The Beast of Overwhelm

Overwhelm is a sinking ship. When it strikes, you feel like you need to grab a raft to help keep you afloat. It’s a feeling of panic, that has you convinced that you are not going to get out of the black hole drowning sensation. The toll on the body is brutal. The nervous energy that takes over the body’s systems is tangible but once grappled can become a familiarity as postures and anxiety kick in and take over.

What do you do, when this feeling is forefront and you have lessons to prepare, teaching to deliver, marking to finish and reports to complete?

Often, a wellbeing day is sought and taking a leave day can help alleviate the issue. But it is incredibly tempting to reach for foods and drinks to relieve the symptoms. Because when this black hole opens up, it can immobilise the body, put a freeze on things, especially the brain, and the easiest of planning or teaching jobs suddenly become insurmountable to implement or get done.

It can set a level of anxiety that has the body racy, speeds up speech, loses our connection with students in a bid to get through the lesson and achieve some learning.  Self-doubt kicks in and life is generally smeared with a sense of doom.

I don’t think there are many of us that have not experienced this sensation of overwhelm. It is common in education. Not only the lesson planning and marking to attend to, but the increasing accountability of uploading incidents and reports into databases and differentiating for a myriad of increasing learning challenges.

What is this immobilisation? And can we deal with it when it comes along?

This may sound too simple, but one approach is to start with, ‘You can only do the job you are doing right now.’ Okay, that is true - but what of the runaway-thoughts-train that persists in the background? ‘You can only do the job you are doing right now’ is however a start... a reminder to come back to the here and now to be present in this one moment. When all focus goes into the one task in front of you, it can drown out the thoughts, and when the task is completed, it can build a sense of getting through what is needed and abate the surging tsunami of things to get done.

Appreciation.

Many of the articles on this site come back to appreciation of the difference we make in a day. If you are in overwhelm, chances are you have integrity and care about your job and getting it done. In fact, you could be running a dash of perfectionism and trying to get a perfect job done.

Most of us have been a student at school ourselves and know its challenges; so just even signing up to go back in and become a teacher is to be appreciated. Reflecting on who we are and the unique person we are that presents in all its gifted and array of expressions and communications is an authenticity that students actually lap up. Their world is seeking where they fit in, and our presence in their life reflects a lot. The fact we notice and interact with students is appreciated deeply by them. There is all of this to appreciate about ourselves as an educator before even a lesson has begun.

The connection and relationship with the student leads to the next point; if we can come up for air and reflect back at this situation objectively at some point in the overwhelm, we can probably observe the quality of connection and relationship with the students has subdued and been impacted. If you’re keen about your teaching job, that can suck at times and is something we don’t want to bring to those we actually care about.

Acknowledging this fact can begin the bridge to the greatest support we can get at this time – and that is purpose. The why we are here. It doesn’t have to be a huge philosophical moment, but it can be a leg up and out of this state of mind.

Practically, taking a look at how our workload can be reduced can support - lessons that take less time to prepare, or seeking support with tasks, or simply speaking to a colleague or line manager. Taking it all on the chin and blaming ourselves for not being all over it, is not great for our health.

It is the moving out of the panic of the overwhelming feeling which is key, so we can get back into a rhythm with the simple tending to what is needed.

On appreciation, teachers are incredible at multi-tasking and balancing. Not only because of their innate sense of what a student is doing whilst we are writing something on the board and pulling them up on it making them think you really do have eyes in the back of your head. But also, the array of accomplishments and resourcefulness like finding somewhere to get printing done, when the first three photocopiers you went to were not working, but you got it printed all in the ten minutes before the lesson. Somehow you defied time and the task got done.

Whatever it is that can bring us back from overwhelm is the gift we need to return to each time. Mine certainly is to move – literally – get up out of the chair and do something else. Persisting with something when the mind is whirring and the nervous tension is revving is impactful on the body; I’m always amazed at how different I feel when I sometimes drop the persistence, get up, move to something else or just go to the loo and instantly look back on my racy self five minutes earlier, and realise I’ve settled somewhat, and can more effectively get back to the next job at hand.

There is no quick fix answer; but having awareness and self-respect enough to attend to moving out of the overwhelm buzz, offers a myriad of ways to do so, restoring us to a more spacious and enjoyable equilibrium.