It may  seem that there’s nothing we can do about our stress level. There are so many factors that play as stressors. Pupils nowadays are far different from us when we were in their shoes. We oftentimes misunderstand the monitoring and supervision of our school heads and take them as burden on our shoulders. Sometimes we stress ourselves because we have to beat the deadline of our paper works.  Our career and family responsibilities will always be demanding but there will never be more hours in the day for all our tasks.

                But we have a lot more control than we might think. The simple realization that we’re in control of our life is the foundation of stress management . Managing stress is all about taking charge of our thoughts, our emotions, our schedule,our environment, and the way we deal with problems.

                Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in our life. This isn’t easy as it sounds but we can find ways to do it. If our children are our stressors, bear in mind that  they come from families of different beliefs, traditions and culture  so it is a fact that they have individual differences. As teachers, we have to play variety of personalities dealing with them. Making them feel that they are loved and wanted can make the teaching-learning atmosphere better and stress-free.

                We find class observations as fault finding on their side rather than instructional assistance as they want it to be. Thinking that our administrators are just doing their job in order to help us improve our instruction can lessen our stress, otherwise  they may think that we are not ready for the day’s lessons so we hate observations and that’s one kind of “resistance to change”.

                “Beating the Deadline” is also one factor that stresses us. Going over and analyzing our activities, we can find out that it is our mistake that we reach this situation. If we only use our time wisely then we will not have piles of  paper works to finish hurriedly.

                The bottomline is dont blame our stress to other people or outside events. Reducing stress is just a matter of  accepting our responsibility for the role we play and proper time management . The ultimate remedy is a balanced life, with time for work, relationship, relaxation and fun plus the strength to hold up under pressure and meet challenges head on. 

By: Josephine C. Bendo | Teacher III | Marina Bay Elementary School | Mariveles, Bataan