We are in a weird time in education. Not only are the pressures on the profession at an all-time high, but teachers by nature put their heart and soul into their work 24/7 while the school year is in session (and much of it often carries over when the year is not in session). Teacher burnout rates are high, and teacher self care has never been more important.
The signs of teacher burnout are there, but way too often educators overlook the basic things they can do to practice effective teacher self-care and help prevent teacher burnout.
Teaching is one of the most rewarding yet demanding professions, and today’s educators face unprecedented challenges. The pressures on the teaching profession are at an all-time high, and teachers, by nature, pour their heart and soul into their work 24/7 during the school year…and often beyond. This relentless dedication can lead to high burnout rates, making self-care practices and prioritizing one’s own well-being more critical than ever.
Teacher Self-Care: What Actually Works When You’re Running on Empty
I remember sitting in a professional development session during my second year of teaching when the presenter threw out a statistic that still sticks with me: an educator’s stress level is second only to that of an air traffic controller. I glanced around the room at my colleagues, some grading papers under the table, others staring blankly ahead, and thought, “Yeah, that tracks”.
The difference, of course, is that air traffic controllers get scheduled breaks and don’t take grading home every night. I don’t think I fully grasped what that stress was doing to me until years later, when I found myself crying in my car before school started, not because anything terrible had happened, but because I had nothing left to give.
While that statistic has changed over the years, teaching remains consistently in the top 5 most stressful jobs.
That moment wasn’t unique to me. The pressures on the teaching profession are at an all-time high, and educators pour their heart and soul into their work 24/7 during the school year, often bleeding into summers, weekends, and what’s supposed to be personal time. Teaching is simultaneously one of the most rewarding and most demanding professions, and the relentless dedication it requires can lead directly to teacher burnout. Self-care is the difference between building a sustainable teaching career and becoming another statistic in the growing teacher shortage.
Teacher self-care is the intentional practice of protecting and restoring your physical health, emotional well-being, and cognitive function so you can show up fully for your students without depleting yourself. It’s not bubble baths and spa days. Those are nice, but they won’t fix chronic stress. Real self-care involves the daily decisions that determine whether you finish the school year stronger than you started it, or crawl to June wondering if you can do this one more year.
The Reality of Teacher Burnout That Nobody Talks About
A University of Missouri study found that 93% of elementary school teachers reported experiencing consistently high stress levels…and this was before COVID-19 reshaped our profession entirely. Think about that number for a moment. Only 7% of the teachers surveyed said they either had lower stress or had developed coping skills that matched the demands they faced daily. Keith Herman, one of the researchers, expressed genuine shock at how many teachers were unaware of techniques he considered basic for responding to stressful situations.
I spent my first seven years in the classroom at a nationally ranked academic school, the kind where parents have strong opinions and the expectations never let up. Then I moved to a Title I CTE school with entirely different challenges like a lack of resources, students dealing with trauma, and families just trying to survive. Both environments produced teacher burnout at alarming rates, just through different mechanisms.
Since 2018, I’ve been training K-12 teachers across every school type and resource level you can imagine to implement student-centered learning, and here’s what I’ve seen over and over: teacher stress isn’t just about workload. It’s about the emotional labor of supporting young minds while feeling like you’re failing your own standards daily.
This job requires academic instruction, emotional support, life coaching, and often acting as a family member or mentor to students who need one. That multifaceted role can leave teachers feeling completely drained, especially when they neglect their own health.
The long-term effects of burnout go beyond feeling tired. Chronic stress leads to physical health issues like fatigue, headaches, and a weakened immune system, as well as mental health challenges like anxiety and depression. The American Psychological Association has consistently found through its annual Stress in America surveys that prolonged stress impairs concentration, memory, and the ability to manage emotions effectively…all of which directly impact a teacher’s capacity to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively in the classroom. For teachers, burnout doesn’t just affect personal life: it directly impacts the ability to be effective in the classroom. An empty cup leaves little to give to students, and when teachers are running on empty, the quality of education suffers.
I learned this the hard way during a particularly brutal October when my period four class could feel my exhaustion before I could name it myself. Student behavior shifted noticeably, not because they were difficult kids, but because they were responding to my diminished energy and shorter patience.
What I Actually Tried, and What Actually Worked
I’m not going to tell you to do yoga or keep a gratitude journal. Those are fine, but they won’t fix what’s broken. Here’s what I actually tried during my classroom years, and what made a measurable difference in my energy levels and job satisfaction.
I stopped treating lesson planning like a solo endurance sport. For my first several years, I planned everything in isolation, convinced that asking for help meant admitting incompetence. During my fifth year, I started sharing planning with a colleague who taught the same prep. We divided the work, swapped feedback, and cut our individual planning time by nearly half. This is one of the best things I ever did for my work-life balance. If you don’t have a grade-level partner, find someone online (teacher communities exist everywhere and collaboration is an essential tool for sustainability).
I built a short walk into my school day, no matter what. This sounds impossibly small, but it changed my relationship with my own stress response. After lunch, I’d take six minutes and walk the perimeter of the building, not checking my phone, not problem-solving, just moving my body and breathing fresh air. This form of self-care became non-negotiable because I noticed I was calmer and more present for my afternoon classes on the days I did it. When I skipped it, student behavior during fifth period was noticeably harder to manage…and the common denominator was me.
I found a release ritual that separated the workday from my personal time. For me, it was listening to one specific album in the car on the way home…the same one every day, until my brain learned that when track one started, work was over. Some teachers I’ve trained use a short podcast, complete silence, or a call to a family member. Whatever it is, it signals to your nervous system that you’re transitioning roles. This one practice did more for my emotional self-care than any amount of venting in the parking lot ever accomplished.
The most significant change, though, came when I shifted to a student-centered classroom model. This is the one insight that I can say with certainty came from my specific journey because I’ve lived both sides of it. When I moved from being the focal point of every lesson to creating an environment where students drove their own learning, my daily stress dropped in ways I didn’t anticipate.
I could walk into a room where everything was prepared, speak meaningfully to every single student during class, and know other students were genuinely engaged in what they needed to be doing. That created a sense of accomplishment and a relaxed feeling that replaced the constant low-grade panic of “are they getting this?”
Was every class perfect? No. Of course not. Discipline issues still popped up (we’re teaching kids, and kids are human), but knowing that smooth, productive class periods were the norm and interruptions were the exception created an entirely different atmosphere. My own students would comment on how laid-back my classroom felt and how they could do better there. Running this effectively takes extra preparation outside of class, but when you can enjoy your craft alongside your students instead of performing for them, it changes everything.
You stop entering class flustered, wondering if your lecture will land. You stop having that horrible moment after an assessment when nobody did well because nobody had questions when you asked. This is teacher self-care at the systems level…restructuring your classroom so it doesn’t drain you every single day.
What Administrators and School Leaders Can Actually Do
Individual self-care practices matter, but let’s not pretend teachers exist in a vacuum. The school’s culture plays a massive role in whether self-care strategies can actually stick. School leaders who want to retain happy teachers need to do more than send out a mindfulness resource pack during professional development and call it done.
Administrators who get this right do a few specific things. They respect clear boundaries by not emailing at 10 p.m. and expecting responses. They build regular breaks into the schedule…and I don’t mean the 22-minute lunch that gets swallowed by copying and bathroom runs. They provide access to mental health resources and support groups that are actually accessible during school hours, not just theoretically available. They offer professional development on emotional intelligence and stress management that’s practical, not preachy. They create opportunities for creative outlets and moments of genuine joy during the school day, like staff wellness challenges, dedicated quiet spaces, or treating faculty members like professionals with lives outside of work.
The school community shapes teacher well-being as much as individual habits do. If you’re a school leader reading this, ask yourself honestly: does your building culture make it easier or harder for teachers to practice good self-care? Because happy teachers don’t just survive the school year…they create classrooms where students thrive.
My Honest Take
If you take nothing else from this article, hear this: the self-care practices that actually work are boring. They’re not Instagram-worthy. They’re small steps repeated consistently until they become a self-care habit, not an occasional spa day that gets forgotten by Tuesday.
The best change I made for my own mental health wasn’t a new wellness app or a comprehensive guide to mindfulness. It was restructuring my classroom, so I wasn’t the center of it anymore. Moving to student-centered learning took away the performative pressure that was burning me out. I could find out one-on-one what students were struggling with and adapt daily to what they needed, rather than delivering a one-size-fits-all lecture and hoping for the best. That direct connection with students, paired with the knowledge that others were working productively without my constant oversight, eliminated a layer of stress I didn’t even realize I was carrying.
That shift takes time. It took me most of a semester to feel natural, and some students pushed back before they came around. Change is uncomfortable, especially if you’ve been teaching the same way for years. I regularly hear from teachers who resist because, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I understand that instinct, but I’d ask you: is every single student in your classroom achieving at their peak potential? Are they arriving excited, taking risks in their learning, and genuinely engaged? If the answer is no, and if you’re running on fumes yourself, maybe it’s worth trying a different approach. It truly only takes a mindset shift to make tweaks that change everything.
Start with one small thing. A short walk. A release ritual. One lesson where you step back and let students take the lead. Your best self is worth protecting, and frankly, your students deserve a teacher who isn’t counting the days until summer.
This article was originally written on March 4, 2020
References:
Gonzalez, Jennifer. “Why It’s So Hard for Teachers to Take Care of Themselves.” Cult of Pedagogy, 20 Sept. 2018, www.cultofpedagogy.com/teacher-self-care/.
Mahnken, Kevin. “61% Of Teachers Stressed Out, 58% Say Mental Health Is Not Good in New National Survey.” The 74 The Problem With Homework Not Much Evidence on Whether It Works Comments, 21 Oct. 2017, www.the74million.org/61-of-teachers-stressed-out-58-say-mental-health-is-not-good-in-new-national-survey/.
Walker, Tim. “How Many Teachers Are Highly Stressed? Maybe More Than People Think.” NEA Today, 30 July 2018, neatoday.org/2018/05/11/study-high-teacher-stress-levels/.
