Burning out is a topic of conversation I often have with teachers. Staying healthy and applying balance to your life can help you avoid a burn out. The symptoms of a burn out are same whether you have been teaching for 20 years or 2. Identifying some of these symptoms early can remind you to reassess your needs and adjust your schedule or activities. Keep in mind we are all different and respond to stress in different ways, only you can know if these symptoms apply to you:
- Feeling relentlessly tired no matter how much sleep you have had.
- Having difficulty articulating your thoughts and cues as you teach.
- Finding yourself wishing for cancellations or dreading the shift before it even starts.
- Having a short fuse with clients and other teachers.
- Experiencing unusually tired limbs or fatigued body after/during teaching.
To me Pilates is about finding balance in body and mind, then applying this to my life outside the studio, we constantly tell our clients this but often do not follow our own advice. Try to incorporate some (or all) of the following to maintain a healthy body and mind and increase your longevity as a teacher:
- Eat well. Making sure you are getting enough good fats, essential oils and a healthy variety of vegetables. Maintain a healthy level of minerals and vitamins, some of us need a little help with this one, find a good naturopath who can test your blood and give you some good quality assistance where you need it. Try keeping a bowl of nuts nearby when teaching.
- Stay well hydrated.
- Sleep. If you find yourself waking up tired you may be in sleep debt. Try increasing your sleep hrs by 30-60 min each night until you catch up.
Practice Pilates! When you give back to yourself you can give to your clients. Make a wish list of teachers or studio’s you would like to go to and start working though your list! - Manage your energy levels when you teach. If you find yourself zooming along at 100 miles per hour then crash for the last hour of your shift. Create an energy scale, 10 is the most excited and energised you can be and 1 is so relaxed you’re almost asleep. Try to sit around 5 -6.
- Try meditating after a shift. Bring your energy scale right down to replenish.
- Create a community of Pilates teacher friends. As much as we wish they did our spouse, flat mates, best buddies, don’t really understand the pressures involved in teaching and it’s important that we can have a respectful vent every now and then!
- Keep a note pad and pen handy, when you get a teaching idea or have an epiphany on an exercise write it down.
- Every month schedule a day just for you. Do what makes you happy! Bush walk and a pot of tea are things high up on my list.
- Know where to draw the line professionally. If you know a busy month is coming up book in a 3 day weekend in advance for the end of the month.
- Ask yourself: Why do I teach? Why did I start teaching? Why did I start doing Pilates?
Realizing we are all lifelong Pilates students and cannot possibly know everything will help keep your mind alert to new learning experiences related to how we teach and live.
“A body free from nervous tension and fatigue is the ideal shelter provided by nature for housing a well balanced mind, fully capable of successfully meeting all the complex problems of modern living.” Joseph Pilates
Happy teaching
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