"Quick Tips to Prevent Burnout in 2023" (TeacherWellnessCenter.com)

Prioritize your self-care each day with a sustainable self-care plan.

Set boundaries with how many hours you are willing and able to work each day.

Set boundaries with the tasks you are willing to take on, especially with tasks that are not in your original job description. 

Plan in mental health days well ahead of time.

Ask for help from your colleagues, family, and friends as soon as you are starting to feel burned out.

Be kind to yourself, especially on high-stress days.

Keep visual reminders of why you are passionate about teaching (this could be a sentence or two, a picture of a teaching memory that impacted you, etc).

Create passion projects that get you excited to be in the classroom and to collaborate with your teammates.

Write down the best part(s) of your day each day - even if it’s just one small thing.

The most important antidotes to Compassion Fatigue are:

 COMPASSION SATISFACTION and SELF COMPASSION.

Compassion satisfaction (CS) is defined as the amount of pleasure derived from helping others (Stamm, 2005), and has been found to correlate positively with resilience, that is, the ability to cope, learn and grow from difficult experiences (Burnett & Wahl, 2015). (National Institutes of Health)

Self-compassion is simply the process of turning compassion inward.  We are kind and understanding rather than harshly self-critical when we fail, make mistakes or feel inadequate.  We give ourselves support and encouragement rather than being cold and judgmental when challenges and difficulty arise in our lives. Research indicates that self-compassion is one of the most powerful sources of coping and resilience we have available to us, radically improving our mental and physical wellbeing. (Dr. Kristin Neff)

Learn more in these articles: 

• What is Compassion Satisfaction and How Can It Help?

• Self Compassion Guided Practices and Exercises (Dr. Kristin Neff)

ADDITIONAL HELPFUL STRATEGIES:

Minimize trauma input outside of work (TV, news, etc.)

Check-in with your emotions. Sit quietly and just name without judgment what you’re feeling.

Have a transition from work to home (changing clothes, short walk)

Take another route to work. Mixing up your routine in small ways creates new neural pathways in the brain to keep it healthy.

Unplug for an hour. Switch everything to airplane mode and free yourself from the constant bings of social media and email.

Be selfish. Do one thing today just because it makes you happy.

Ask for help—big or small, but reach out.

Scratch off a lurker on your to-do list, something that’s been there for ages and you’ll never do.

Start a compliments file. Document the great things people say about you to read later.

Cut yourself a break