Supporting educators mental health during high-stress periods
Definitions & Key takeaways
During high-stress periods, educators should prioritize their mental health by taking care of their physical health, engaging in self-care activities, and seeking support from others. It's important to eat nutritious meals, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. Self-care activities like reading, listening to music, going for walks, and spending time with family and friends can help reduce stress and boost mental health. Educators should also reach out to other educators, friends, family, or mental health professionals to talk about their feelings and get advice and support.
Hi, my name is Amin Azam. I'm a psychiatrist by training and at heart, a passionate educator.
I work at three San Francisco Bay Area Health Science Universities. And I also work at osmosis.
Today. I'd like to talk to you about your own mental health during times of stress and or crises as you care for your students.
I've got three key points. Number one, engage in self care.
I'm a big fan of a metaphor of flying when you're on a plane and the oxygen masks come down. The uh flight attendants always say if you're traveling with someone who needs assistance, please put your own mask on first before helping others.
Wellbeing allows you to be more effective attending to your learner's well-being. Number two, build and support your team and community of peers.
So you are a part of the health care education team. There are staff, there are trainees, there are peer educators as part of your university or your program.
So you need to make sure that you tend to the wellbeing of that community and make sure they're tending to your wellbeing.
In addition to that, there are also professional networks. So I can think of, for example, the doctor ed list serve groups on educational affairs.
From the double AMC, there are also education specific educator, professional networks. So for example, I'm a big fan of the Association for Academic Psychiatry, where I have peers as educators of Psychiatry and other health professional universities around the world.
Similarly, there's the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine, the Society of General Internal Medicine. There are other profession specific educator organizations and those are fabulous ways of building a network beyond your local community.
And then thirdly remember that we here at osmosis are also trying to build a network of health professionals educators globally.
So we have a faculty list serve. We have a faculty development resources, we have an osmosis professional enrichment network.
All of those are designed to help you feel connected with others and that community of peers will be a buffer to times of particular distress and a source of resource uh for how to handle that.
Number three, look out for signs of burnout and seek help yourselves. Um I know this goes without saying but I have to say it anyway.
Um Seeking help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. So in fact, identifying your own workplace, wellbeing resources is an extremely useful tool, not just in signs of distress but during your regular work days.
So by that, I could mean things like anything like employee health or wellness or wellbeing programs, occupational health and human resources.
And don't forget the looking up your institution's policies on personal health and medical leave. Lastly, I'd like to talk about signs of burnout.
It is important for us to acknowledge burnout in ourselves as well as our colleagues. And so I encourage you to think about signs of burnout.
Some of the obvious ones that are worth saying. Do you drag yourself to work?
Do you feel cynical and have you been irritated or impatient with people at work? Have you lost fulfillment in your career?
Do you have low energy and or concentration, especially when you're on the job? Have your sleep and or eating habits become less healthy and have you had any unexplained physical symptoms like headaches or stomach troubles, identifying those signs of burnout early are important.
So that way you can mitigate them and seek help yourself? All right.
So as a quick recap, we as educators must manage our own mental health in order to be there for our students. Remember to one, engage in self care, two, build and support your team and community of peers.
And three, look for signs of burnout and seek help yourselves. I hope that was helpful if you don't have the resources you need at your school or if you have questions, please reach out to us at partnerships at
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