6 Daily Well-Being Practices

Thinking big, acting brave, and always bringing your best self to work can be exhausting. It’s important to rest and recharge—self care is important! Although, lately, I’ve been thinking about the term self-care and I’ve been struggling with two pieces of it: one, it often seems to be used (or maybe I’ve just been using it) as something to do when we’ve already exhausted all of our energy and need to get ready for another bout of energy-depleting activity, and two, it seems to place total responsibility for well-being on us as individuals. So, I’ve found myself using the term well-being more. I like it because it seems more like a way-of-being, not a one-off activity and it can be promoted through systems, structures, and policies as part of organizational culture (i.e., a school’s way-of-being).   

Regardless of what term you use, I want you to regularly practice well-being! You should totally commit to this for yourself, but I recognize that we as educators are a care-giving, selfless sort, so if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your students and your colleagues! Research shows that employee health directly impacts the success of organizations (in the case of schools, this is student achievement). Leaders, this is especially important for you to model, as your sense of well-being is related to the well-being of students and teachers (Malayter & Dehmer, 2019)!
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I am not a well-being expert, so this list is certainly not inclusive or even “best practice”, but there are some things I knew I wanted to do better, and I wanted to make a list that was realistic—not too long and not too big of a jump from what I was already doing. Listening to Rachel Hollis talk about her “5 to Thrive” daily habits gave me a starting point, and from there I developed my own version of daily goals. Here’s what I’ve been working on: 

• Drink more water. My goal right now is 6 glasses of water a day. As a teacher, I never drank water because then you have to go to the bathroom, and there’s never enough time for that, am I right? I chose 6 as opposed to the standard “8” because most of my cups are 12 ounces, and I just don’t think I could do 8 right away. According to experts, the amount of water you should drink varies by person, so determine what your number is.

 

• Move your body more. For me, as a person whose body enables me to run, that’s what I often do. I try to run (or do some other kind of typically free workout) for 20-30 minutes nearly every day. I find myself much more energized and positive-minded after workouts, so even though it’s hard to wake up early, I try to do this first thing in the morning to start my day off right! I’ve found my creative brain works best in the morning, and some of my most creative lesson ideas have come to me during a run or in the shower afterwards. Usually once a week or so, my body tells me I need to sleep in or just go for a walk that day, and I listen! The recommendation is 150 minutes a week of physical activity, so if I’m putting in 25 minutes a day, I can get to 150 minutes/week in 6 days. Physical activity has physiological and mental health benefits (Mayo Clinic), so however or whenever you move your body, do it!  

 

• Reduce screen time. I’m often on a computer all day for work, and I love TV, so I’ve instituted a no-screens after 9PM rule. I turn off the TV and plug my phone into an outlet in the kitchen for the night. It doesn’t come into the bedroom. If the alarm goes off, I’m even more likely to get up immediately to turn it off. Research on kids has found a strong, negative correlation between screen time and well-being (TIME), and it’s not good for adults either (Care Well Urgent Care). 

 

• Read more. One way I’ve reduced screen time is to try to replace on-screen entertainment with reading. I’m a very goal-oriented person, so setting a rigorous goal of 100 books per year has kept me reading more than watching TV this year. I track my progress on the Goodreads app, as part of their annual reading challenge. I set a goal to read each day, before bed and sometimes for just a few minutes in the morning to help my eyes and mind adjust to being awake before I head out for a run. There a host of benefits to reading more including increasing empathy and encouraging others to read ("8 Science-Backed Reasons to Read a (Real) Book"). 

 

• Check email/social media once a day. I check this stuff at 3:00PM each day, and try not to look at any other time. The Boomerang Chrome extension has been a game-changer for me in meeting this goal. It lets you pause your inbox until a particular time/time range each day. So, unless you un-pause it (which you can, but don’t unless absolutely necessary!), you don’t receive the emails until the designated time. I love it. I chose 3:00 PM because I want my mind to be open and creative at the start of each day. Emails clutter that up, and a negative email can ruin the rest of your day! Who wants that? If you’re worried about someone not being able to contact you, set an away message to let them know you’ll be checking your email at a particular time and give them a non-email option to contact you in an emergency. Similar to email, social media can clutter up my mind, so I just don’t want to see it until my work day is close to over, so I batch any social media with looking at email. I just set aside time around 3:00 to 4:00 just for email and social media tasks. It’s worth it because doing this multiple times a day increases stress and reduces productivity.   

 

• Share your gratitude. I tried writing down what I was grateful for each day, but I felt like it was too much for me. I’m already tracking so much! So, instead, I decided to try to speak my gratitude, either at night before I go to sleep just to myself, or to tell a person directly that I’m grateful for something they did. This makes it more manageable for me, and it lets other people know the positive impact they’ve had on your life! As educators, we know what it’s like to not get to hear that stuff! There are physical and mental benefits to acknowledging gratitude (Psychology Today).  

For me, this takes active monitoring. For you, it may not require tracking your progress, but for those of you who like this kind of thing, I’ve made you a free well-being tracker! This tracker includes the 6 well-being practices I mentioned above as well as a blank space to add your own.
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Get your free well-being tracker!

​It takes some big thinking and some brave acting to be your best self each day. So, download the freebie, practice well-being regularly, and share how it’s going! ​
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