You may not know this but I own a nutrition club with my son. The club is a lot like a coffee shop but we sell nutritious meal-replacement shakes, energizing teas, and supplements. People of all walks of life come in to grab a shake, sit at the bar and hangout to talk. When I’m working in the club, I enjoy providing wellness evaluations to my clients. While the products we sell mostly focus on physical wellness, I like to talk with clients about the 8-dimensions of wellness. Just like literacy, I believe in a balanced approach to wellness when working towards being a healthy teacher.

Lots of wellness coaches focus on eating better and exercise, and while that is important I don’t think it identifies the root cause of why we treat our bodies the way we do. So I wanted to share with you 9 tips to a healthy teacher.

Healthy Teacher Tips

Change Your Mindset

I’ve talked about this before, but I have a morning and nighttime routine. Focusing on a routine helps me with my emotional wellness. If I don’t start my day off on the right foot, I feel unbalanced. I believe in the phrase, “Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life.” It’s something I live by daily to help me reach my goals.

Hang Around the Right People

If you’ve ever heard the saying, ” You become like the five people you spend the most time with so choose carefully”, then you know it’s true. But what happens when some of the “wrong” people are your co-workers?

One summer I spent a lot of time working on positivity. I felt good about it all summer until school started back. I was rather shocked at how fast it took to get back into old habits.

You know what I’m talking about:

• Gossiping about students and families in the teacher’s lounge
• Complaining about administration
• Griping about the workload

All of these behaviors can cause stress over time. Best advice…stay out of the lounge and choose your words wisely. Your environmental wellness depends on it to become a healthy teacher.

Pay off Debt

Did you know financial wellness is an important part of living as a happy, healthy teacher? Paying off debt can seem overwhelming, especially when you see your first paycheck. However, there are things you can do to help:

• Start a side business
• Find ways to earn passive income
• Don’t live beyond your means
• Earn more money by getting a higher degree and moving up the pay scale
• Become a National Board Certified Teacher

One last thing I’d like to mention (and I’m still working on) is dealing with the relationship you have with money. Showing gratitude for your many blessings and being good stewards of what you’ve already been given can take away the yearning to keep up with the Jones’.

Start a New Hobby

Teaching is my hobby. I’m fortunate that my business is something I love to do. It’s all of my creative hobbies wrapped up into one. However, I know sometimes I need to step away from my job and do something different. It’s an important part of intellectual wellness.

Therefore, I enjoy going for walks, remodeling and decorating. I love working on new projects and getting my hands dirty.

Enjoy Your Work

Every job has its issues. You can’t love everything about your job. However, if you find your work brings you more stress than joy, it’s time to think of other ways to make a living. I believe God gives us gifts to nurture and share with others. It isn’t a sign of failure if you find you don’t like what you are doing in life.

Eat Better

You must fuel your body with the right foods and learn to eat better. It’s always curious to me why we know that eating the right types of food is good for us, yet we grab what’s convenient and it makes our bodies feel gross. For this reason, I created a checklist of my favorite snacks for teachers I wanted to share with you. I hope you love them as much as I do.

Get Moving

Let me just be totally transparent when I say this step is the hardest for me. I’m not a huge fan of exercising. I’d much rather paint a wall or mop a floor to get my exercise. I don’t mind lifting weights but I am not a huge fan of the gym. My solution:

• Walk or hike on a pretty day
• Do sets of squats, pushups, and sit-ups during work breaks
• Participate in short HIIT workouts
• Yoga
• Most of my workouts last around 10 minutes (except for walking) and I do them throughout the day

Spend Time with Family and Friends

At my age, finding friends can be the hardest part of getting older, but I keep trying. I am so fortunate that I have a close-knit family that I spend most of my time with and would call them my closest friends, too. Even though they are the best, I know I need friends. So I go to church, volunteer, meet people at school and in my club. Social wellness is such an important part of being a healthy teacher.

Find Meaning and Purpose

The last dimension is spiritual wellness. Spiritual wellness means different things to different people but I think we can all agree that it is about finding something bigger than ourselves. While most people try to find meaning and purpose in their work; don’t feel like it must be tied to a career. Teaching is a wonderful profession in which you feel you are pursuing something of purpose and meaning. In many ways, I think finding a purpose can be as simple as sharing a smile, an act of kindness, or taking care of a friend. Whatever you do, do it with love and love will always come back to you.

I hope you can find some nuggets of wisdom to help you become a healthy teacher. Your wellness journey is important when you are taking care of students and a family. Don’t let your health be put on the back burner. It’s just too important.