Helping Educators Manage Workplace Anxiety

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome my name is kirsten bartles and i have the great privilege and honor of serving as the chief academic officer in echidesia and we are here today with another of our fireside chats this one covering another incredibly important topic and that's dealing with workplace anxiety for educators we have two very exciting speakers with us today the first's name is angie alamada she's a concept-based curriculum and instruction trainer and presenter and a happiness coach based in the uae she's a certified concept-based curriculum and instruction trainer and presenter a happiness and mindfulness coach she's worked in the education field for 13 years in which she had various teaching and leadership roles in american and ib schools inquiry conceptual thinking and backward planning are part of her daily personal and professional practice and she works collaboratively with teachers to further develop the curriculum with the aim of providing a holistic concept-based inquiry education she coaches teachers and teams in developing their teaching and learning practices to ensure that students agency is the driving force of learning as a happiness coach angie believes that the pursuit of happiness resides at the heart of education and she strives to promote happiness and well-being in international schools through enhanced teaching and learning and she has a master's in education from the american international college in massachusetts in the states and is certified and a certificate in international baccalaureate teaching and learning from bethel university in minnesota in the united states so please join me in welcoming angie angie thank you so much for being here this morning well for me it's morning it's um two in the morning morning as well yes this morning for me as well thank you kristen so much welcome everyone and my our second panelist today is rebecca kane she is the ceo of avexia collective in singapore whilst working in investment banking in london rebecca saw a number of employees suffering from stress she decided to do something about it and set up an employee-led well-being network to increase support and awareness for mental well-being this voluntary role became a passion for rebecca and she has since set out to make a systemic change within the corporate well-being space rebecca has completed an mba at inseed i-n-s-e-a-d and has launched avecsha of the vex collective which is looking to improve employee mental health and well-being and for all businesses so please join me in welcoming rebecca at least i hope rebecca will be joining us there we go there we go thank you both so much for being here you know it's i wanted to do this seminar right now because we're getting close to the holiday season the semesters are wrapping up or at least we're getting ready for a break and i don't know about you but holidays in my world bring more stress and more anxiety so i thought this would be a great topic for today well i want to start with a very very basic question anxiety is one of those things we hear the term all the time but do we ever really talk about what it means what is anxiety in both of your opinions so if you if i don't mind i'll i'll start with that um my co-founder of my business who is a doctor would want me to say that anxiety is a feeling of unease like worry or fear that it can be mild or severe and it can have a huge impact on mental and physical health and your state with symptoms including uncontrollable thoughts panic attacks heart racing shortness of breath increases of blood pressure and stress hormones now that's all well and good it's good to have a proper definition and sort of understand what it is but i don't think that really captures what anxiety feels like so i am someone that has suffered with anxiety on and off and and it was perhaps missed from my bio but that's a particular reason why i have a passion in this area because it's something i've really felt the effects of and for me anxiety can come in many forms but it's that creeping feeling of dread about probably everything you can't necessarily pinpoint what it is that's calling the causing the problem it can be tossing and turning at night not being able to sleep because of worries racing through my mind it can be overthinking every little thing things that sometimes others might not see as important or a big deal it just kind of goes over and over and over um and you know it can be that rising sense of panic the tightness in your chest the shortness of breath um and even leading to panic attacks but i think it's so different for so many different people and i think it's something that we don't talk about enough is this difference between anxiety and an anxiety disorder so we all have anxiety right like anxiety is a normal reaction to an uncertain situation you know if there's something coming up that i don't really know or feel comfortable about i'm gonna feel anxious and that's okay but when does that cross over and become an anxiety disorder um and that's really when it becomes chronic and when it begins to impact your everyday life and your ability to cope and i don't know angry if you have anything to add in terms of that difference between anxiety and decisions yeah i totally agree with you there's no i cannot find one size fits all definition for anxiety and i like to view it as an emotion like we're happy we're sad it's it's an emotion so we have to admit that we're anxious um yes we can be on the edge usually people who are anxious would be a fear on the edge yes your heart would race and this is as you explained it would be it will go to the disorder aside from like because i'm an educator i understand how how it feels in a class you're always on the edge you don't sleep on at night did i prepare did i plan well did i prepare things on time you feel that you just your mind keeps telling you negative things that are not true and i think this is i i read about imagination as well and said and i um i've learned that people who have anxiety they have a high level of imagination which can be positive in a way but we have to address it again it's an emotion and um you know sometimes because when we work we feel burnt out and we ignore that aspect of life that we are stressed we just say we get away with it the weekend will come we keep on postponing and when you know we were addressed so we end up being stressed and we end up with physical uh symptoms as well so yeah i completely agree with you that you know it's interesting because the way we deal with anxiety can be very very different and we sometimes we can try to laugh it off or we won't admit that it's anxiety and i don't think that i've ever admitted this to my husband i hope he's smart enough to figure it out by now i used to live in the uk um and i had we have two children and um when we knew that we were going to we were supposed to be there for three years so we'd get over there and the kids were little they were like five and seven at the time and i started almost immediately when we arrived in the back of my mind this idea of flying with my children was something i didn't want to do this was three years down the road and i started thinking about oh hey honey wouldn't it be cool if we bought like a land rover and we drove and we drove through russia and then across the bering straits and go down through alaska and canada i spent hours and months of my life trying to convince my husband that it made more sense for us who speak you know only speak english to drive through you know the backwoods of russia than to get on a plane with my kids now we did not drive back i actually sailed back i took the queen mary to so i did get out of flying with them but if it was this thing where i couldn't admit to myself absolutely this was this and it it manifested in this very bizarre idea that i had to convince my husband that driving literally almost around the world made more sense than addressing the fact that i was suffering from this issue that i needed to actually talk about and i think that's a really good example as well of where it impacts your day-to-day life like there's one thing going oh i feel anxious about taking a flight with my children a pretty normal reaction i can completely understand that but then it crosses that line where it goes i'm actually going to go so outside of my way my normal way or just kind of being able to deal with the anxiety to avoid that thing and it really turns into an avoidance behavior that impacts your day-to-day life i think that's a really good quite extreme example of of how it can cross over from being a situation that it's normal to maybe feel a bit anxious about to how that actually then manifests in terms of behaviors and avoidance behaviors yeah and it actually shows how our brain tricks us and how we keep on thinking it should be uh like we have this uh function to protect us because we have to anticipate what will happen that's that's positive but when it starts taking control of our our actions and the actions it it becomes very negative and this is where we need to address it and again it's you said the record experience this it's all about experience do we do we stop and say okay this is just a thought i i'm going through a new experience i'm going out of my comfort zone because this is even with motherhood as you as you now explain christian it's it's motherhood it's all about you're just trying to go out of your comfort zone you're dealing with with other human beings and you just have to adjust your life accordingly so yeah well it i would wonder i know how fast everyone else who was listening to this when i said that i decided i wanted to drive from the uk back to the states when they went that's a really bad idea the links i went to justify it were quite impressive i have to say yeah sounds like quite a journey that would be and it happened so quickly i mean you'd think that i would have at least waited a year to start obsessing about this but no so i think that the reason i wanted to share that story is i think it's funny now that i actually did take all this energy to do it but we don't like to admit that hey okay i suffer from these things too maybe not to the same extreme but you know or maybe to a bigger extreme but mental health and mental wellness is such an important topic that destigmatizing it is it's vitally important and i wanted to ask both of you in your experience what are the most common stigmas that you've come across associated with anxiety and how in mental health and how can we address them so i think quite a common one and one that i definitely really worried about when i was feeling anxious is that there might be this perception that somebody suffering from anxiety is weak in some way um that maybe it's a character flaw within that person um and that you know they're not necessarily able to cope with day-to-day stressful stressors and things like that and i was so worried about this external representation that i hid it or like you say wouldn't admit to myself how i was feeling um and actually it's taken a very long time and a process and me kind of getting very involved in the topic to actually realize that those things aren't true and and whilst there may still be stigmas out there that actually somebody with anxiety is more often than not quite high functioning um they are often very strong people because they're having to deal with everyday stresses as well as their own internal stresses that might be created or exaggerated from external things and actually when a person with anxiety is able to get that anxiety under control there can be loads of positives from it so for me personally it is it's it's what drives me it makes me so determined and dogged to get things done and when i hone that in a way that is productive rather than negative you know that's fantastic i'm incredibly productive at getting things done i've gone and set up my own business you know i do all these things that i'm proud of and that is a large part to do with my anxiety and engy i love that you mentioned about sort of uh imagination that's something i've never heard of but actually rings really true like i i probably do have a very bad vivid imagination i'm quite creative and and that's not anything i'd necessarily realize was related to anxiety but yeah it almost certainly is that's a really interesting point that you made yeah exactly because many cultures they believe that it's just it's you're being negative not only weak you're being negative you just think negative things you come on you can step it out if you want and this is actually what made me more interested in in reading more about it and educating myself about anxiety because it's not it's as you said it's some people are get anxious because you want to achieve more and you people who feel anxiety like they they want to act feel that they're normal and this is a big big big misconception that because you are normal again it's an emotion so like when when you feel that you cannot you struggle to talk and uh and from my experience sometimes we have the courage to talk but the people around you will not verify your feeling like they will say okay um you just need to pray more or you need to uh eat healthy food some aspects like we can make more connections to other things of uh in our daily life and our um you know our routines and other things but it's it's a discussion that needs to be addressed because it's not it's definitely uh does not reflect um a negative or a weak uh or a sensitive i do not like the word sensitive as well it triggers me outwards you're so sensitive you notice little things and you or you overthink we keep on labeling and judging and again from in education we we shouldn't like we are trained that we should not label kids we should just accept everyone as it is but as adults do we do that do we do we give each other this uh benefit of the doubt like maybe it's just it's just a thought that you have but how are you dealing with your thoughts we focus too much on uh teaching you know content and getting um aspiring to get more certificates or learn more but when do we address our mental well-being when i i haven't seen many families addressing like emotions and how how the kids feel and this is something that we try to advocate for and that's why i love different um i love pyp because it addresses the whole uh the holistic chart and from that actually we learned that as others as well we need to stop judging or labeling anyone and we need to address and accept every emotion and i think just people when people know that they're not alone it's very helpful well and now i would i would argue and i think most people would agree with me that our educators the people who we are here talking you know about and for they have a level of anxiety that you know is i don't want to say unprecedented because we've been using that word almost nonstop for the last two years but the pressures that are on our educators and our students now i mean back when we were face to face i was dealing with students who were suffering from major issues with anxiety and that was before all this happened that was before people became in way more insular and more isolated and i don't think there has ever been as much pressure on our teachers to balance their lives to make sure they're engaging their students to try to help their students deal with anxiety while they're trying to deal with their own personal anxiety what advice what thoughts i don't really know where i want to go with that question i just wanted to bring the topic up and see where you two would like to take this massive issue that our our teachers are facing right now one thing that i learned as an educator and uh this is very common amongst the teachers that i worked with or i've read about even we liked the word perfectionist we love the word perfectionist and i was reading dare to lead bernie brown and it stopped me when she was addressing the word perfectionist because she said like we have to be mindful of what we tell ourselves and this was was a big aha moment for me um because we we want to do the best and you know we say sometimes yeah we're perfections we just want to do more we want the best for our kids but this is not how it's meant to be and like i really like that and i worked a lot on myself with that uh advice she advised others to shift the mindset to saying that i'm striving to be better and this is a life-changing approach it's it's a it's a little thing that we might think okay it's just a word but words impact us so the first thing i would advise everyone is that just to monitor what you tell yourself monitor your self-talk what who you are like in in happiness i love the idea that you we we go through our training first that we we we stop any labels we decide who we want to be and with that we have to address different emotions we have to monitor who we are and how people perceive us and then we start saying okay what do we like what we dislike so again we it's all about the self-talk and the words we tell ourselves and i use something called um the 80 rule like 80 is better than 100 and there's there are many research on like the 20 that we keep on exerting you know effort on it's just it's not always the right thing sometimes it's just a waste of time and when i work with educators like you're right kristen because the last couple of years we've been addressing well-being we've been dealing with teachers who are highly stressed especially here in uae when we have a high level of expats they were not able to go back to their uh you know home countries and we we had to be a family but and you had to go and start checking on teachers are you okay are you talking to someone and the advice would be i was when you're in a leadership position it's very difficult sometimes people don't want to open up and it's it's how also leaders are addressing that how you're being humble enough and non-judgmental so teachers come come and talk to you it's it has different aspects and um we have to address that more because we deal with students who can be anxious as well the unknown was for everyone and everyone is living still in it we we don't know when we're going back to normal and we keep on saying okay it's coming some but we just have to um [Music] know ourselves and focus on what we can control what do you think yeah no absolutely and um it's this question i love because uh avexia collective the business i've started is all about teaching people and sort of learning how to proactively manage our mental fitness so um our ability to kind of cope with everyday stresses and and to be mentally strong rather than kind of talking about the negatives of mental health it's about strengthening ourselves and so we have a huge list of activities and information that can help people with managing anxiety and stress and all other sort of impacts that stress can have on you um a lot of these things are sort of things we know about things that are common sense but we don't always know about why it makes a difference and i think that's really important so we know that exercise is good for our minds as well as our bodies but why is that you know other than well i guess sometimes i feel good after it but actually there's huge amounts of research and evidence that shows that physical activity boosts mood it increases self-esteem it improves your sleep quality and your energy levels which has a massive impact on how you're feeling and your mental fitness and toughness and it reduces cortisol the the stress hormone in our body and it can really help with you know even quite severe cases of dementia and depression as well so it has a really amazing impact on our minds as well as our bodies i know i referred to sleep there that's another key thing um if you only get to do one thing to help yourself i think it's making sure you get as much good quality sleep as you possibly can um we all have we know that feeling of a bad night's sleep we're grumpy we're irritable kind of struggling to focus get distracted really easily but it actually you know goes much much deeper than that than that and and bad sleep regularly can have a really long-term impact on our mental well-being and our anxiety and ability to manage stress um and some people need different levels of sleep and absolutely there's variation within that but making sure we have a good environment to sleep in you know shutting out light and noise a comfortable bed not too hot not too cold all these type of things good sleep hygiene as well can all really help us have a good night's sleep um it's boring it's not the most exciting thing in the world but going to bed and getting up at a consistent time is one of the best ways that we can ensure our our sleep is good on a long term basis um so that those are two kind of things that we know are good for us but i think it's really interesting to share a bit more about why they're good and then some other things that that touch on it are socializing making sure you're getting time with family and friends and loved ones that are maybe outside of that stress-inducing environment so that you can can really kind of feel those connections and those bonds to people around you um and i think a really important thing this touches on what you said in gears is taking time for yourself so all of us might have different activities that we enjoy that help us relax and de-stress us that could be meditation it could be journaling it could be for me it's taking my dog for a walk that's my kind of decompression um but also within that i think there's the kindness to yourself and you like you say that the turning some of these negative cyclical thoughts we get ourselves into into positives and catching ourselves in those those patterns and i think journaling's a really really great tool for spotting patterns and beginning to to try and spot these things something we do here in singapore um for a biobxia collective is meditation walks guided meditative walks to give people a break away from the office or from the house if they're working from home to get outside in nature because actually there's a huge amount of evidence about the impact of nature on our psyche and well-being and even to the point of if you can't get outside in nature just having a picture of a natural environment can boost your your self-esteem and your mood and how you're feeling or a plant on your desk or anything like that so um there's loads of great tools and techniques out there um even without getting into the detail of sort of some of the positive psychology and cognitive behavioral therapy exercises which angry i'm sure you're you're much more of an expert on me um where those they can give you specific exercises and techniques that that can help um just sort of lifestyle changes can already make a massive difference yeah speaking about meditation you mentioned in meditation and there's there's a lot of misconception as well on how this should be done it's people think that we should you know uh join a group or or we have to be connected with uh with a special routine and actually it's it's come it can be really simple one thing that i advise the first advice that i get i give everyone is to breathe we ignore breathing and it's the most it has the most significant impact on our lives because we have to let in more oxygen and like the the time we spend breathing is a precious time and we often and start our days with a very busy schedule i want to do this this and that and sometimes i've tried this myself for a couple of years and i thought i it was weird when i tell people that i don't like to talk in the morning when i tell my kids that i cannot have a conversation in the morning before i literally have to have a 45 minutes time for myself this was my nature and i again i was it was not perceived positively but but i've read that it's it's it's very healthy to have some time for yourself in the morning once you wake up and we we we tend now to check our phones uh once we wake up you feel that it's it's a demand that we check our facebook twitter linkedin and we keep on moving from one app to another this this causes more stress um so i advise everyone to start literally once you wake up to start breathing sometimes i even i just stay in bed start breathing and then go to the actual you know practice it's very healthy and um with breathing comes thoughts allow your thoughts to go you don't need to argue with your thoughts you don't need to stop and and and judge yourself we speak about people judging us we need to make sure that we are just like as you said rebecca we're kind to ourselves and we're not judging our feelings and emotions we accept ourselves as we are and this is this is one thing when i every year i have like since we're speaking about new year's resolutions every year i choose two or three words that i want to live and one year i had the word kindness and it started by i just want to be kind to myself first and then others i would say it was very challenging especially when it came to myself because you know the the self-blame i want to do that i want to make sure i'm doing everything for my kids i want i want to multitask i want to achieve better in my job so it just it just took it one step at a time with the lockdown no matter what like as a parent we're just reflecting i i was cleaning up and they found some of our charts that we did and it was all about skills we did not discuss content we did not discuss it it's all about skills it's all about how we are equipping our kids and ourselves with skills to deal with life and doesn't have to be the future just dealing now with life um and as teachers the biggest advice is like look at the way you're teaching look at the way you're planning um i love concept-based because it's it's it promotes agency with agency you give more voice to your students and you don't stress yourself you plan very well you prepare your class and set up very well and then eventually you let go and your students will take over so instead of standing for a long period of time just talking and lecturing students you give them more autonomy and they will take the lead so it's it's a win-win situation uh in the class as well because teachers like they are very stressful everyone now demands everything from them and they have that they have to um to prepare the students for uh testing for uh for the parents for everyone is asking teachers to do better and teachers need to know that they are trying to do better be reflective take it one step at a time and look at the way you're planning and the approach you're following because um it might be the cause of your stress i often ask teachers can you tell me the process of your planning and i find out many things that they say i said that's why it's difficult for you it can be easier and then we discuss how it can be easier for us so it's again it's the mind shift of looking and reflecting on what we do every day and how we're helping ourselves as well yeah and to jump on that so i mean it when you think about it in the sense of how can teachers be expected to be the best teacher they can be to impart all this amazing support and knowledge and wisdom on to children or future generations or other people if they're not feeling good themselves right you've got to put yourself it's not being selfish by putting yourself first because ultimately you're you're putting the people you teach sort of you're treating them better as well if you are in a better space and i think touching on another point you made like it's amazing how much more critical and harsher on ourselves we are than we are on other people you know i would never speak to a family friends even just stranger in the street the way i speak to myself that's just madness isn't it there's no reason that we should be harsher on ourselves um and then sorry a third thing um that i wanted to kind of piggyback off the back of angie that you said is is the breathing it's such a powerful tool um and actually i'm gonna give everyone on the call now a really really quick breathing technique that has been a complete game changer for me it's called box breathing anger i'm sure you're very familiar with it um but it's really easy to do at any point that you feel panic or worry rising in you because it just immediately destresses you um and you inhale for four seconds you hold for four seconds you exhale for four seconds and you hold for four seconds so it's inhale three two one hold three two one exhale three two one hold three two one and you repeat that sort of five ten times whatever you need and every time i use it it brings that kind of rising panic back down and just immediately kind of makes me feel clear more clear-headed more level-headed and able to tackle whatever situation has caused me to panic yeah i think that's great i mean i and i know that breathing is so critically important um tsar posted something that i think we really should touch on and that's this idea that now that we are living and working in the same space many of us especially our teachers have blurred lines between what is home and you know what is work and we feel like we need to be on we need to respond right away so there's this anxiety that because our students are anxious because their parents are anxious they're sending us these messages we need to respond all the time and you know maybe some some people have this idea that yes there need to be those boundaries again but how do they set them what do they do how do they approach this when you're living and you're working in the same space and you're not the only one who's occupying that space so what advice do you have for people just to manage expectations to help bring their anxiety down what would you suggest i think it's a really really important question and something that not only teachers are grappling with at the moment i think everybody that has had to work from home is really struggling with this and i mean he may have more wisdom than me on this i don't think there's one answer that's going to suddenly kind of fix this this issue for anybody um but i think it's probably an amalgamation of lots of little tweaks and changes that we have to make to ourselves and to our home environment and our work environment and situation um i have personally always found it really helpful to put in place a bit of a structure so i start my day with a walk with the dog and that is me kind of gearing myself up from wake up and my own time into work mode and then i'll come and work um and then i'll i'll quite often end my day with actually a little outside walk so it might just be two five minutes but it just kind of structures my day and so then i know that well when i come back from that walk at the end of the day that that's my the end of my work day and that's kind of me compartmentalizing that um i think for the specific instance of teachers of having to respond to parents and children i think actually almost putting in some structure around potentially almost like virtual office hours in terms of when there are concerns or questions you know i'm available for these times these days a week to chat about them to jump on a call or whatever it might be but outside of those times and outside of normal working hours i won't necessarily be able to respond because and and you can explain you know it's important for me to make sure i'm decompressing as well so that i'm in the best possible position and mindset to teach your children effectively um and you know most people i think are fairly understanding of that if if somebody's not then you know maybe that's a separate discussion to be had but if you are offering two or three times a week say specific office hours that should be regular enough for um parents or children who have a concern to pop in to ask questions to to make sure their address is being their issue is being addressed um but also to give you a break and some time away that's my personal suggestion i don't know if there's anything more specific that you're having spot on rebecca because it's again it's our it's our choice i believe in the choice theory it's our choice to check the emails or you know messages or not and and again like when it's it's our choice when we check our phones once we wake up it's the same procedure so if you if you're in bed and you you woke up and you read this email from a parent from an angry parent your day is gone so and most most of the school policies that they they never require teachers to respond in one hour no one will tell a teacher to respond in one hour or in the afternoon but we often and we it was always the policies but we often go go out of the policy and we just want to be passionate because we don't have time we don't have time so i i look it's easier said than done so i but but it's really doable like when teachers look at this schedules and we we just set some time during the day that this is the time for responses communicate with the parents again once you open the door you open the door so i always said the teachers that if you open the door you open the door you have to make sure you keep your boundaries and after work hours it's they are yours they are for your family and for yourself um and you it's it's a decision uh every administrator administrative person will support that um there are there are like usually in policies there will be like a maximum of 48 hours in which teachers need to respond to parents this is the maximum that i've seen um so i would say like yes be on top of things but don't over burn yourself with with everything else if it's not responding to others it's just sometimes less is better sometimes when you check one or two ideas it's better stop because we tend to we want to plan many ideas uh give the students different learning experiences and sometimes it's just it's overwhelming for everyone even as colleagues we we sometimes we need to set boundaries with colleen's as well like it's good to like i found this idea and i won't want to i want to message you rebecca and sometimes you should just say no you know in the afternoon i like to do one two three four so i'd rather have this conversation later and many teachers to be honest they started doing that and they are respected they are like everyone now understands this um and parents i'm a parent myself i do not dare to message or when i can email in the afternoon because this is the time that i'm not working but i'm not expecting anyone to respond to me within an hour and you you sometimes you might even find teachers apologizing do not apologize for something that is not supposed to be like it's you responded to the email within 24 hours or 48 hours depending on your school's policy but just again be kind to yourself and set these boundaries it's it's very simple uh to um to say it but when it comes to actually organizing our time as you said it's very important it's not easy but it's important and um like in many schools we especially in the e well-being is a is a big focus and we have well-being committees if you don't have one in the school initiate one start a well-being committee because this would be the driving force of okay how are the teachers feeling how uh uh what's going on who needs a help who needs support uh who doesn't have a family uh if you're teaching abroad and you need more connection we we tend to have these conversations and it's uh it's helpful um and also engage in something that you like teaching is my hobby and one day one of my sisters said like you read about kids you discipline kids in school or you did you teach kids in school you go back home you're dealing with your children what what do you like and this what this taught me a lot and and um when i started the happiness it started because i wanted to do something different that is not always about curriculum and instructions and i found out that it connects very well because everything that i studied and how to you know implement positive discipline in the classroom it's like you need it as an adult so look at what look at what you're uh preaching and what you are uh advocating in your classrooms and make sure you you're applying that on yourself first well teachers more than more than most i believe and you can tell me that i'm wrong they internalize so many things and they feel guilty you know oh okay rebecca your idea of you know i'm i'm really stressed right now just taking the time and doing the box breathing that's a great idea but and i think one thing that is really important to understand as a teacher is if you establish your clear boundaries you know you can set an automatic response those emails you know please know that while i view your email is very important i will not respond after 6 pm if you do that or if you model that okay when i get anxious i do this box breathing to your students what you're doing is a couple things you're showing them that you're a person which i know may sound really strange but think back to when you were in school and you ran into one of your teachers at a restaurant or a grocery store and it was shocking to you that your teacher existed outside of that school people forget that teachers are people so establish those boundaries and then demonstrate self-care and demonstrate how to deal with anxiety how you deal with anxiety because then you're going to help your students learn to deal with anxiety i think teachers often don't take the time to practice what they preach you know they tell their students about these things but do they actually do them i just want to what are some of the common mistakes that you think people make when they're trying to deal with anxiety or not deal with anxiety so one that i have seen fairly commonly is what i'll refer to as kind of self medication be that through alcohol um even even tv netflix kind of using something to sort of numb the pain it could be through prescription drugs obviously other types of drugs not that that yeah there's there's other issues with that as well but alcohol and yeah tv gambling anything numbing your kind of pain and the feelings in the moment particularly with anxiety where it's an overwhelming kind of rush of emotions and feelings quite often people turn to these tools because they're quick and they're easy and they make you feel good in the moment now they have longer term implications um and often will end up making the issue worse um i i know for me personally that actually any form of drinking really exacerbates my anxiety so when i am going through a bad patch which you know will happen because life is stressful and stress is normal um i will have more stressful periods of time and to in order to allow myself to be stronger at coping with those stresses um i i stop drinking and i have a break from that and i put in um key lifestyle changes that i know help me be that exercise be that breathing techniques etc um but that's something that i see people making a mistake with when handling on their own and the other thing that kind of comes off the back of that is there is often a fear about seeking professional help for anxiety depression anything like this um there's that fear that a going and admitting it to a doctor is you know it labels you as sort of crazy or one of these kind of negative stereotypes um and b that even if you do talk to a doctor if they do recommend some medication that oh you don't want to take medication because you don't want to be drugged or you don't want that kind of impact now that's actually not how a lot of these medications work and when balanced with lifestyle changes and therapy then they can be incredibly incredibly powerful um and writing one of the tools our hands off with kind of just because you don't like the idea of it or because of stigmas um is actually just reducing potentially the your ability to get better by because of the different offerings out there saying that it is really important to not just do medication on its own expect that to make the difference um you do need to pair that with therapies whether that's talking therapies or other types and lifestyle changes um it's when you do those three in conjunction with each other that um they have the biggest impact and just doing one or two you know and expecting it to solve the problem is unlikely to happen it's really balancing the three and finding a balance that works for you as well well what do you say to people who look at this idea that i should be able to do everything on my own why should i need to seek you know help for uh for anxiety for depression you know i should be able to handle this other people can handle it so why would i be so selfish as to go and do this when i you know my profession is a teacher i'm supposed to give going and seeing someone about my mental health number one that's a weakness and number two that's selfish of me how do you get people to change that mindset because it's number one not selfish and number two critically important we um other people can deal with it you know actually most people are not sharing that they are struggling and they are not sharing that they might have gone to their doctor and be having conversations separately and you would be really surprised if all of that was on the table i think everybody would be shocked about how prevalent this is it's actually more normal to be suffering particularly in today's environment with the pandemic and working from home and all these really difficult situations it's much more normal to be struggling with that than not so this message we tell ourselves that oh well i'm the abnormal one because of i'm struggling with these things or this is difficult for me that that's actually not true and it's harmful it's a really negative harmful message that we tell ourselves yeah my advice is to uh read about it start with reading usually we educate yourselves so read about it and because the more i read about anxiety and i've learned more about myself the people around me and i was able to help myself and other people around me so it's just read more about it first and know that you have the right to talk we cannot we cannot ignore that we are human beings we need the social interactions we need we need someone to tell us that we can do it because one of the big mistakes that i like when you ask the question uh kristen i i just i keep on hearing like i tried everything people who say i tried everything and anxiety can become a habit like it's yes it's an emotion and if we we need to break this habit and and it takes time to break one habit if anyone is you know dealing with a child you know you need at least 21 days of consistent consistent uh um interference you need you need at least 21 days to um to change a habit we i do happiness challenges and people will be very excited to join i always like it's a one month i have a happiness challenge people will always want to join by then sixth day people will drop and then they will say we tried everything it's how you keep on working on yourself how you keep on helping yourself at least for at least 21 days if it has to be more than that but i mean the minimum is 21 days so after 21 days it would become a habit it's just like doing a diet trying to lose weight it's just it's the same you cannot just stop eating carbs for three days and say okay i tried everything i'm not losing weight and um but because it's emo it's our emotions and we were not educated to speak about our emotions it became like something that i i just need to deal with i shouldn't share so we cannot have quick fixes and this is something that i often find and we cannot just go and ha and take medicine we have to understand ourselves we have to look at our eating habits i eating is huge and that's where mindfulness change from just a practice to a daily habit am i eating am i being mindful especially teachers they have their snacks in between sometimes they even have it with the kids um it's like we have to have some time for us to look at our the food that we're eating we have to make sure that we're eating healthy food we have to have to make time for it because if we did not make our health a priority and it will eventually affect our our mental and physical health oh diet is so incredibly important when it comes to everything and it's interesting because when we get anxious when we are starting to deal with these issues we go to comfort foods and it's amazing they're called comfort foods but they're probably the least healthy things that we can have when i went back to do my master's degree um years after i graduated from undergrad i was like i need chocolate covered peanuts and my husband looked at me like i was insane he's like you don't eat those like i need them and it took me a while to realize that this group of friends that i studied with when i was an undergrad for some reason we always had chocolate covered peanuts when we were studying for finals and that became a coping mechanism to deal with this strut and i hadn't had them in years i needed them like no i don't this was a bad habit i got into when there's some muscle memory going on here there's a a question in the chat that i think is i think i'll read it to you and it's i happen to like that they find relief with this it says every time i felt stress i tend to eat ice cubes and notice that i got relief after does it mean that i'm experiencing anxiety i think eating ice cubes and feeling relief is wonderful i think that's great if i wish i could have something that um that didn't give wasn't high in calories and really bad for my body that would relieve that tension and that's way better than chocolate-covered peanuts so it doesn't necessarily mean you are experiencing anxiety it sounds like you're experiencing stress which is a normal thing and we will all have to deal with stress throughout our lifetimes and it will be a continuous issue sometimes it's where sometimes it's not so less and we react to stress in certain ways sounds like you have a fantastic coping mechanism i'm gonna try it i think the wall they're water water is healthy it's the best it's great but this seems like there is a question but actually they're giving us some really good advice right i don't know who posted that but thank you there's a really uh quick question that i noticed um that is anxiety and depression the same and i think i was going to bring that up thank you very much it's important to quickly clarify um they are not the same they're almost opposites in some ways but quite often they come together in a diagnosis um because one can sometimes lead to the other anxiety as we sort of talked about earlier is uh characterized by worry by kind of sometimes panic by often cycling incessive thoughts incessant thoughts um and can be quite almost like energetic in a way now depression is characterized by low mood often numbness and an absence of feeling um so in terms of kind of a spectrum they seem almost on the opposite ends one is very hyperactive and worrying anxiety and the other is a numbness a flatness an absence of feeling um and sometimes low mood and very cheerful and upset um but quite often like i say one will end up leading to the other and so quite often people get diagnosis of anxiety and depression it's not because they're the same thing it's because for example you might have anxiety this worry this incessant thoughts and panic and that ends up leading you to feel depressed and low mood and upset and down um so they can be very hand in hand yeah i agree that it's again it goes back to the terms we use with ourselves and the the sometimes we we just label ourselves we're i'm just i'm i'm depressed so what is that can we read about depression can we see if we have the symptoms can can we see the difference between both can are we taking a medicine that we decided to take or that might lead to that uh is the food we're eating um making us like unhappy in some way so we just feel like we gave up we're giving up on ourselves we don't know what to do sometimes when we feel helpless we say like i'm depressed i don't know i tried everything but um there's no way out of that so um yeah i they're not connected by any ways but they can lead to each other i agree with you well we have a lot of um questions and the various things about you know how do you manage anxiety in the midst of the pandemic i know people are talking about when we get back to normal i don't think we're going to get back to the way we were before not completely and i think there's some good in that i mean if you think about it pre pandemic the idea that the three of us would be sitting at our homes having this critically important conversation with perspectives from literally all over the world that wasn't something that would have happened so there are some things that are we're learning and we're we're growing and we're sharing together but how do we deal with anxiety when there's it's an unknown there's all these variants coming and you know people we know covet is getting closer and closer if you haven't had it you know someone who's had it so what tips do you have for just trying to manage anxiety in such an uncertain time it's a really tricky one again it's not one that's got a silver bullet that's going to solve it all my personal opinion is that we need to almost look at ourself rather than the external world because as i referred to earlier stress is going to happen now covert is an unusual situation but if it isn't covered it's something else it's work it's personal life it's trying to balance all these commitments whatever it is there are external stresses that are going to happen to us um and so focusing on those things as an external thing i i don't think is beneficial i think we need to look internally and understand what can i do to make myself more resilient to these external things that that hit us almost think of yourself as kind of i don't know a flag in the wind or something that's being bashed this way or that way you know how do you make sure that you are standing and that you're waving your flag and you're not sort of blowing over with the wind and with these external things that impact you it's more about that internal thing and the ways to to deal with that are to look spend time thinking about what helps you decompress and what helps you destress we've referred to a few of really great techniques here breathing meditations walking exercise sleep there's a huge amount of stuff out there you can research online um i'm very happy to share my sort of details afterwards if people want some basic tips and techniques um but really it's about looking at how you process stress rather than these external factors yeah and if you're processing stress in a way that is actually beneficial and helpful to you i have a friend who processes stress by shopping online and it's not good so we we speak about the avoidance zone and the anxiety zone when there's these are very two important zones that we say okay i'm uh i'm just depressed i'm going to shop and it doesn't happen then you go in shop then you don't nothing changes so you need to address your feelings you need to understand what's going on in your head you need to understand your thoughts you need to have a discussion with your thoughts uh it it may sound like it's not something that we do but we have to to speak to our thoughts are your ideal thoughts are you an actual thought because what's the anxiety we're speaking about the future we're thinking what will happen tomorrow what will happen and uh will i get covered what would happen if i got covered and i'm on my own what will happen with with mike it's too many questions taking place and then once one thing that i've really practiced uh um very very well with my kids and my family during covert is just looking at the day we be let's be present let's speak about today what do we need today do we have what we need for today can we manage today okay yes then let's focus on today when tomorrow comes we speak about tomorrow sometimes this is the when when when my thoughts take over my my mind i just have this conversation like can you just focus on today if today you need that and you have it then then move on if you can if you have a plan for today then move on we don't have to sometimes we just need to stop our mind from thinking of the future and we have to stop our mind from thinking of the history what happened before as well so it's um the other thing is that uh is the circle of control what can we control it's it's some people call it the circuit of influence it's really helpful and sometimes we end up being drawing an actual circle with others and we'll go through okay what can you control now you cannot control and what you cannot control then once you write it down you just focus on your your your circle of control and sometimes i advise advice people to hang it hang it somewhere like uh put some notes around the house if you're staying at home and you have to work from home some put some notes around the house i have i have on my notes uh i have some go-to uh things like i train myself to have some positive words um to just read once i start having negative thoughts or i also become anxious i just go and check them out it would be very good if some if people shared their experience with others and you have a go-to person i have a friend who like when i when i lose it i just messaged i said i don't need anything just remind me of what we agreed on and just you need this reminder from time to time and you feel that you're not on you're not on your own and and that's it well and you brought up something earlier that i think it's really important we get back to well two things about kindness about being kind to yourself and this idea of self-talk because rebecca you said this you wouldn't talk to anyone the way you're willing to talk to yourself we will beat ourselves up over the littlest thing but when was the last time you said something positive to yourself like hey i did a really good job on that or wow you know you know that was really i was really had a good answer for that or i'm good at this or i'm smart i'm you know i'm whatever i mean compare the times in a day you call yourself an idiot to the times where you say i'm smart i'm clever i'm capable we discourage believing positive things about ourselves and saying positive things about ourselves how do we change that i actually want to give everyone on the call a challenge um and jumping off angus point earlier that you need to do something 21 days in a row was that it to make it happen so i want you to do this 21 nights in a row when you lie in bed before you go to sleep i want you to say three things about yourself or about your day that you are grateful for now this is a technique from positive psychology that um helps us we kind of wire our way of thinking um and helps us go into sleep with sort of the last thought being a positive thing and it's hard at first it feels really weird it feels uncomfortable but you'll get into it a little bit more and it'll become more natural and the three things can be big things or they can be tiny things they could be well i really liked the feeling of the sun on my skin today or it could be i really like the way i make my friends laugh you know it can be bigger things or little things and i want you to do that 21 nights in a row three things that are good about yourself or your day and just keep doing it and try and make them different each each time and that's why it's useful having their about your day aspect in there as well and just keep telling yourself these positive things and what you see about yourself that that that would be life changing rebecca and uh i've tried it myself and i i would add to that hang it see it make it make it visible for you and add to it start start with an empty paper and write what you're good at every every time you try to notice promise yourself that you will do it and especially like when you ask questions this question i thought of myself as a mother i wanted to do everything for my kids until my at this third ten and i stopped and said am i enjoying i questioned the enjoyment part and i calculated like how many years are left before he goes and he was already in middle school and it's like did i enjoy life am i enjoying him and teachers are you enjoying being in your classrooms are you having fun because we deserve that we deserve this fun and i promise i made up a promise to myself i'm that i will enjoy middle years middle school it's not easy raising two teenagers now it's not it's not easy it's out it's completely out of my comfort zone but i go back to what i said i said i want to enjoy so i always reflect with myself am i enjoying um and then just again being kind to yourself it's a practice it's a practice when you compliment yourself and um you don't need even sometimes when people give us compliments we even don't take them sometimes we're that difficult on ourselves and we we just need to see okay who am i ask yourself who are you who are you from what you see not what people tell you because people don't know what you're dealing with um and just write it down and if you don't like it change it if you don't like something change it work on it and change it but please like we have to enjoy we have to enjoy what's it's everyday matters every day counts if you're thinking about we we had like if you think about um this family trip that we want to go through and now we're stuck here let's okay let's enjoy here we learned how to enjoy being in you know in a house together as a family with the limited work space for everyone but we we learned some things from the pandemic and this is where i don't think we need to go back to normal i don't think it's meant to be like that i think we need to move on and and learn how to deal with uncertainty well i also think as far as the the pandemic goes it's not going to end anytime soon i know that people don't want to hear that but this idea that okay was it was only supposed to last a few months and it was only going to last till six months always going to be gone by summer it was going to be it's it's going to be here for a while so instead of just putting these things off because once the pandemic is done you're going to we need to shift and start taking care of ourselves now and i know that a lot of people don't like the idea that you know we've said exercise exercise is great it is so critically important and exercise can be something like going for a walk we're not saying you know go run a marathon tomorrow go for a walk um and go for a walk without your phone un plug i mean if you wanted to you can listen to some good music great um read a book awesome make sure the things you're doing are actually bringing you joy and take time without feeling guilty to bring yourself joy there have been several people who have asked questions including our ice cube eating friend about you know do they have anxiety are they suffering from anxiety i'm not bringing those questions up because we don't know you well enough to answer those questions if you think you are dealing with issues of anxiety we can't stress enough please please please contact a mental health professional just have that initial conversation you know go talk to your doctor and say hey i'm struggling with this um i'm not sure our ice cube eating friend brought up that um they start to lose weight every time they eat ice cubes i hope that means you're eating normal food and and eating ice cubes you're not just eating ice cubes but go talk to professionals because you are vitally important to this world you matter your students need you you're making the world a better place as one of our panelists said last week you cannot pour from an empty cup so you have to practice self-love and self-care so if you think you're suffering from anxiety issues of anxiety and depression that you can't manage please please please go talk to someone it is not a sign of weakness it is a sign of great strength that you are self aware enough that you're willing to do this and that's something that i just really wanted to make sure that i i brought up i think it's important and i think to add as well for anybody that is in that position that feels like oh there's no point because i could never get better from the position i'm in now because i'm so bad i am living proof that you can right i have been through really the depths of depression anxiety i have experienced many things you know everyone's experience is different so i can't claim to have experienced exactly what you've experienced but i have felt in that position where it i thought it'd be impossible to come back and now i am probably the the mentalist healthy i've ever been and i am thriving and loving my life and i've learned the positives that these things have brought to me and i've learned how to cope with it so please don't allow the concern that well you've got so many problems or so many issues or that you wouldn't be able to come back from that place to hold you back because it whilst you may really truly believe that it isn't true um and you can come back and actually the sooner you take those steps to seek help the easier that's going to be the longer you leave it the harder it gets so let's just take that initial step go and speak to a doctor a medical health professional and and get the help that you need somebody is asking what we mean by self-care can we define self-care and how do you stop it from becoming over indulgence is there something like proper self-care i think there are some things that you that sometimes we think of self-care that aren't so um like i say watching just incessant tv and netflix and all these things and just kind of blocking out or avoiding the issues is not necessarily self-care but the way i see self-care i don't know if there is a formal definition out there i'm sure there is but i see it as looking after yourself in a healthy way so taking time out of our busy professional and busy personal life to do stuff that makes you feel good um that might be meditating it might be going for a swim it might be going for a walk it might be exercising it might be breathing techniques it might be writing in a journal i found personally that writing things down is incredibly cathartic i saw somebody saying the chat earlier about listening to pleasant music i saw somebody else say about starting your day watching affirming and motivational videos these are good things that make you feel good and that is what self-care is it's what makes you feel relaxed and good and actually it it's very very hard to make that cross over into self-indulgence um if it's making you feel good and it's making you perform better at your job sort of teaching other people and imparting sort of knowledge and wisdom then that's great if it's stopping you from engaging in any other part of life that might be the the point where it's a little bit too much but as long as you're you know turning up to work and engaging and delivering and what you need to do and your commitments both professional and personal um then then it's never going to be too much and it's never going to be self-indulgent it should help fuel you to do those things it shouldn't stop you from doing those things yeah i i would i would define it as you're talking now i've thought of like let define it yourself see what does it mean to you because i believe it means different like sometimes it can be quality time um for some people with you know understand your love language as well it's very often that we don't know ourselves so know what it means to you and what really matters to you because i i would prefer like a very a one-to-one conversation another person can can um can be interested in a group you know outing or a social interac bigger social interaction like define what it means to you and it doesn't have doesn't mean that you're doing it every day there are some things that you do every day but for example it can be as simple as do do you have a cup of tea or coffee or without being without checking your phone do you just enjoy enjoy it do you do you take a a bath and you just don't think about you have happy thoughts you know um or we're always thinking of what we're doing next what we're doing next it's it's how we are controlling our our thoughts and our controlling the mind and um i believe this is my biggest the best the biggest thing that i've learned is to control my my thoughts and [Music] self-care for me sometimes can be like i i need to go i need to stop being a mom for a couple of hours i need to go outside and sometimes it's like i really want to be with my kids and just focus on them so it's it it's not even we don't have to have a one definition and stick to it it can change but the most important thing is that we do not wait until we're burnt out and say okay who can we blame because we are responsible for our lives we are responsible to make sure we we empty the cup before if it's completely full and then start spilling over so yeah i i teach even my family what is my love language you can speak about it and you can you can you can have different definitions within your group as a team if you're working in the school what again if you have a well-being committee or even within your team uh what does well-being mean to you what does that self-care mean to you because sometimes we can just help each other as well and make time for uh for each other well there are a lot of people who are asking you know how can teachers help each other you know how can we deal with these things during the pandemic and one thing that you can do is if you're on freedo part of freedom is that it's a community so the idea that you're not struggling with these things alone you know one thing that may be giving you anxiety is you've got a new lesson that you don't know how to to put it online go and talk to other people about it share resources have conversations you're not alone so don't don't think that you can't talk about whatever it is that is causing you anxiety and it may be that you talk to a friend or a co-worker and they say hey you know this is something that maybe you want to talk to someone else someone said how can teachers help other teachers deal with anxiety without overstepping boundaries that's a really good question and i guess it depends on what's being brought to you and if you're and we'll let um our panelists who are way smarter than i am um go ahead and comment on this as well but i would assume that if this is something that someone is bringing to you and you're not comfortable talking with them about it that you should suggest they talk to somebody else yeah i i believe in connection and some people when when someone uh is like um has has taken the risk to come and speak to us you know you have to be prepared with some questions you don't need to know much about the other person's life but sometimes it's the questions and sometimes you even tell them you don't need to answer to me i don't need to know the answers and this is what we do we don't need to know more about people's life we just need to ask the right questions for reflection um and the other person can think about it and come back some people choose to to mention a special you know specific scenario and then you will be able to help more but it's as simple as just ask the right questions and whatever whatever the response is it should not be judgmental you know it should it should be like be open be kind to others as well and and i'm very it's very common as well something that i've seen like people will just like to give prescriptions we we're not there to do that you you cannot tell a person what to feel and what not to feel do not allow anyone to tell you how to feed and whatnot we teach kids about feelings we have units about emotions and then we come to ourselves that we should not allow anyone to define our emotions they are emotions and uh they are there for a reason um so it's a two-way thing also know like i always check uh who's around me am i surrounded by negative people i'm not surrounded by people who only complain and because this is something that also you need to break uh we tend to you know the staff rooms are full of lovely stories and they can be full of negativity as well so um you can interact but you don't have to participate you know you can just listen and sometimes if you don't want to listen do not listen but do not um do not allow anyone around you to be hurting you or you're not noticing uh it can be like uh a kind of um a comment that someone passed on and that's why essential agreements are very important at the end of the year we can always do that anytime when you feel we need that i we we do them in the classrooms we tell kids how we want the year to go what is expected from everyone and it's very important that we have amongst our teams uh essential agreements in which we say okay how we're dealing with each other and uh we have to make sure this the the culture is safe as well for everyone to to talk and share well i absolutely don't want to do this um but my dear colleague roy is sending me messages in the chat that um we have we're almost out of time i would love to continue our conversations um and maybe we'll do another one of these in the future but now i would like to ask you for your final thoughts i don't know who would like to go first i don't mind going first um it's going to be a bit of a repetition um but if you think that you might be experiencing symptoms of anxiety depression or anything related i cannot express enough how important it is to go and speak to your doctor or a medical health profession a mental health professional um as much as you know myself and engi and i'm sure so many other people are willing to to talk and and pointers and tips there is nothing better than seeking proper professional help um and going down that path it can be so scary and so daunting um but it will be possibly the best thing you ever do in your life um and i cannot express how important it is um and also don't be so harsh on yourself you know it's we we've said it a few times today you know we wouldn't talk to other people like we talked to ourselves we're so critical of ourselves give yourself a break every now and again you are only human we all make mistakes sometimes things are good and sometimes things are not so good and that's okay that's part of the the rich tapestry of life and of being human and you know think to yourself like you would think to a friend if they express to you how you're feeling and try the breathing technique we spoke about earlier and the um gratitude technique before you hear your 21 day challenge yeah yes uh i would say that always tell yourself that your current situation is not your final destination it's true you're like whatever you're feeling now it can be addressed you can you can move on we we've all experienced it and we we we can go out of any uh you know vicious cycle we um we just have to be kind but determined we have to make sure we are persistent we do not give up uh because it's it's us you have to work on yourself more if you you care about like 20 20 students in your class you deserve that you deserve that self-care you deserve that love you deserve especially in teaching we everyone is on a different journey it's a process we speak we keep on talking about learning is a process life is a process as well it's not meant to be not meant to be perfect tomorrow you're not meant to be perfect at all you're you're just meant to be a human and to live and be better than yesterday if you're trying to develop your skills as a teacher it's like take it one step at a time with when when online learning took place people went to there were so many ideas and sometimes they're overwhelming you just take it one step at a time set goals for yourselves and just build on them and as rebecca said make sure you uh fill your gratitude journal we had as a family we worked on a gratitude jar and it was very helpful to to help ourselves even if um if we're stuck in you know in in our houses well and i wouldn't say please if anyone's looking for any specific techniques i know engineer myself has shared a few tips and techniques today um if you are on instagram and follow at avexia dot collective the spelling is in my name um we often share regular tips techniques little tricks breathing exercises etc and so if you found those things useful and you want to learn a few more then then that's a nice free way to access them sorry abby can you put that up um on the video please ebby's are wonderful behind the scenes individual and hopefully she can um scroll it across the bottom of the screen and you can put in the chat for her to to see it again there we go thank you very very much um and i just want to thank our panelists and teachers thank you for all you do please remember to breathe i know we've said some things that seem to be you know pretty basic get enough sleep this from the person who is you know talking to you from 3 20 in the morning i promise i'm gonna sleep a lot when we're done um exercise eat right and yeah i know that you know the chocolate cake is wonderful and you know cheetos are great but junk food it's designed to make you crave more of it so give yourself that 21 days to to not do these things that you know are bad for you because we need you to love yourself so you can help our students set those boundaries take time to disconnect and yeah if you want to watch a show or two on netflix great if you're watching the whole season and one night that's avoidance that's the kind of thing that rebecca was saying not to do but please please take care of yourself because you are so incredibly important as a parents you know teachers like you shape the lives of my children i wouldn't be here if i didn't have inspiring teachers in my life so thank you for all you do try some of these wonderful techniques please do rebecca's um 21 day challenge and email me and let me know how it's going you can connect with me on linkedin or through freedo there's ways to get in touch with me as well and now i'm going to introduce the fabulous roy who is going to wrap everything up and tell you how to earn your certificate um i make him do all that the heavy lifting i just get to have the fun and talk to the amazing panelists and read your questions thanks a lot kristen hi uh rebecca angie thank you so much for sharing those wonderful wonderful insights really super helpful for our audience today i just want to remind everybody how you get your certificates for this webinar and this fireside chat so don't forget to go to freedrew.com so make sure that you enroll into the course itself we will have a video recording of this session that you can rewatch within the course and after you complete the course uh items and just go through it then you will receive your e-certificates by email okay it's that simple i'll just share my screen really quickly just so that we're very clear on how you can actually see this course okay i'll share my screen so here when you come to freegew.com so just go online and then click sign in when you sign in if you haven't don't have an account yet just make sure you sign in don't worry i'm already signed in and then when you come into freeju it looks like this go to skill ed and you'll see a list of all the courses that we have again you get 23 courses for free members and if you're a paid member then you'll have access to all the other courses that are paid as well look for the managing workplace society course it's over here and then just enroll and then the course itself looks like this so just be uh able to kind of enroll here go through the simple lessons it's very easy to go through and then you can watch the video and then towards the end of the course you will get your certificate after you complete the last lesson you'll get your certificate by email okay so it's very easy just sign up on freeju.com enroll into the course and then you will be able to receive your certificate okay so very simple and then give you some more tips and strategies that maybe we didn't talk about in today's webinar as well absolutely and we can probably add those and probably invite our speakers uh next time as well so um also don't forget we have a bunch of events that are coming uh starting next year uh in january so this is our going to be our next event uh i'll show it on the screen so don't forget to sign up for our next event next january and then from every every week till then we'll have a lot of webinars like this with courses and certificates accompanying them so please don't forget to sign up and join to learn more and participate more in the community share your thoughts ideas and freed you and again thank you very much to our lovely speakers rebecca anja and of course uh dr kirsten i know it's 3am there but thanks so much for staying up with us and to all our friends from all over the world more than 35 countries all over here with us thank you so much for joining us on behalf of academia and the team we thank you and have a great day thank you so much and happy holidays and happy holidays yeah happy december everybody thank you and see you soon thank you bye thank you [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Akadasia

Views: 1,311

Keywords: teacher training, akadasia, freejoo, upskilling, empowering educators everywhere

Id: MTo6LpDUBY4

Length: 90min 56sec (5456 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 15 2021