The few days before I board a plane I experience anxiety. I try really hard to rationalise my anxiety. I get very angry with myself. I give myself a severe talking to, but my anxiety doesn’t really respond well to logic or guilt. Generally this just makes me feel worse about myself, and still anxious.
Most teachers, even experienced ones, encounter anxiety on the first day of school, or should I say, the night before the first day. We may sleep badly, with lessons and students and all the things we haven’t done, spinning around in our heads.
What is anxiety? I have come to understand that scientifically anxiety is a release of adrenalin and other chemicals that cause my sympathetic pathways to turn on and prepare me for flight, fight or freeze. So why would my body release these chemicals? Well I have a whole system in my body keeping me safe and picking up any perceived threats or challenges. If a threat or challenge is recognised, my sympathetic pathway jumps in to protect and prepare me. This sympathetic pathway keeps me safe and when the perceived, or real, threat has gone away, my parasympathetic pathway takes over and I return to a state of rest and digest.
“Most teachers, even experienced ones, encounter anxiety on the first day of school”
Our bodies have been amazingly designed! We need to recognise this and be thankful for the way our Creator has specially designed us. Anxiety keeps us safe, it is a signal to keep us safe! It is a way of preparing ourselves and checking that we are ready for whatever is coming our way.
The problem occurs when our sympathetic system is triggered when no threat is present, or the threat is perceived, but not ‘real’. Or our sympathetic system gets stuck and we can’t easily bring it back down. Staying in an anxious state for prolonged periods is not an enjoyable or pleasant way to live.
For me, I find regular exercise to be helpful. A funny thing to be saying from the couch, in my Moonboot, but lifting your heartrate through exercise can rid you of extra adrenalin and remind your body that fast heartbeats are actually normal and required in some situations. I like to run once a week at Parkrun, a free 5km running group that is increasing in popularity all around the world. Swimming laps is also a favourite and quite apt as we enjoy 2 weeks of swimming lessons at school. Anxiety can sometimes make us feel ‘outside’ of our bodies or stuck in our head, exercise of any sort can bring us back into physical sensations and thus our body. So going for a walk, climbing a tree, sitting and experiencing God’s amazing creation in any way can be calming.
So, why the chat about anxiety? I suppose I want to normalise what is happening in someone’s, child or adults, body when they are anxious. It is a normal reaction that has been hardwired into you, that you have been created with. We all, at some stage, feel anxious. There is no shame in feeling anxious. But, there are thing we can do to manage our anxiety. We need to get better at learning and sharing our own calming techniques. We need to not get stuck in anxiety, but if we do, have a toolkit of strategies to try.
Biblically we can get caught up in verses that seem to say anxiety is a problem. ‘Be anxious for nothing…Phil 4:6’ Yet the most amazing verse I think to look at is in Luke 22:44 Where Jesus was anxious at what awaited him to the point of sweating blood! Jesus understands anxiety. He not only was part of creating a human body and all its systems, he lived and breathed in one for 33 years.
So, maybe you, or your child, or someone you know experiences anxiety. There are lots of great resources available to help. Just remember; There is no shame. Your body is working well. It will pass. We all need help sometimes. And just a side note. I still fly on planes and each trip I know I will feel anticipatory anxiety, I’m hoping eventually it will pass. I’m still teaching children and I think when I stop getting anxious about my new year group preparation is probably when I need to stop teaching.
Annie Joy - Primary Coordinator