Most people realize that stress has a negative impact not only on our mental health, but also on our effectiveness and productivity. Principal and teacher burnout are very real problems!

In the last post, we looked one method for reducing stress by shrinking our priorities to focus on those that meet five specific criteria. In this post, we’ll explore several additional suggestions to help alleviate stress.

As this article points out, “School leaders are in one of the most precarious balancing acts in the history of public education. They must keep educators focused on providing high-quality learning … despite mandatory COVID testing, email notifications of potential exposures, and omnipresent media coverage of the pandemic. This balancing act is complicated further by teacher shortages and the cumulative impact of asking teachers to help cover job vacancies. All of this leads to an incredible amount of stress for administrators and teachers alike, which must be mitigated to avoid burnout.” (Robbins, 2021)

The author then goes on to offer several suggestions for reducing stress (both for administrators and teachers) that were gleaned from educational leaders across the country.

Hopefully you will find at least one idea that will help you deal more effectively with the physical and emotional fatigue that often comes with the job.