, 5 minutes or less and could be a great way to calm your students before you have to start testing.

On the website Movethisworld.com data is presented sharing that anxiety can negatively impact testing. This test anxiety is often seen through negative behaviors displayed in the classroom. The more we test the more behaviors we may see. With that in mind taking time to reduce anxiety is important.

We can utilize Inner Explorer and mindfulness to help reduce test anxiety. This could help test scores and classroom behavior. A Win-Win-Win!

After you have successfully helped combat testing anxiety, what next?

When testing is all done we like to celebrate with our students and give them some "free time" in class. Often I see an electronics days came up. I want to share some information this week to help us choose other options for brain breaks after testing.

In his new book, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks about Gen Z and younger and their relationship to screens. His new book is called, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

The title alone says it all. The Anxious Generation. In his book he presents information regarding mental health and the correlation to the rise in technology and social media. 

Haidt shares that since 2010 we have seen a dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, and even a significant rise in ADHD. In fact since 2010 we have seen anxiety in young people increase by 134% and depression increase by 106%. Haidt calls this increase a tidal wave, which couldn't be more fitting when you look at the numbers. 

Not to scare us, but rather to help us further understand the concerns screens (and social media) present, Haidt also shared information regarding suicide and girls. In an article in The Atlantic Haidt shares that statistics from 2010-2019 show a 131% increase in suicide among girls ages 10-14. 

Does this mean we should never allow our students to utilize screens? No, of course not. But it does bring up some good questions which we cannot ignore. 

Do we perpetuate the use of screens? Or do we encourage building the brain and reclaiming the parts of the brain we are losing due to screens?

Much like the beginning of the title, Haidt really hits home saying ...great rewiring of childhood... Screens are literally rewiring our brains. For those of us over the age of 25 our brains are fully formed. For some of us we were lucky enough to be born before smart phones, computers in homes, and social media. Our brains were wired to run around barefoot outside until dark. The students in our school (and those in our homes) need some time to disconnect from screens and learn to reconnect (or learn to connect) with people and challenging and sometimes "dangerous" tasks.

Have you ever had to do a team building activity? They might stress you out or annoy you, but they have purpose. Think back to some you have have done. We Are Teachers has a list that could help you consider other options for after testing. 43 Team Building Games

The games students play on a screen are vastly different than a board game. Video game companies employ psychologist to help them ensure the game is addictive. Board games are great tools to learn math, reading, team work, and other life skills. The tactile nature of a board game also builds neuro pathways in the brain to help with problem solving skills. 

If we take time to combat anxiety before a test lets take some time to help our students combat screen anxiety after a test.

Parenting Tips for School

 

Lessons in parenting can provide lessons in education. 

Two of my favorites are a source of my information this week. Dr. Becky Kennedy and Dr. Adam Grant. Both psychology impact how I parent, in a positive way. As I utilize their wisdom in my personal life I am also able to see ways I can utilize their knowledge in my professional life. And I hope that you take some time to consider what will be shared this week. How can you utilize these parenting tips in the classroom?

Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant has a podcast called Re: Thinking with Adam Grant. On his podcast he hosted Clinical Psychologist Becky Kennedy. Dr. Kennedy is known as a parenting expert. If you have a moment check out her Instagram page. Her short advice videos will have you reflecting on your parenting/educating behaviors. During this episode of Dr. Grant's podcast the pair explored ideas in parenting that I feel we can apply to our interactions with our students.

Something that was said during the episode that really stuck out to me was a comment about the questions we ask. It was said that the questions we ask others show them the road we want to walk down with them. One example is the question that Adam Grant asks his children when they get home from school. And it is a question I have adopted and ask in my home too. The question is who did you help today? Dr. Grant shared that as he began to ask this question his wife suggested adding  who helped you today?  Dr. Grant admits that he was not fully onboard at first. He wanted to focus on his children becoming helpers and seeking ways to support others. His wife helped him understand that children need to also be taught to accept help and to let others support them. I love this idea. I have added this to Leila's daily check in after school.

How can we utilize this idea at school? The idea that the questions you ask show the path you want to take with others is powerful. What questions are you asking your students? Are you asking them if they are hungry? Are you asking them if they are alright or how they are doing? Are you check in on them? Or are you asking them why would you do that? how come you can't behave better? What path are your questions taking you down with your students? Can you do better?

Another great idea that was present was from Dr. Kennedy. She shared that she likes to take time once a month or more if she can, to spend one-on-one time with her children. She said that during this time she makes sure her phone is rooms away. During this time she askes her children for a performance review. She asks "how can I do better?" or "what do you need from me?" She shared that her children have commented on screen time, use of specific apps, etc. This opens a line of communication and chance to allow a child to feel like they are important and their opinion  matters. Dr. Kennedy shared that she is then also able to share again her view point. This is something that we can utilize at school. Ask a student what you can do better to help them, how you can better support them, or what they may need from you. It might surprise you what they say. It may create a time of self-reflection and building better understanding. You can share more clearly why you handle things the way you do or why you set up your class the way you do. It builds the relationship.

There were so many good points in the podcast. Go look it up and listen. I want to share just a couple more quick highlights.

During the conversation Dr. Kennedy said that as adults we need to get better at repair. Get good at repair. Apologize to students. Repair what has been broken. Children need to see humility. We make mistakes. 

Children need connection. They need to feel like adults care. Dr. Kennedy shared that the best advice she can give to anyone is to let children know that you believe in them. Children need to hear " I believe in you." Children also need to know what adults believe them. They need to hear "I believe you." 

Power in the Positive

 Getting back into school after a break can be challenging. Coming back to testing season adds an extra level of stress. This time of year can also be rainy, like today snowy, and still cold. Recess may be inside or outside and messy. It is a lot and it doesn't seem to stop!

No matter which meme best represents you, you can still keep going! Our blog from before break gave us a lot of self-care and mindful reset ideas. We can continue to utilize them as we push through April. 

Micky VanDerweker out of Virginia Tech send out a weekly email regarding behavior. He shares tips on how to help school staff address challenge behaviors.

Last week Mickey shared a fun way to start the day creatively with structure. He shared that this idea is best for middle school students (I think upper elementary could do it too). Have your students line up outside of the class before they enter. As you greet them ask them a question such as "what would you use to battle Aquaman?" After the question is answered the student walks into class and follows directions on the board.

You can take notes of the answers given and share this later in the day with the students. You could use the information to make graphs or create team building. It is a fun way to engage the students and talk one-on-one with them as they enter the class.

Another suggestion Mickey shared is positive post-it notes. This is something I have touched on in past blogs. I have also seen this mentioned by Matt Eicheldinger, a teacher who shares his wisdom on social media. Leave sticky notes on desks. Share encouraging words or a silly smile. 

I had a high school math teacher who knew I was a runner leave me a Far Side comic one day. I walked into class and on my desk this small comic from her daily calendar was waiting for me. I had a meet that day and this small gesture made my day.

I love how Google helped me find the exact comic to share. This was the best and I still remember this waiting on my desk for me. The small things you do can impact a student today. It may also stick with them for years to come!

The last thing Mickey talked about in last week's email was testing season and the Power Pose. Again this is something we have talked about in previous blogs. I also have it posted on my door. Come check it out. Take a minute or two before you start a test and have students stand. Tell them to be Superman or Wonder Woman. Hold their heads high, hands on hips, and breath in deep and think powerful thoughts. This is a mindfulness technique that helps create positive neuro pathways in the brain. 

And remember, You've Got This!