180 Days of Self-Care for Busy Educators. Tina H. Boogren

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СКАЧАТЬ Editorial Team, n.d.). You can try prepping meals the day before or allowing a few extra minutes in the morning to eat breakfast and pack a lunch.

      Try to eat without distractions, too, so you can tune in to how stopping to eat (instead of skipping a meal or eating on the run) makes you feel. You might discover that stuffing a protein bar into your mouth while you’re at the copy machine isn’t nearly as satisfying as eating with intention and savoring the food.

      If you’re working with a partner or a team, consider sharing the load here. Perhaps one person can bring lunch to share on Monday and Tuesday and you can bring lunch to share on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. If your school has an active parent teacher organization (PTO), consider asking them to host a bimonthly teacher appreciation lunch with an emphasis on healthy foods.

      • Keep a food journal: A food journal doesn’t have to be complicated or burdensome. Consider keeping track of everything you eat and drink and writing down how you feel before, during, and after eating or drinking each item. You can use a notebook, a notes app, or the template in figure 1.1 (pages 15–16) to journal.

      Later, you can reflect on where your nutrition is coming from and how what you eat impacts how you feel. For example, after journaling you may notice that when you had a bagel on Tuesday, you were hungry an hour later, but when you had eggs on Wednesday, you weren’t hungry until lunch. Or you might discover that on Tuesday, you reached for a sweet treat at 2:30 p.m. and that this felt good in the moment, but you crashed (and felt guilty about your choice) at 4:00 p.m. With that realization, on Wednesday you may decide you want to try an apple and some almond butter at 2:30 p.m. to see if you feel less tired (and less guilty) at 4:00 p.m. Are your food choices different on the weekend versus during the week? Do those choices impact your mood at all?

      • Drink more water: You’ve heard this one before. No matter how much water you currently drink, make it your mission to increase that number by at least eight ounces. Generally, adults should drink eight ounces of water eight times per day—the 8×8 rule—because water increases our energy levels and brain function and helps prevent and treat headaches (Leech, 2017), which are a nightmare when you’re trying to lead a class or staff. If you have trouble getting enough water, consider the following.

       FIGURE 1.1: FOOD JOURNAL.

      Visit go.SolutionTree.com/teacherefficacy for a free reproducible version of this figure.

      ◦ Buy yourself a new water bottle that makes you feel good! It doesn’t have to be expensive; just choose something that appeals to you so you’re more apt to reach for it.

      ◦ Maybe you tend to drink more when you have a straw. I do. These days, many water bottle lids have built-in straws; you can buy dishwasher-safe stainless-steel straws that you can use again and again (and that also help save the environment). According to Bethany Blakeman (2018) of New York magazine, SipWell are the best regular-sized stainless-steel straws available.

      ◦ To help keep track of how much water you’ve drunk, secure rubber bands around the top of your water bottle, and for every bottle that you finish, move one rubber band to the bottom of your bottle before refilling. For example, if you have a thirty-two-ounce water bottle, you can put two rubber bands around the top of your bottle (because you need to drink two of those to make your sixty-four ounces). If you have a sixteen-ounce water bottle, you can put four rubber bands around the top of your bottle.

      ◦ If you love water bottles (like I do) and already own several, consider designating each to a specific time of day. For example, your blue water bottle can correlate to the morning, your clear water bottle can correlate to the afternoon, and your Colorado-flag water bottle can correspond with the evening. You then know that you have to drink the total blue water bottle by 11:30 a.m., your clear water bottle by 3:00 p.m., and your Colorado-flag water bottle before bedtime, perhaps shooting to be finished by 7:00 p.m. so you don’t have to get up during the night to use the bathroom.

      ◦ Consider infusing your water with fruit, vegetables (such as cucumber), or herbs—even lavender—if you don’t particularly like the taste of plain water. There are special water bottles and pitchers that help make this easy, or you can simply do it yourself.

      ◦ Use an app to track how much water you’re consuming. I’m partial to Plant Nanny, found at https://apple.co/2FkAnFH, myself. Visit go.SolutionTree.com/teacherefficacy to find a list with live links to different apps.

Reflect on the Week

      When and how did you incorporate healthy eating and hydration habits into your schedule this week? Which options did you choose and why?

      Did you notice any changes—subtle or major—in your mood this week?

      How did having an awareness of your nutrition choices help shape your week both professionally and personally?

      Do you plan to continue to make a focus on nutrition and hydration part of your routine? Why and how?

Week Three: Sleep (Days 11–15)

      Consider this: “for most adults, getting seven to eight hours of sleep tonight might be the most important thing we can do to improve our future physical and mental health” (World Sleep Day, n.d.). That’s from Erik St. Louis, who is co-director of the Mayo Center for Sleep Medicine. I don’t know about you, but I’m an entirely different person when I’ve had enough sleep versus when I haven’t. When I’m well rested, I can let frustrations slide off me a bit more, I am able to make food choices that match my health goals, I feel more energized even during the dreaded 3:00 p.m. slump, and I am my best self around others. Conversely, when I haven’t had enough sleep (particularly for multiple nights in a row), I’m set off by nuances, find myself drawn to carbs and sugar all day long, lack the energy and luster that I thrive on, and am somewhat unpleasant to keep company with.

      Approximately one in three adults in the U.S. isn’t getting the necessary seven to eight hours of sleep (Luyster, Strollo, Zee, & Walsh, 2012). Insufficient sleep is not only an issue in the United States, it is a worldwide health epidemic (Chattu et al., 2018). When you don’t sleep those inconvenient but necessary and glorious hours, you get sick more easily, can’t think as well, forget things, gain weight, and are more prone to car and workplace accidents (Marcin, n.d.). No, thank you!

      

This week’s invitation: Get at least seven hours of sleep per night. Every night.

      • Monday: Work to keep your bedroom quiet, cool, and dark. Use earplugs if you need to, set your thermostat to around sixty-five degrees, try a fan or noise machine, and use your curtains (or a sheet) to block out the light as much as possible (Smith, Robinson, & Segal, 2018).

      • Tuesday: Experiment with an evening snack. For some people, eating before bed can cause indigestion, but for others, a quality snack can promote a good night’s sleep. Good choices for an evening snack СКАЧАТЬ