Building Resilience to Cope with Stress and Change - Page 1 of 5

Building Resilience to Cope with Stress and Change

Resilience, Self-Care and Renewal

Pressures during a school year can become intense. As demands increase, some teachers become increasingly overwhelmed, upset, and debilitated by the stress. Given the same set of circumstances, however, other teachers are able to meet the challenges, overcome the difficulties, and "keep their cool." They are ready for whatever comes next. Why are these responses so different?

We might say that the teachers in the first example are demonstrating vulnerability - a susceptibility or predisposition of an individual to succumb to negative outcomes.

The teachers in the second example seem to be demonstrating resilience - which refers to an individual's capacity to endure, survive, effectively cope with, and master severe challenges, and to maintain and enhance one's psychological integration in the process.

More simply, resilience refers to the psychological, emotional and biological strengths required to successfully master change.

The circumstances of your personal and professional lives will fluctuate. High energy and productive times alternate with difficult and disappointing ones. Something that once existed, no longer does. The strengths required to master the cycles of endings, transitions and rebuilding are qualities of a resilient, self-caring person. The quality of resilience is at the heart of mental and emotional health, and is extremely important to our physical well-being.

Our ability to recover from difficult times depends to a great degree upon our resilience. The greater our reserve of healthy attitudes and coping skills, the greater our potential for renewal. The level of resilience we possess as adults is influenced partially by childhood experiences.

However, no matter how difficult our early years might have been, research assures us that "it is never too late to have a happy childhood." At any point in our lives, we can begin to take greater responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and behaviors and to change the outcomes we experience in our lives.

As education changes, so must educators. You will do this best if you can get accustomed to ambiguity and uncertainty, make the most of changing situations, and learn to take positive action to balance and manage stress.

Need a few examples? Positive action toward balance and stress management may include:

• taking personal responsibility for clarifying priorities, roles and expectations;
• pursuing on-going learning; taking initiative to make things happen;
• doing your part with a positive and cooperative attitude;
• making adjustments in your attitudes and expectations; and
• developing new skills and habits that will make us successful in a radically changing world.

While these are challenging changes, they begin when you begin to build and nurture resilience in your life.