Does Emotional Health Impact Teacher Effectiveness?
Emotionally UNhealthy people (like me) can be very effective at doing certain things…BUT…
What do you think? Do you have an answer to that question? Email me if you do. I’d be curious to read your answer.
As for me — ummmm — I’m not sure how I would answer it. I think it’s a complicated question. First, it begs the answer to ‘what does an effective teacher do?’ Additionally, I think different stakeholders (administrators, parents, other teachers, guidance staff, students, etc.) have different views on what effective teachers do.
I DO think it would be easy to argue that emotionally UNhealthy people can be very effective at doing certain things.
Take me for example. Most of my life I’ve generally been emotionally unhealthy. But that didn’t keep me from working my ass of as a teacher and winning state and national teaching awards. So many people would say that I’ve been at least somewhat effective. BUT, during that same teaching career, I’ve also suffered burn out, had paralyzing personal crises, and started a years-long journey of seeing professional therapists.
Here is a list (generated by ChatGPT) entitled “Habits Of Emotionally Healthy People.” Gosh. Double gosh. Yep — lots of unhealth in my life according to this list:
An emotionally healthy person isn’t perfect, but they’ve cultivated habits that help them navigate life with resilience, authenticity, and relational depth. Here are key habits that emotionally healthy people tend to practice:
1. They Notice and Name Their Emotions
They regularly check in with themselves.
They can identify emotions like anger, sadness, fear, joy, or shame, without dismissing or moralizing them.
They don't say, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” Instead, they ask, “What is this feeling trying to tell me?”
2. They Don’t Minimize or Ignore Pain
They recognize that emotional wounds matter—even if others think they “shouldn’t be a big deal.”
They give themselves permission to grieve losses, acknowledge disappointments, and process wounds rather than stuffing or avoiding them.
3. They Set Healthy Boundaries
They say no without guilt when something violates their values or capacity.
They know their limits, and they protect their time, energy, and emotional space with kindness and clarity.
They understand that boundaries are not rejection—they are a form of self-respect and relational honesty.
4. They Take Responsibility for Themselves
They own their choices, behaviors, and growth.
They don’t blame others for everything, but also don’t take on what isn’t theirs.
They are actively healing their wounds rather than expecting others to heal them.
5. They Practice Vulnerability
They can say, “I’m struggling,” “I was hurt by that,” or “I need help.”
They invite safe people into their inner world and don’t pretend everything’s fine when it isn’t.
6. They Stay Curious, Not Judgmental
Toward others and themselves.
They approach hard conversations and emotions with curiosity rather than defensiveness.
They ask, “What’s going on beneath the surface?” instead of making quick assumptions.
7. They Regulate, Not Suppress
They don’t act on every impulse or feeling, but neither do they shut them down.
They use tools like breathing, reflection, movement, prayer, or therapy to bring their nervous system back to a calm, grounded place.
8. They Live in Alignment with Their Values
They know what matters to them and try to live congruently.
They don’t betray themselves just to gain approval or avoid conflict.
Their integrity brings inner peace—even when it’s hard.
9. They Cultivate Safe Relationships
They are drawn to mutual, respectful, attuned connections.
They recognize unsafe dynamics (e.g., gaslighting, manipulation, chronic invalidation) and don’t normalize or tolerate them.
They choose connection over control.
10. They Make Room for Joy
Emotional health isn’t just about pain—it also includes celebration.
They delight in small pleasures, practice gratitude, and give themselves permission to enjoy life without guilt or shame.
Bonus:
They Are Willing to Grow
Emotional health is a lifelong journey, not a finish line.
They welcome feedback, seek help when needed, and see healing as ongoing—not a sign of failure but of maturity.
Wow. I love that list so much. It is so relieving for me to read.
I think some people would say that if I grew these habits into my life that it would make me less of an effective teacher. (Maybe it would make me less dedicated — make me care for myself more and sacrifice less for the students that I teach.)
Other people might say that growing these habits into my life would make me more effective. Maybe it would make me more empathetic and more accessible to students who suffer emotional pain. Maybe it would allow me to teach and influence my human students because I am more in touch with my humanity.
Regardless of how the practice of emotional health affects my teacher effectiveness, I’m seeing that it does affect my ability to cope with my life’s pressures, which include professional pressures. I can be a more joyful professional…and that seems to be worth something.
#Teacher Pressure
Lesson Planning That Cares For me, Me, ME!!!
When it’s time for lesson planning, I spend ALL my focus and energy on preparing for students and their needs. And poor, little ‘ol me and my needs get completely lost and neglected. I want to change that for myself.
I’m not assuming that this happens to every teacher…but it definitely happens to me:
When it’s time for lesson planning, I spend ALL my focus and energy on preparing for students and their needs. And poor, little ‘ol me gets completely lost and neglected.
It’s sad.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t forget about myself on purpose. It’s like I have this messed up, auto-pilot issue going on. I think my upbringing and traumatic experiences during childhood hardwired me to automatically be hypervigilant of others’ needs. It’s part of what makes teaching so soul-scrapingly exhausting for me.
That being said, maybe now you will know why I felt so proud of myself when I was flipping through a notebook and saw this August (week-before-school-started) journal entry. Here’s a picture of the journal and then I’ll type it out so you don’t have to decipher my chicken-scratch handwriting.
Ugh!!! Waking up sooooooo early to start school at 7:15am. Double ugh.
Ideas for self-care in the fall:
1- How to deal with waking up early:
Get enough sleep. I usually don’t do so well if I only get 6 or 7 hours of sleep. So in order to give myself a chance to have a more energized mood, I need to prioritize getting 7 and 1/2 or 8 hours of sleep.
Bottom line…I need to have a 9pm bedtime.
Have enough margin in the morning. I’m realizing that my anxiety level increases if I rush in the morning before school. So in order to give myself a chance to have less anxiety, I need to give myself enough time at home before I leave for school.
Bottom line…I need to wake up at 5am.
Bottom line #2…I have to have my outfit, lunch for the day and lesson materials ready the night before so that I’m not scrambling with those things in the morning.
Bottom line #3…I need to do a morning stretch and some bodyweight exercises while I’m waiting for the coffee to brew.
Bottom line #4…I need to eat my breakfast slowly. I need to breathe deeply and I need to take a few moments to log my feelings on the How We Feel app.
Hahahahaha!! Planning out when to pee in between classes!! Sorry. TMI.
2- How to deal with teaching 3, 80-minute blocks in a row:
Go pee after block 1.
Have greek yogurt and protein granola after block 1.
Have a glass of cold brew at the end of SMART period.
Maybe have my 9th graders be in charge of a beginning of class routine. Maybe tack on an occasional student-led-self-care-check-in as part of the beginning of class routine.
I’m a nervous nelly that tends to obsessively think about school outside of school hours. That habit drained me. So I wrote some ideas of what I could occupy myself with outside of school hours to help take my mind off of school.
3- What can I do to care for myself outside of school hours to make the teaching load more sustainable?
Prepare for a half marathon (it will give me something big to work on to help take my mind off of my school responsibilities outside of school hours.
run 5ks on tuesday and thursday.
long run on saturdays
buy new running shoes
stretch and strengthen body 5 days a week.
Eat to fuel my body and not as a way of coping with stress.
take naps
snuggle wifey and talk together
tease and play with daughters
make sure to have a weekly family time to talk calendar and finances.
Yep!
That’s what I wrote in August of 2024. And it worked!! I built into my planning some planning for my SELF. Here are some celebration-self-care pics from the 2024-25 school year:
We trained for 9 months!! This is me and my wife in the hotel room on the morning of the Pittsburgh half marathon.
Us at the starting line.
Me at the finish line after 13.1 miles!! (ugh — sorry — I didn’t pee my pants. That’s just sweat. Embarrassing. Sorry.)
We bought ourselves running shoes. Training for 9 months really DID help me take my mind off of school so much. It gave me something else BIG to think about and work on.
I also wanted to snuggle and tease my daughters as part of self care for myself. Thanks wifey for teaching me that playfulness is important in life!
I packed mid-morning healthy snacks to help me get through teaching 3, 80 minute blocks before lunch time.
ooooooo — and I didn’t mention this above…but I bought myself some nice hand soap and hid it behind the fridge in the faculty lounge. After my 3 classes were done I would wash my hands for a while and take a big breath in to smell the yummy fragrance and to breath out the stress of the morning of teaching.
Hooray for including my needs in lesson planning and yearly planning time!!