This year, I made a bold decision. I decided to do 30 minutes of yoga every morning before the start of school. While I initially started this yoga journey to burn off energy from staying inside due to the coronavirus lockdown, yoga has quickly become a way to find calm and zest in the face of the more draining parts of the teaching profession.
One-third of the American workforce reports being stressed at work. Teachers in particular are impacted by the stress of the profession. Stress within the teaching profession harms the health and well-being of individual teachers and amplifies the dissatisfaction, absenteeism, and employee turnover within schools, charter networks, and districts. In previous years I have been extremely susceptible to the stress of teaching but this year has been different because of yoga. I have found a new state of mind and seemingly endless patience through my yoga journey.
I have come to learn that the state of mind and the body are deeply intertwined. If the body is relaxed, the mind will also be relaxed. Stress produces a state of physical and mental tension. The physical postures and breathing exercises of yoga are clinically proven to improve muscle strength and flexibility. More importantly, the meditative aspects of yoga help to stabilize the autonomic nervous system which causes physiological benefits to follow. According to a 2004 The West Indian Medical Journal study, the physiological benefits of yoga, help yoga practitioners become more resilient to stressful conditions. In a 2012 review of 35 trials addressing the effects of yoga on anxiety and stress, 25 noted a significant decrease in stress and/or anxiety symptoms when a yoga regimen was implemented.
While I am certainly responsible for teaching English language arts and mathematics, I am equally responsible for a classroom climate that fosters social-emotional well-being. Managing classroom dynamics is taxing under normal circumstances but the added challenges of remote learning and the additional stress of the pandemic makes teaching even more challenging. Starting each day with yoga has given me a positive affirmation, a way to feel successful before the workday begins, and the endorphins that help me feel sanguine.
The best part about my morning yoga is that it never feels like a chore. It has become something akin to breathing. When I do yoga I know that I will have a good day. We have had 140 days of school thus far and I have missed only one day of yoga. I know that I will finish the rest of the school year without missing a day and I plan on doing the same thing next year.
Work Cited
Kothari, Anil. “Yoga And Mental Health: A Review On Efficacy Of Yoga In Managing Stress, Anxiety And Depression.” International Research Journal of Ayurveda & Yoga, vol. 04, no. 03, 2021, pp. 185–193., doi:10.47223/irjay.2021.4323.
Smith, Caroline, et al. “A Randomised Comparative Trial of Yoga and Relaxation to Reduce Stress and Anxiety.” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, vol. 15, no. 2, June 2007, pp. 77–83., doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2006.05.001.
Troman, Geoff, and Peter Woods. Primary Teachers' Stress. Routledge/Falmer, 2001.
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