Transcription:
Finding Calm in Anxiety

Prakash Chandran: Finding work-life balance has always been a challenge for educators. The pandemic coupled with the return to class has amplified that challenge for many teachers. Today, we're going to cover tips to help with that stress. And here with us to discuss is Dr. Vicki Flynn, the Medical Director of the Walker Family Clinic and the Associate Director of the UAMS Student and Resident Wellness Program.

This is the UAMS Health Talk, the podcast from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. I'm Prakash Chandran. So Dr. Flynn, it's great to have you here today. I was doing a little research ahead of this show and I saw that 30% of teachers leave the profession within their first five years. And the crazy thing is that that statistic is there before the pandemic began. And so much of it is rooted in anxiety. So I wanted to start by asking what would be helpful tips that can support our educator's wellbeing, especially during this time.

Victoria Flynn: Yes, thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Some tips that could be helpful for an educator's wellbeing, I think the first thing to remember is that you're enough. You've been trained, you know the material, you're the expert in the room. And just because you do something differently or you approach teaching differently, doesn't mean your approach is wrong. So I've heard a lot of teachers, especially early teachers, early in their career, compare themselves to others and really put themselves down when thinking about evaluating their success compared to other people's or their perceptions of other people's success.

So remember there's not one right way to approach your job and your position. And there's very likely going to be things that you're going to do differently or be more comfortable with than your colleagues, then lean on your colleagues, ask for feedback for how to approach certain things whenever you have questions and know that's okay. You're probably going to be a different type of teacher 20, 30 years later than you are in your first three to five years. And that's fine.

But just some general tips that I give to everyone. So this wouldn't be necessarily specific to an educator, but anyone can incorporate these tips. Listen to your body. Listen to your mind, yourself. Take a break when you need it. Rest, take care of yourself. We've got lots going on right now and teachers are in a wild position right now with the pandemic. But to-do lists, expectations, needs are growing because now teachers are not just teaching in the classroom. They're teaching online and in the classroom at the same time and trying to disinfect everything and keep everyone safe and still teach and convey the material. So there's a lot happening and it's really important to prioritize yourself and your own health.

Specific tips that I really like to focus on is sleep. To sleep is really important. And good, consistent sleep is important for your general health and not just your emotional, cognitive, mental health. A lot of people since their work days are longer, they're doing more after hours as well, even if it's things that they enjoy, but they're on their phones, they're on their computers into the late hours of the night and that can disrupt sleep and that can be problematic for a lot of reasons. So there's a lot of great tips on sleep habits and what's called sleep hygiene at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control websites. And I'd encourage educators to take a look at that. Prioritize themselves. If they're like most teachers that I know, they went into the field because they want to give, they care about other people. But you really have to take care of yourself in order to be able to show up every day and do your best.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that's such an important point that you make is to prioritize yourself as an educator, because you're right, I have some very close friends, who are teachers and it just feels like they give and give of themselves. and they forget about taking care of themselves, whether that be sleep or taking that time that they need.

So, as you've worked with a lot of our educators today, what are some signs that they might be having a hard time or really wearing themselves thin or burning themselves out? What are some signs that you look for?

Victoria Flynn: So feeling overwhelmed, stressed, burnout. Burnout has been a really popularized term more recently, but essentially feeling exhausted, feeling drained, feeling used up, feeling like you don't have energy or motivation to keep going to show up to work the next day, disconnecting, distancing yourself from your work. So specifically for teachers, if they're really distancing themselves from the students and their disengaging from colleagues from the work, cynicism, or just a general negative outlook can be a warning sign of feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or burnout. So those are all things that I would look for with burnout.

And what if we think about burnout specifically? Another component of that is not feeling like you can do what you planned to do or not able to connect and accomplish your goals. So I would really look for those exhausted symptoms first. And then that would be the point where I would touch base and reach out and ask that teacher, that friend and that colleague how they're doing and how you might be able to help, because that's usually the symptom that comes first. It's just exhaustion.

Prakash Chandran: One of the things that I noticed with my teacher friends is that they feel that they have no choice but to keep giving of themselves. And it's hard to watch because you see how tired they're becoming and you want to say, “It's hard for you to give that energy to the ones you're educating if you don't take care of yourself." So one of the things that I wanted to ask you is what is the best way that friends and loved ones can support the educators in their lives, especially when they notice that they might be struggling a little bit?

Victoria Flynn: In terms of tips for educators and you touched on this too, I like to use the analogy of when you're flying in a plane and the flight attendant says, "Put on your oxygen mask before you help someone else." Or some people think about it, "If you have a cup and your cup is empty, you can't keep giving someone your water or whatever's in your cup." It's empty. So you have to take care of yourself if you're going to be able to keep giving, because like you said, you have to be aware of your own needs and give yourself those to be able to keep giving in such a giving field.

But tips for the rest of us, I think as a friend or a loved one, a colleague extending support, asking the question saying, "Hey, I've noticed that you've been more irritable recently" or "You seemed really exhausted recently, what's been going on?" or "How are things going at work?" or "how can I help?" Those types of things. Just reaching out, acknowledging it, and offering support can be really helpful, and help someone not feel so alone or, like you said, that they have to keep giving, that they have to be the one to solve all the problems. They can lean on someone else for support.

In terms of schools or organizations, you had mentioned that you dug a little bit into the literature and I found some pretty good recent reviews about what the organization can do to help reduce the chances of feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and teacher burnout. And that's so important because whenever there's a high rate of stress, anxiety, burnout, often those individuals who have this higher level say that they have an intent, they plan to leave their job within the next year. I think you said maybe 30% within the first couple of years, and these are the people that we want to be supporting. And we want to support all of our teachers and all of our students and really everyone, but those individuals it's really important to support them too and help them feel empowered.

So what I saw in the literature was quite a few programs on mindfulness and stress reduction and that came up over and over again, mindfulness training programs. And then there was some on yoga, some on self-compassion and the Cochrane review was a little bit more comprehensive that was published in 2015, but they touched on specific trainings, mentoring, coaching programs, flexibility in schedules, administrators allowing teachers to be a little bit more flexible, have some autonomy in determining when their breaks are throughout the day, and all of those things could potentially be helpful.

Prakash Chandran: So say I'm a teacher and I am struggling with some of this stuff. And you've touched upon some tips earlier on in our conversation, but what would be your number one piece of advice for me as I try to educate my students during this uncertain time?

Victoria Flynn: I think a sense of purpose and meaning is so important. I'm sure you've heard the lines, "Man can endure anyhow, any what if there's a why," and I'm not remembering if that Nietzsche , who that was now who said that, but a sense of purpose and knowing why you went into this career, your meaning, your reason why you went into this career can be really helpful whenever you feel like it's really overwhelming. And then if you're able to come look and see what are all those things that are really overwhelming and are, they important things or are they really things that need to be done? Are they things that we're assigning some greater urgency to or something that's causing anxiety that if you talk to your administrator or you talk with your colleagues, there may be a way to take that off your plate?

But if you really keep reconnecting with your reason for doing this, the children or sharing knowledge and information, raising the youth, those are really noble things. And when you think back to that and what your goals are, I think it can help you maybe sift through the weeds a little bit and maybe take a few things off your plate that don't have to be there and that maybe we can delegate to someone else or maybe they can be postponed. So that way, point of your job educating can remain your focus.

Prakash Chandran: So just as we close here, one thing that I always like to ask is if you could leave our audience with one piece of information or one piece of advice specifically around the importance of mental health, what would that be?

Victoria Flynn: Sure. I think there's been a lot of great movement, great strides in de-stigmatizing mental health or de-stigmatizing mental illness. And I think that it's important to remember that mental health really is taking care of yourself. Being active and improving your general wellbeing, just like you would with your physical health.

So it's no different, right? So we encourage physical activity and exercise whether or not if someone has diabetes or high blood pressure and good self-care, coping skills, actively working to improve your mental health. You don't have to have an identified problem. You don't have to have a diagnosis to work towards improving your mental health and sustaining your mental health. All of these relaxation techniques and coping skills, they can help bolster your mental health and your resilience. No matter what level you're coming in at, if you're really stressed and anxious, there's things that maybe you could take away from your routine or take away from the picture to help improve mental health.

There's things you could add. Reconnecting with your friends, engaging with your hobbies. Social connection is so important to health. We're such a tribal people, we need connections. So there's lots of things you can do to improve your mental health. And even if you feel like you're doing great, there's things you can do to sustain that when life gets more hectic and life get more stressful. So my big thing I like to tell people is that mental health, it's an active process. And that there's all of us, there's things that we can do. And I just encourage you to look into that and see maybe something that you gave up a long time ago because life got busy that maybe if you add it back like music or walking your dog or gardening or whatever it is, there's things that make life worthwhile and can be so helpful for your overall health, your mental health.

Prakash Chandran: Well, Dr. Flynn, I truly think that's the perfect place to end. I really appreciate all the time and support that you gave not only today, but just in general in your practice. So thank you so much. That's Dr. Vicki Flynn, the Medical Director of the Walker Family Clinic and the Associate Director of the UAMS Student and Resident Wellness Program.

Thanks for checking out this episode of UAMS Health Talk for more information on this topic and to access the resources mentioned, please visit UAMSHealth.com. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out the entire podcast library for topics of interest to you.

This has been UAMS Health Talk. Thanks so much for listening.