Look after yourself
Had a life-changing experience last Thursday. I had my blood pressure checked for the first time in five years. Always thought I was fit and healthy. I exercise, don’t smoke, drink only at EFL conferences and watch what I eat.
But then I keep forgetting my profession, for all that’s great about it, is usually in the top 5 of the world’s most stressful jobs. More on why in a later post.
When the nurse read my blood pressure reading and asked me what medication I was on I was a little surprised. “None,” I said. She told me my BP was 175/104. Those numbers meant little to me but I wanted to know more after another nurse, a nutritionist and a doctor told me the figures were seriously high. The doc said he’d fast-track me to see a specialist cardiologist.
http://www.edrugsearch.com/edsblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/high-blood-pressure-hypertension.jpg
The first Internet result I looked at on the search “blood pressure 175/104” said: “You shouldn’t be in front of the computer reading this; you should be at the ER.”
I thought about those numbers and how my job, websites and everything related might influence them. I suddenly realized there were many stressful aspects to my life. Work, maintaining 8 websites and wanting to make 18 more, the worry of how much adblocker add-ons and software (another future post) are damaging the future of my sites (and the free web), making conference presentations and workshops, getting blog posts done “on time” etc. etc. etc – things most of you reading this will readily identify with.
I always thought I was indestructible. Being told you have high blood pressure and what the dangers are shattered that illusion.
I spent the weekend having a serious think and immediately changed my life.
Below are some things I hope you think about
Sleep management
Manage to get lots. Go to bed earlier. Wake up later. For years I’ve been getting up way too early (4.45) and going to bed too late. I’ve always thought napping was a waste of time (silly me).
Exercise
It’s vital to good health. I exercise a lot. Wonder what my bp figures would be without it. Join a gym, park as far away from school as possible, walk and tell your colleague upstairs instead of mailing him/her. Get out of that chair in front of that computer.
Eat well
I’ve immediately cut down on salt, started eating walnuts every day and have vowed to say farewell to Ronald and his unhealthy fodder. Packed the supermarket trolley with fruit from all over the world, a kilo of walnuts and oily fish. I do like a nice walnut 
Coffee
Drink less. I had to cough out the number 15 when the nurse asked me how many cups a day I drank. She stared at me. I immediately cut down to two a day and will stop altogether in a few weeks. The nurse said I shouldn’t go from 15 to zero overnight. Day 3 on two cups a day. Don’t miss it. I think I’m sleeping better, but early days.
Say ‘No’
I’ve spent my career saying yes to whatever came along – new courses, promotions, projects, workshops… Naturally, I’ve learnt loads and done lots. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s OK to say no. It gives you more time to spend making other things even better. Saying no can greatly and instantly relieve stress.
Play time
Play more with your students in class. Aim for fun. Whatever the lesson content, it can and should be done with fun. Enjoying your classes more will reduce stress.
Rant
Don’t keep things inside you. If you’re fed up about something, tell someone. A problem shared is a problem halved. There was a laughter club at my old college. I think a rant club might be interesting.
Get out more
All work and no play makes Jack (and Jill) a dull boy (and girl). Nuff said. Get away from that computer.
Think health
Have check-ups more regularly. Especially if you’re the more experienced and wiser side of 39.
Share the love
Spend longer with the ones you love. Hug them more and longer.
A great site for basic info on blood pressure and what the numbers mean – click on the picture below:
Will keep you posted on this post on visits to the cardiologist.
Tags: blood pressure, Health, walnuts
Whoa – your 15 cups makes my half a dozen or so look like nothing. Guess I should probably get my blood pressure checked as well. Although, not having to fight through 90+ minutes of traffic in South Korea anymore has definitely reduced my blood pressure.
[...] 13, 2010 · Leave a Comment Sean Banville has a good post: Teaching and Your Health. I’m a coffee addict too, but I love this quote: Drink less. I had to cough out the number 15 [...]
Sean,
Quite the list – I’d be glad to manage one or two of them! But I’ll try too…..
I know what you are saying – lots applies to myself too. I used to run endlessly (and thus, eat/drink endlessly). Now, injured and disabled so I got to take care. Also, like you, say NO.
My own tip about blood pressure – do you eat a lot of cheese? That’s a killer for BP. Also, take Vitamin D – 10,000 units a day. It really works but hard to find such amounts in Asia.
I’m also going to try your last one – attitude works. Even try it with my students and try to “enjoy” them more.
Peace and health,
David
Sigh. I’ve got to go back in for my own test results tomorrow. Sadly, I’m one of those people who likes to pretend that coffee is a fair substitute for sleep–it helps when most of the fun things happen outside of my time zone. And, equally sadly, sitting at a computer for most of the day is not aerobically satisfying (or energy burning!).
So, yes, less caffeine, more sleep, and much (much) more exercise–guess I could save myself that trip to the doctor
Good luck with your own efforts. I’ll be thinking of you!
Hi Sean,
Take care and look after yourself Sean. I remember when I was doing my MA in Lancaster we used to have talks about what it meant to be a good teacher and what we could do to influence these things and one of the areas we talked about a lot was keeping healthy. It’s always a difficult one this, what we can do as individuals and what we can’t we can’t have influence over and we don’t always know these things. Doctors don’t agree on many things.
However, broadly speaking, I think what you mention here is very very important. Since the new year I started a blog and the focus of it is “Quality of Life” in the classroom and to put this as number one priority as much for our own sakes as teachers as our students having more and better opportunities to learn English. This means putting our own health, both physical and mental, at the top of our priorities.
You mention “Enjoying your classes more will reduce stress” Absolutely! I’ve realised that approaching the classroom as a place where we try to improve “Qualilty of Life” is actually quite a revolutionary concept: Seeing the classroom as something that contributes to your personal quality of life in the same way as a good holiday, a good meal, a good bottle of wine is very uncommon. We usually see classrooms at best as places to help people learn English better, or how to prepare students for exams, or how to rehearse something that they will do outside the classroom later. We don’t usually see classrooms as living 100% for the moment and as places that contribute to our personal happiness and physical health.
“At worst” we see classrooms as places to survive and we get on with the real business of living at weekends or in the evenings.
Eating better, being physically fitter and being mentally alert are things I try to do a lot. I swim a lot, eat lots of fish and consciously try to keep healthy, I also know that I might be struck down by something I have little or no control over. What I do know though is that concentrating on my own personal “Quality of Life” is a major factor in the way I behave in the classroom and that there is nothing selfish or wrong in that.
Good luck with your new regime, you contribute enormously to our ONLINE community and one day I hope to meet you in the flesh. I know what you look like better now as a result of the ISTEK photos.
Take care Sean
Mark
Hi Sean,
Hope you adapt ourself to a healthier life style! The last things we -teachers- think of is our health, really. I’m tring to lose weight nowadays. Unfortunately, all tasty things are dangerous at the same time:) Take care:)
We advocate a glass of red wine it seems it works wonders….
Dominique.
When I moved to Korea, I started drinking coffee, but I’m still only drinking two to three very small cups a day… 15 is a huge amount. I believe cutting the coffee will help a lot.
Thanks so much for sharing this! I got this harsh lesson about 5 years ago. I joined the gym and am still a member I love the healthy feeling it gives me. It is hard to fit in but I diary it like any other appoinment.
Once again thanks for the reminder that we need to take care of ourselves!
Mel
Take good care of yourself Sean!
Your post gave me a lot of food for thought – I should definitely rant more often and go out on a regular basis.
Geçmiş Olsun (as the Turks say
Anita
Had to have a health check myself recently to change my insurance.
Although aware of the statistics in relation of our job. When it is your own and stares you in the face then it has a higher impact.
Great tips, one more I would like to add. Being a freelancer means the tendancy is to look to the next job and always say Yes! Put your health first, like you said say No!. Even if it means making a financial sacrifice.
Better to take it easy no and again than burn out.
15 cups oO – although I have to admit I have probably about 3 or 4…
On the other hand I do gardening, eat healthy and rant a lot
Good post, makes you think.
Hi Sean I really liked this post as I saw myself going in the wrong direction – and if it wasn’t for taking time out to look after another member of my family (you know who) perhaps I would still be going in the wrong direction. I tried to do too much – a bad habit I have when I get passionate about things you know ‘don’t stop ’til you drop’ attitude lol. Anyway as you may have noticed by my tweets they are all working out and jogging in the park – my online life got the better of me and that’s exactly where I was online (actually I’m going to blame Barbara Sakamoto for that lol I’m sure she won’t mind – I did say that if I went into Second Life I’d never come out alive – almost
That said I loved my experiences I grew professionally but I put my health at risk. Now I am getting very fit – I shall be training teachers to exercise with books next ha ha ooohh that’s an idea…Good grief 15 cups of coffee that is a record you ought to change that for water. Regarding saying yes – I learnt to say no then when I did my CELTA training I was told I mustn’t say no (to my students) such a difficult world we live in…..Great post how about a heatlh and exercise blog? I’m willing – I bet Kirsten heard that too 
Thanks Barbara,
I hope your results were OK. I’ve cut down to two cups a day and will step up the amount of exercise I do. Sitting next to the computer for hours drinking coffee just isn’t what we were made to do
Best wishes.
Thank you Mark for this – I love your “Quality of Life” project. It really makes sense. We spend a fair amount of our lives in the classroom and it’s important to make it as fun a place to be as we can – the benefits being happier students, better-achieving students (hopefully) and healthier everyone. The thing I’m working on at the moment is the idea that it doesn’t take an awful lot of thought and effort to inject fun into any activity, reading, exercise. This is a surefire way to keep students interested, motivated and wanting to come to class.
You’re right – we should be looking at classrooms more as places to enjoy the moment. That would hopefully move our profession outside the top ten most stressful jobs.
Good luck with your project – Let us know more over the coming months – It sounds as though we can all learn valuable things from it that can help our teaching and health
Thanks Candan – I filled my shopping trolley with lots of delicious and healthy things I hadn’t eaten for ages (including walnuts, which I discovered are full of omega 3 and good for reducing blood pressure). I’m now associating tasty with not healthy, including coffee.
Good luck with the diet.
Thanks Tim – Down to two a day for the past five days – feeling a bit tired
Thanks Melanie,
Sounds like you’re doing great – I hope you keep the gym a prominent part of your week and stay well.
Hi Anita,
Perhaps we could start a rant club on Twitter – Perhaps #plnrant ??
You’re right about the going out more often – something I really need to do.
Best wishes.
Thanks Stewart – I’m glad to have read your comment and what you said about saying no. Perhaps many of us are too overly ambitious.
Teaching today has suddenly been injected with the need to learn Web 2.0, social media, blended learning… While it is all fascinating and fun, it does take a lot of extra effort to learn alongside your day job
I’ll be saying no more often I think. I like doing the things I’m asked to do but the thing I like doing most is making lesson materials and websites. Hope people aren’t too offended when I choose my materials and sites over other things.