Stress in teaching - time for a reset

Most teachers are chronically stressed. Not because they want to be but because, as a profession, we have normalised overworking and doing too much with too little for too long. It’s what we know and it is, ironically, our ‘comfort’ zone. But what if we didn’t have to overwork or burn ourselves out to do our jobs well? What if we normalised working in more enjoyable and sustainable ways? What if by working in less stressful ways we actually teach and lead better?  It is possible and it is essential for the survival of the profession.

Stress is our set-point

I read Katriona O’Sullivan’s brilliant book, Poor, recently. It’s an autobiographical masterpiece about the all-encompassing and toxic effects of growing up in poverty and neglect, and how she managed to escape their grips against all the odds. Towards the end

of the book, she reflects on her life and how, when things were going well at various points, she continually engaged in acts of self-sabotage. She writes:

“If you have lived in stress and disharmony all your life, that is the current you go with, even if it will get you in deeper water. In psychology we call this a set point: it is where we are most comfortable. Once we establish the norm, we are driven to maintain that level, to stay within our normal range.”

It made me think about teaching.

Stress and over work is the profession’s set point – the norm to which we default to. The Teacher Wellbeing Index has consistently shown that teachers and school leaders are stressed – 76% and 84% respectively (2025). With levels so high, why do so many people put

up with it and stay in teaching? As O’Sullivan explained about her own life – chaos and disarray felt familiar to her, but stability and calm felt uncomfortable and alien. With teaching, chronic stress is our set point - it feels familiar and so, collectively, we continually fall back to this normal range of being stressed out and working long hours. This isn’t to negate the external pressures and demands that our profession faces. This is all part of the set-point of stress. We work in a profession that always demands more, where the work is never fully done and where teachers and school leaders continue to feed the beast. It's just what we do.

I want to change but I don’t know how

This was illustrated to me perfectly when I shared this idea of teaching’s set-point of stress at an inset day. A teacher told me that when she feels on top of her workload, she suddenly starts to worry that she’s missed something important, so she turns on her laptop and continues to work. The feeling of being in control and on top of things feels alien to her, and so she continues to work because that’s her norm. I looked around the room and almost everyone in the room was nodding in agreement.

Similarly, when I was speaking at a trust conference on staff wellbeing, an experienced teacher put her hand up and said to the room, “I get into work at 7.30am, my laptop doesn’t go off until 7pm at home. I want to work fewer hours but I don’t know how!” It was an honest admission and, again, many heads were nodding in the room. There is an appetite for changing how we work but, as a collective, we teachers just default to the norm.

We need to reset our set point

Chronic stress can be defined as being stressed for prolonged periods of time without giving our minds and bodies the chance to rest and recover. It has a toxic effect on our health and wellbeing and is linked with increased risks of diseases such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and dementia, and is a significant contributor to anxiety and depression. A recent NASUWT survey found that 75% of teachers say they're considering leaving the profession due to stress and burnout. We cannot and we should not keep working in a way that normalises chronic stress.

The good news is that it is possible to reset our set point.

I first came across set point theory when learning about the science of happiness. Psychologists used to believe that our levels of happiness were largely unchangeable – fixed

in our early childhood and determined by our genes. Studies showed that when good things happened to us as adults (e.g. winning the lottery) or bad things happened to us (e.g. losing a limb in an accident), our levels of wellbeing increased or fell in the short term but then returned to our set-point after a few months[1]. However, subsequent research by experts like Prof. Sonya Lyubomirsky[2] and others have shown that we can change our set-point of happiness. By engaging in habits and intentional actions that have been shown to have a positive effect on our happiness, we can increase our set-point and raise our baseline levels of wellbeing. Exercising, practising gratitude, being altruistic, being mindful, investing in relationships, being optimistic, savouring the good bits, as well as other habits, all help nudge us towards feeling happier.

Now, if we can change our set point of happiness, then we can change our set point of stress.

My next blog will explore ways that we can do just that…

If you enjoyed this blog and want to learn more about how we can change our set-point of stress, you’ll love my new course Stress Management for Educators. Use the code STRESS20 for 20% off until the end of May!

[1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1980-01001-001

[2] https://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/L2006b.pdf