TM4T Stress Armoury 43 - Keeping a stress log

When stress first appears, it frequently relates to one particular event or situation. Regrettably, however, for many teachers stress appears frequently, relating to a whole series of different events and situations. These theoretically separate individual events run together and blur together to form an amorphous emotional mess. At the end of the day, we plod home and when our partner asks 'what was so stressful?' we just shake our heads. It would take too long to explain and in many cases we can't actually put our finger on the one thing that made today so lousy.

Short term stress can be caused by so many things, from a late-running bus and a shoe that lets in the rain, to difficult parents, challenging students and a lost classroom key. The problem is that unless we untangle the individual causes, and tackle the problems which genuinely bother us, there is no general-purpose solution to the resulting stress-mess. What makes life even more complicated is that stress tends to snowball. We receive bad news at lunchtime, and consequently have a lousy lesson straight after lunch. When we describe the stress, we probably focus on the bad lesson, and ignore the fact that the stress began with the bad news.

This is why a stress log is a good idea. If you log regularly what triggers stress, and how stressed you feel, then you are in a much better position to identify patterns, understand how you react to stress and begin to tackle underlying causes.

On a regular basis, you record information about the stress you're experiencing, so that you can analyse these situations and then manage them. You may be surprised at what you write, as sometimes stressors come and go in our lives without the focus that they deserve.

You should make an entry in the log:

- at regular times each day (every lesson and every break is a good idea)

- at any other times when you feel uncomfortable stress (or as soon as possible afterwards)

Each entry should record:

- date and time

- what happened (if anything did happen)

- how stressed you feel, on a subjective scale of 1-10, where 5 is your optimum creative peak of pressure (so a zero would be slobbing-out-in-front-of-the-telly and 10 is gibbering.

- how effective and productive you feel now (immediately afterwards), on scale of 1-5 (so zero is totally useless and 5 is creative peak)

- optionally, a single word description of your mood

- brief comments on any underlying causes you might identify

- how well you handled the stress, on a scale of 0-5 (so zero is embarassing emotional collapse making things worse and 5 is nonchalant stress-management)

- any other relevant comments describing symptoms, people, environment

Each entry should take less than 1 minute to complete. Don't think about it, write it down. Initially, commit to keeping a stress diary for three weeks, this should enable you to spot any basic patterns, and any significant problems you need to address.

Reading your log

Read your diary daily and extend your entries; jot down any additional comments on symptoms or possible causes

Example: 'this seems to happen every time I cover Mota's class'; 'that headache was the same one I had in the morning'; 'this patter was different to last Tuesday'.

At this stage don't be particularly analytical; just jot down thoughts and obvious actions. Remember, this is not a scientifically controlled experiment, so don't wait till the end of your three-week period to make changes. Fix problems now if you can.

Analysing patterns.

Read through your entire three week diary, looking for patterns and hot-spots. Look for the stresses which are the most frequent, and also those which were most debilitating. Consider any underlying causes, and consider how well you handled the situation.

Decide, logically and unemotionally, what you want to fix and what you realistically can fix.

Now, list options for fixing the cause of stress, and options for reducing the stress itself, and options for handling the stress in a better way. Consider what resources, or what help and support, you might need, and the best way of getting it.

Jot down an action plan, with dates to carry out your actions. Consider when you will be able to assess if these actions have worked or not. Diarise both the actions, and the assessment (using your Yearly Plan if you are using TM4T).

Finally

Finally put your stress log away somewhere (at home). Stress does sometimes recur and it may be of use in the future; or of course, you may come across it in a year's time, and chuck it in the bin, laughing nonchalantly as you do so....