Self-Care for Writers

My teaching background is the elementary panel so I found this article, Self Care for Graduate Students when Time and Energy are Tight, by dissertation coach Kathryn Peterson about stress in the graduate program fascinating.

I recently completed my doctorate and published a book, and could relate to some of the points in her article. Although our doctorate program didn't have the 'publish or perish' pressures, I agree with the author that working on a long-term writing project is like running a marathon. Writing can be stressful. It can take a physical and mental toll on your body and your energy.

Stressors can include:

• biological stressors: so much sitting - aching shoulders, creaky joints
• cognitive stressors: researching, reading, synthesizing so many articles and so much data; putting it all together in a coherent fashion

• emotional stressors: the review process.  You submit something you think is pretty darn good and it comes back with so many suggestions for revisions, and questions. It can feel a bit like a personal attack when someone 'attacks' your writing.

• prosocial and social stressors: the enormous amount of time and energy spent on a long-term writing project means less time for family and community. 

One of her suggestions is to write down five easy, low cost, short-term ideas for self-care on an index card and keep them in your bag or post them on a whiteboard in your workspace.  Then use them to restore balance and recharge energy when your tension is high and your energy is low.

Some suggestions for low cost, short term self-care include: a hot cup of tea, a walk outdoors, playing with a pet, holding hands with a loved one, reading a chapter in a non-work related book. 

I like the idea of having those strategies for refilling your energy tank posted on a whiteboard or written on an index card and carried in your bag.  When energy is low, it is so easy to revert to old habits like junk food, energy drinks, and mindless screen time. Having a strategy card readily at hand may help me to choose healthy strategies for restoring energy when my tank is low!

Empty fuel tank gauge image from: vectorstock.com/2807186

Self-Reg and Aging

While I began my self-reg journey from the perspective of an educator, thinking about how self-reg could help students to achieve their fullest potential, I quickly realized that self-reg begins with the self - with me and my own self-regulation. Yesterday, I used self-reg from the perspective of a daughter during a visit to my dad.

Last week, my husband took a week off from work and we spent the entire week in London getting his condo ready to sell.  He lived in it for a few years when he was working in the city, then he had tenants in it for a few years and, for the past three years our girls have lived in it while they attended post-secondary school.  Like most renovations, it is taking longer than we anticipated and we are doing most of the work ourselves - ripping out carpeting, installing laminate floors, removing panelling in the basement and putting up dry wall. Needless to say, there were lots of stressors as we worked together on this project each day and then collapsed into bed each night.

At our own home, we are still returning to normal after a flood while I was away on vacation two weeks ago. The interior of our home is fine, but the garage is filled with all of the seasonal decorations that were salvaged and scrubbed clean after the crawlspace beneath the house filled with lake water. Unfortunately, there was also the emotional stress of losing many holiday decorations - my grandmother's ornaments that hung on her tree and now ours, decorations the girls had made when they were younger, ornaments that we had picked up on our travels - all were ruined and discarded.

I usually go to visit my dad twice a week to help with his banking, run personal errands and just chat about what's happening with folks we know. My dad is dealing with his own stressors that come with aging. He decided to move to a retirement home last fall, and while he chose a lovely place, it's not the same as being at home. The challenges of having to be dependent on others for so many things, especially since he decided to stop driving last fall. He still reels from the loss of my mom (12 years younger and always so much healthier than him), and the physical challenges of aging.

Yesterday as I was preparing to leave, I knew that I had to stop for a moment and restore some of my own calmness.  If I was to bring all the stress and tension I was carrying with me to my visit with him, it would only add to the stress and tension he is already feeling.  By making a conscious effort to approach this visit with compassion and empathy, as well as taking the time to return to a place on the Thayer Matrix of less tension and more energy, I was able to arrive at his retirement home relaxed and calm - even after encountering 3 different construction projects on the road during my short drive!

As an educator and a consultant, I used this same tool. Whether heading into a classroom of kindergarten children or an auditorium of educators gathered for a professional learning session, I needed to take time to reflect on my own energy and tension before beginning my work with others.

Just as I was about to post this blog on Twitter, I saw that Stuart Shanker has shared this quote:

And I responded:

And in another instance of serendipity, I found Nancy Niessen's blog post: Reframing is Ageless yesterday when I was reflecting on this link with self-regulation and my dad.

Recognizing Stressors

We've been learning about how to be stress detectives in our MEHRIT Centre course - digging deeper to find those hidden stressors that are impacting our limbic system even though our Prefrontal Cortex may not even notice.  Hidden stressors can be things like lights, noise and even junk food.

I revised my original popplet to show my learning over the last few weeks (It's easier to see on the link!)

When I posted the original popplet on my blog, it was such a small post I wondered if it was even worth sharing yet it has generated some interesting discussions.  Doug Peterson and Stephen Hurley featured it as one the blogs from Ontario Educators on their podcast at VoicEdRadio.

Doug posted a comment about it on his feature This Week InOntario Edublogs 

In the category of better late than never, comes this post from Lisa Cranston.  In full disclosure, Lisa and I worked together for years, and one of the greatest groups that I had a chance to be part of was our Early Years Technology group.  I learned so much from my colleagues in that group and, when the topic came to visual mindmapping, I thought that I contributed back by showing how to brainstorm and share thoughts visually with our use of the SMARTBoard, SMART Ideas and other applications.

Well, it turns out that I wasn’t all that effective!

 I responded to Doug, but for some reason it didn't show up on his blog. Anyway, I absolutely love using graphic organizers with students and we used lots of them in the Early Years Technology group he spoke of - venn diagrams, T-charts, webs and more.  But I didn't use them as a tool for my own learning. I tended to use lists and maybe a table. But an assignment for my doctoral work required us to create a mind map for our final paper and, after much grumbling and complaining, I found I really liked it. I used iMindMap for my proposal and I've gone back to that mind map multiple times for assignments since then.  

I guess what's good for the students is good for the teacher!

Self-regulation and Lying

As a mom, I found it really hard to not respond from my limbic system when my kids would lie.  I think it was the value that I attached to truthfulness made lying an especially frustrating and stressful behaviour for me to deal with.  So the idea of lying as a stress behaviour and not misbehaviour was challenging for me. Viewing lying as a maladaptive coping strategy helps me to reframe this behaviour though soft eyes instead of judgemental eyes.  

Lying can start of as misbehaviour but when pushed and pushed to tell the truth, people can confabulate as a stress behaviour. I was always puzzled when kids or even teens and adults are caught in a lie and yet they stick to it steadfastly.  I can see where the stress of lying could push some people from misbehaviour to stress behaviour. When we respond limbically to children who lie, it only increases the stress for the child and the adult. Instead we need to reduce the stress in order to bring the child's Prefrontal Cortex back online.

I'm still curious and want to learn more about lying as a maladaptive behaviour and how we can promote children's moral growth and truthfulness.  

Here is a resource you might want to explore if you are interested in this topic:

Psychology Today Blog - The truth about lying 

Self-Regulation and Mindless Eating

When I was working full-time I would come home from work and, sometimes before I'd even changed my clothes, I would head to the kitchen for something to eat.  I would often just stand in the kitchen and graze - eating crackers from the box, a slice of cheese, cookies, whatever.....  If you had asked me an hour later what I had to eat, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell you.  It was truly mindless eating, and I look back now and realize I was definitely in the lower right box of the Thayer Matrix  - high stress all day at work and then coming home as a single parent to two busy teenagers.  I have no family here in the city so I was pretty much on my own for dealing with any minor or major issues with the kids, the house, the car, etc. Definitely high tension/low energy by 5 pm.

Recently the urge to snack and the mindless eating have been late at night. I had been looking at those cravings through a self-control lens but I decided this afternoon to try to look at them through a self-reg lens.  At first I thought, you can't be/shouldn't be low energy, high tension, you're retired!  But there are still stresses in life, even when you're retired:

• after six months of working close to home, my husband has been back to travelling all the time for work since early January.  He is usually gone from early Monday morning to late Friday night, and sometimes longer if there are flight delays, etc.  This means I'm in charge of anything that goes wrong with the car, the house, etc unless it can wait till the weekend
• since I'm retired and hubby's away at work and my kids are both away at university/college, I'm alone a lot more and that's stressful.  I volunteer, and I meet friends for lunch and all of that, but compared to when I was working, I'm still adjusting to the reduction in social contact in retirement
• being alone at night is more stressful than during the day.  Our house is old and there are weird noises at night!
• my mom passed away in December 2014 and there is some residual stress from that to deal with
• my dad is on his own and has some health and mobility issues.  I'm fortunate that my dad also has support from my brothers and sisters-in-law, but there is the stress of making sure he is taken care of - shopping for groceries, cooking meals, running errands, paying bills, and worrying about his mental and physical well-being.  Every time the phone rings and I see his number come up, I hope it's not someone calling to tell me the ambulance is on the way.  It's happened before; it will likely happen again.
• all the fun physical stresses of menopause - hot flashes, night sweats, slower metabolism, insomnia
• I submitted the first draft chapter of a book to a publisher who said he'd get back to me in a week.  It's been three weeks.  He must hate it. What was I thinking?
• studying for my doctorate online through Western.  It's starting to get real, the courses are getting harder, there's so much more writing, I have to defend next spring.  What if I fail?  What was I thinking?

Funny how I am getting better at looking at other people's behaviour with 'soft eyes' but sometimes have a hard time doing that for myself.  I really thought - you're retired, you shouldn't have stressors. I wonder how often people think, 'he's only in kindergarten.  He can't have stress.'  

Anyway this reflection today was very timely since I was beating myself up last night for giving in to my cravings. After eating healthy all day, at about 9 pm I had a glass of red wine and ate a very large Hershey Kiss that I bought as a Christmas stocking stuffer for my husband.  Since he hasn't eaten it by now, I'm hoping he forgot about it.  Change 'son' to 'husband' and this may be my life when he gets home!

Self-Reg and the Kitchen Sink

Today was an exciting day - our new kitchen counter top was being installed this morning.  I had arranged for the installer to arrive at 8:30 am; he had estimated the job would take three hours which worked out perfectly.  He would be done by 11:30 am and I had a dentist appointment at 1 pm.  I had even built in some extra time in case something went wrong.

He arrived on time and got started promptly.  I settled onto the couch in the adjacent living room and started working on a writing project.  The writing was flowing.  It was going so well until about 11:00 am when I heard "Oh no, that's horrible" coming from Moe the installation guy.

Me: What's horrible?  I don't want to hear the word horrible!

Moe: It turns out this sink is an IKEA sink and they are so poorly made that when I tried to put it back in, the clamps all snapped. (Moe had asked me if it was an IKEA sink when he came to give me the estimate a few weeks ago.  I told him I had no idea because the sink was here when I moved in.  He thought it wasn't.  He was wrong).

Moe: I'm really sorry but you're going to have to go and get a sink.  It needs to be 20.5" x 20.5"  Don't buy it any deeper or it won't fit but it can be a bit wider.

I grabbed my coat and purse.  Did I mention it is absolutely pouring down sheets of rain and we have a flood advisory?  And it's cold?  Well, it is rainy and cold.  I head to Home Depot on the south side of town.  Salesperson directs me to the sinks but they have none the right size in stock.  Grab a sub for lunch at their counter and drive to Lowe's.

Arrive at Lowe's kitchen area.  Two sales people are chatting to one another.
Me:  Excuse me, where are the kitchen sinks?

Salesguy: In plumbing. (turns his back to me and returns to his conversation)

Me: Where is the plumbing department?  (Silently seething.  I want to say: No kidding!  I was going to look in flooring or maybe lighting but the sinks are in plumbing?  Good to know!  But I bite my sarcastic tongue.)

Salesguy: (points in the direction of the corner of the store while he continues conversation without turning to face me)

I head over to plumbing, silently giving Salesguy a piece of my mind. There are sinks that are 7" deep and sinks that are 8" deep.  I don't know how deep our sink is so I stick my arm in each sink trying to determine which sink is like ours at home.  No idea. I grab a 7" sink and head home.

Moe takes a look at the sink.  "This won't work. It's 20" x 20.5"   The hole's too big and you'll have this gap. The water will get in there and ruin your new counter."

I put my wet coat and boots back on and head to Home Hardware.  I'm in luck there is a sign on the sink that says 20.5" x 20.5"  It has three holes for the taps and faucet, not just one, and it's on sale.  Bonus!  Quickly pay for the sink and head home.

I start to inhale my sub and I hear "Oh no" from the kitchen.

Moe:  This sink is too small.

Me: No it's not.  I checked.  It's exactly 20.5" x 20.5".

Moe: No it's not.  I know this is a pain but we want to do this right otherwise your new counter won't last.  (as he shows me the label on the side of the box that clearly says 20 x 20.5)

I now have two sinks, neither of which are the right size. Put my sandwich back in the fridge.  Put on my wet coat and boots, grab the Home Hardware sink and return to Home Hardware.  I let them know that their sign is wrong.  They have no other single sinks so I return this one and now drive to Home Depot East while calling the dentist on my bluetooth to see if they can push back my dentist appointment as it is now 1 pm. They tell me if I get there by 1:20 they can squeeze me in.

Arrive at Home Depot East and they have no 20.5" x 20.5" sinks,  They have slightly larger sinks and they have single sinks that have a little prep sink next to it.  I don't know if these will fit.  I don't know if this is even what I want. I hate being rushed into a decision and decide to not buy a sink today.

I rush to the dentist but it's too late and so I reschedule for next week and head home one last time. I'm trying to breathe; I'm trying to remind myself that these are #firstworldproblems and the only reason I'm doing all this running around is because I'm getting a nice new countertop.  But it's not working.  I can feel the tension building in my chest from the rushing around and from the frustration of the salesguy at Lowe's and the person at Home Hardware who screwed up making a sign and the weather and why didn't Moe check the damn sink before he cut the hole and why didn't I change my dentist appointment to another day when I realized they were both on the same day and .........   BREATHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me:  Moe, we're just going to have to wait.  I don't want to rush into picking out a sink and end up with a choice I'm going to regret later.

Moe: Sure, no problem.  I can put this old one back in for now and I'll just put silicone around the edge so it should keep the water out.

Me: Ok.  Sounds good.  I'm just going to make myself a cup of tea and try to stay out of your way.  I'll call you and let you know when I get a new sink so we can arrange to have it installed.  It should be by the end of this week unless I have to order one.

Moe:  Ok.  Just call me when you get it and I'll come and install it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So let's look at this scenario from our self-reg lens, shall we?

Reframe the behaviour:
While I was ready to snap at the Lowe's guy, the Home Hardware lady and Moe I was able to keep my behaviour in control, however I'm sure they noticed my tone was getting a bit edgier.  This was stress behaviour not misbehaviour!

Recognize the stressors:
Cold, wet rainy day
Driving in the pouring rain
Trying to eat lunch on the run
Unable to find the sink that I need
Had to put away my writing that was going really well to go to hardware stores, which I don't enjoy
Pressure of the impending dentist appointment
All the contents of the lower kitchen cabinets are in boxes in the dining room during counter installation and clutter always increases my stress levels
Husband is away on business
Daughter is texting with issues at university during this whole scenario

Reduce the stress:
Rescheduled the dentist appointment
Postponed buying the sink
Helped myself to slow down my pace and my breathing with a nice hot cup of tea
I let daughter know that I could read her email in thirty minutes and she was fine with that

Reflect to enhance stress awareness:
I was dressed properly for the weather so that helped reduce stress
I could have brought Moe's cell number with me when shopping so I could call him with questions, like do I want a 7" or 8" deep sink?
Could have arranged to have hubby on-call for decisions like bigger sink? prep sink? no sink?  It helps to have someone to talk to.
Allow more time between events; being rushed always makes me stressed

Respond (develop personalize strategies to promote resilience and restoration): 
Remember the big picture: the sink will get installed and it doesn't have to be done today
It's okay to say no to people, for example telling Moe,  "No, I can't buy a sink today."
Build in time for exercise on these cold, rainy days
Not everything is urgent and has to be done instantly.
Not every question is urgent and has to be answered immediately.  People will wait if you let them know why.

A Week Without Wifi

Last week hubby and I were at the Occidental Cozumel Resort for vacation of sun, sand and snorkelling.  The only free wifi was on three laptop computers in the hotel lobby and, rather than pay over $80US for wifi for the week, I decided to have a week with (almost) no wifi.   I say almost because once or twice a day I took advantage of the international data plan on my husband's phone to check in with my girls at home using Messenger and do a quick Facebook check.  But no Twitter, no Facebook posts, no blogs, no online courses, not even email.

I didn't realize how much I was enjoying the break from online news until Wednesday when I decided to go to the gym instead of going for a run.  Another guest was there using the treadmill and she had the TV tuned into the National Prayer Breakfast in the US.  Trump was speaking about how Mark Burnett had been the producer of Apprentice and what wonderful ratings it had when he had been the host but now that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the host the ratings were terrible.  What????????   Then he recalled that when he was campaigning and people would tell him they were praying for him and how much he liked that.  How had Trump managed to make the National Prayer Breakfast about his TV ratings and his ego??????
(Read the White House transcripts of his speech here)

When she left, the other guest turned the TV off.  Until then, I didn't realize how much extra stress the news about Trump and his various actions had been adding to my life.  Pierre Elliot Trudeau said that living next to the US is like sleeping with an elephant - we are affected by every twitch and grunt.   We can't just ignore what is happening there; it has an impact on our lives.  And I knew that the election campaign and the results had definitely been a stressor for me.  But it wasn't until I shut the news off for a few days that I realized just how much of a stressor it was and still is.

Now that we're back home and back on wifi, I will remain an informed citizen but I will use self-reg to be cognizant of when my stress levels are rising.  I can choose to seek out positive and uplifting messages, go for a walk, head to the gym or find some other activity that returns me to a calmer state.  If only I could just live at the beach!

This little fish swam right up to my mask to say hello! 

The Welcome Mat

In our self-regulation course at the MEHRIT Centre, Dr. Shanker suggested that we approach and then enter a school with an eye for hidden stressors. As a former instructional coach and consultant, part of my job was going out and supporting educators, administrators, students, parents and trustees in our schools so this idea is something that I can really connect with, although at the time I wasn't looking at it through the lens of self-regulation.  When I presented to newly hired teachers, I suggested that they reflect on their experience as supply teachers.  Which schools made them feel welcome? Why did they feel welcome in those schools. What were the factors that created the sense of belonging?  

From my own perspective, it had a lot to do with those first impressions.  Do the bulletin boards just inside the school have warm messages that promote community or are they filled with stern warnings?  Do school buildings and grounds appear cared for or neglected?  Does the person greeting me in the office welcome me with a warm smile and pleasant tone or I am barked at or simply ignored?  I can remember being at one school and waiting and waiting at the counter in the office while several people scurried about yet no one acknowledged me.  I wondered 'how would a parent feel if they were coming here to register their child? How would a student feel if they were coming to the office for assistance?  At another school, I entered the very large office and introduced myself. Without looking up, the secretary told me to sign in at the podium. I wandered over to what I thought was the sign in book and she hollered at me, "THE PODIUM!  THE PODIUM!!"  I wonder how stressful it was for staff, students and parents at that school.  I know my heart was pounding! *

Upon reflection, I can see where those schools with the warning signs in the hall, the hollering staff or the schools were I stood in the office being ignored and wondering what I should do raised my stress level, not only about my welcome but about how the rest of my day at that school was going to go.  The schools were the staff were warm and welcoming made me feel like I was in a safe place and lowered my stress level.  At one school, whenever visitors are at the school for a parent meeting, to volunteer or some other reason, the principal greets them and offers them a bottle of water or a coffee or tea.  It's a gesture that always makes me feel like I'm in a building with kind and caring people.  At many schools, the office staff greet visitors warmly, and offer to walk them to their destination (especially in the larger buildings) or have a student come down to accompany the visitor to where they are going.   When I arrive at a school, I have the physical stress of lugging a cart full of resources and materials as well as the mental stress of the agenda for the visit - hoping I can successfully meet everyone's needs in the time allotted.  Having someone walk me to where I'm going so I don't have the added stress of getting lost is wonderful.

Little things can make such a big difference in the stress level of everyone in the building.  My suggestion is to enter your building, your classroom, your staffroom, your office using the eyes of a stranger or ask a critical friend to do it for you. What do they see? What do they hear? How do they feel? What would you see/feel/hear if you were a parent? a potential student? a student teacher? a superintendent?
What are you already doing to reduce stressors for staff, students and visitors to your school? your classroom?
What changes could be made to reduce hidden stressors?

Hidden stressors in the workplace

*I debated whether or not to include the examples that increased my stress and considered using hypothetical situations.  But the situations I described had a powerful impact on me.  I can still remember how I felt, so I decided to include them, not to blame, shame or judge those involved but illustrate how a simple action can have a powerful impact on others.  Both of those situations made me much more aware of my own actions in the future.  If I have offended anyone, that was not my intent.

From linked.com

Broccoli Socks and Other Stressors

In a recent video lecture, Dr. Shanker from the MEHRIT centre shared that we tend to be annoyed when someone has a stressor that isn't a stressor for us.  This can happen if someone is bothered by a noise or a smell that we scarcely even notice. As educators we cannot allow our own baseline to cloud our judgement, nor can we allow other children's baselines to cloud our judgment. In other words, just because no one else in the class is bothered by the noise doesn't mean that it's wrong for one student to find it a stressor.  One year I taught grade four and had 29 very busy students in a portable.  Even though we tried to be respectful of one another, there was one student who was frequently bothered by the noise level. I gathered some old Calefone headphones and had them in a basket at the back of the room.  Anytime someone was bothered by the noise level during independent learning time, then they could help themselves to a pair of headphones.  They weren't connected to anything but it did help to muffle the sound.

This idea of stressors being so individual reminded of my eldest daughter.  When she was a preschooler she had clothing issues.  She couldn't wear pants because they were choking her, but she could wear tights and dresses.  She couldn't wear cotton sweat socks unless they were inside out - she called them broccoli socks because of the bumpy interior.  And she couldn't stand socks that had seams on the toes.  Even though it was frustrating I realized that she wasn't being difficult, she actually experienced these as physically uncomfortable so we reduced the stressors by letting her wear dresses and tights and she eventually outgrew it by the time she was five or six years old.

Especially during this busy holiday season, I want to be mindful that just because something isn't a stressor for me doesn't mean that it isn't a stressor for someone else.  Instead of feeling annoyed that they are being bothered by something that seems trivial to me, I want to think about how to reduce stressors for myself and for others.  

To some people it's just a tag, to others it's a torture device.