Improve Teachers’ Coping with Stress and Emotion Regulation with Mindfulness
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“For me, it’s important to be very familiar with the subject matter before I teach it. . . It’s the same with meditation. Before I began consciously bringing mindfulness into the classroom, I needed to feel like I knew what I was doing and had benefited from it.” – Elizabeth McAvoy
Teaching is a stressful profession causing many to burn out and leave the profession. A recent survey found that roughly half a million U.S. teachers move or leave the profession each year. That’s a turnover rate of about 20 percent compared to 9 percent in 2009. Indeed, anywhere from 40 and 50 percent of teachers will leave the classroom within their first five years, with over nine percent leaving before the end of their first year.
The high stress of the occupation shows up in higher rates of anxiety disorders, but particularly in physical ailments, with higher rates of laryngitis, conjunctivitis, lower urinary tract infections, bronchitis, eczema/dermatitis and varicose veins in female teachers. There is a pressing need to retain good teachers. So, it has become very important to identify means to help relieve the stress and lower burnout rates.
Mindfulness has been shown repeatedly to decrease physiological and psychological responses to stress. Mindfulness has also been shown to help improve performance and relieve stress in students. In addition, mindfulness has been shown to decrease burnout in a variety of professions. So, it would seem reasonable to suspect that mindfulness training would help teachers to reduce stress, the consequent physical symptoms, and burnout.
In today’s Research News article “Teaching Mindfulness to Teachers: a Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5605579/, Emerson and colleagues review the published research literature on the effects of mindfulness training on teachers of students from 5 to 18 years of age. They identified 12 published research studies employing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and variations on these programs.
They found that the research strongly suggests that mindfulness training significantly improves the ability of the teachers to cope with and regulate their emotions and suggests that it also significantly reduces the teachers’ physical and psychological responses to stress. Less clear cut was mindfulness effectiveness for reducing anxiety and depression and increasing self-efficacy, compassion, and self-compassion.
These are interesting and important findings that suggest that mindfulness training equips teachers to withstand the stresses of their profession and help them to keep control of their emotions. These may go a long way to preventing professional burnout. In addition, by reducing stress and improving emotion regulation mindfulness training should allow them to be better teachers. It is clear, however, that further research is needed to clarify any other benefits of mindfulness training.
So, improve teachers’ coping with stress and emotion regulation with mindfulness.
“Teachers who received mindfulness training “showed reduced psychological distress and time urgency . . . And then improvements in mindfulness and emotion regulation. Translation: These teachers were better able to cope with classroom challenges and manage their feelings, which made it easier for them to manage their students’ big feelings. And that helps students learn.” – Patricia Jennings,
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Emerson, L.-M., Leyland, A., Hudson, K., Rowse, G., Hanley, P., & Hugh-Jones, S. (2017). Teaching Mindfulness to Teachers: a Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis. Mindfulness, 8(5), 1136–1149. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0691-4
Abstract
School teachers report high levels of stress which impact on their engagement with pupils and effectiveness as a teacher. Early intervention or prevention approaches may support teachers to develop positive coping and reduce the experience and impact of stress. This article reviews research on one such approach: mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for school teachers. A systematic review and narrative synthesis were conducted for quantitative and qualitative studies that report the effects of MBIs for teachers of children aged 5–18 years on symptoms of stress and emotion regulation and self-efficacy. Twelve independent publications were identified meeting the inclusion criteria and these gave a total of 13 samples. Quality appraisal of the identified articles was carried out. The effect sizes and proportion of significant findings are reported for relevant outcomes. The quality of the literature varied, with main strengths in reporting study details, and weaknesses including sample size considerations. A range of MBIs were employed across the literature, ranging in contact hours and aims. MBIs showed strongest promise for intermediary effects on teacher emotion regulation. The results of the review are discussed in the context of a model of teacher stress. Teacher social and emotional competence has implications for pupil wellbeing through teacher–pupil relationships and effective management of the classroom. The implications for practice and research are considered.