Do you know how the wind down for the end of year?

When I entered the world of school teaching I was amazed at how many teachers fell ill during the holiday periods. Shouldn’t it make more sense to be sick in winter, when kids are bringing every disease and illness into your classroom each day?

Not long into my new career I realised that the 4 term school year is perfectly designed to encourage a ‘boom-bust’ cycle of health and fatigue, both mentally and physically. The demands of the school year, one in which every term is now jam-packed with added curricula, reporting requirements, exams…rinse, repeat, excursions, camps, sport, information nights, parent interviews, rinse repeat again, times 4, constantly has teachers working flat out to what has become very real and impossible finish-lines.

Physiologically our bodies are designed like a taut rope - we need enough stress to hold firm, but too much and it will snap. Too little and it will fold. So when we reach that end of year finish line we need to reduce the load gradually. The change in cortisol has an impact, our bodies need for homeostasis is vital.  When a rider in the Tour De France busts him or herself for a 200km stage they don’t jump off the bike and leave it. They will ‘cool down’ for an hour, riding slowly, lowering the heartbeat and muscle tension. The Olympic swimmer who wins gold will disappear and continue to lap the practice pool behind the main arena.

Every job is different and they all require a different approach. Policing is an occupation that does not have seasons, ignores calendars and cares little for public holidays and events of significance. That actually worked in my favour. I worked many years straight without annual leave. Time seemed to lose track. When I needed a holiday, I never felt like I was falling over the finishing line. It was a different psychology. Despite the difficult nature of our job, it also had distinct advantages. As a Detective I was often on-call, for late night call outs of major investigations. We took turns. When we were nearing our annual leave, we would be taken off on-call duty so we wouldn’t catch a murder or a major investigation. Most happen at night when on-call. We would have time to finish up some paperwork and share the load.

A Detective colleague came up with a brilliant idea of the ultimate holiday preparation by taking annual leave days leading up to his break. Three weeks out he would take 1 days annual leave, leaving a 4 day work week. Then 2 days annual leave for a 3 day work week, then a 2 day work week, then…full time holiday! That would alleviate the fall-in-a-heap condition he felt on day 1 of his holidays. Teachers can’t take annual leave days like that, but many workplaces can. How can you start to wind down?

As a teacher I found that I would not plan anything for the first few days of my Christmas holidays. The mid year school holidays are NOT holidays for us teachers, they are simply a release from face to face teaching, and as salaried employees they ‘sort of’ account for the time in lieu accrued from camps, excursions and late night marking and lesson prep during the term. In those breaks I would give myself a few days off, and reduce the load a few hours each day. I found that this would alleviate the late nighters that some of the new teachers would have in term time. Early prep, consistent days and workloads. 

I’m now self-employed in the education sector and this is more important than ever. I need to find the time to slow down, then stop. Writing this article is actually a key component. I have to re-learn and reapply these skills from different occupations to my new role…and it is challenging! 

As I write this I am so aware that my English teacher colleagues have just been subjected to the requirements of a new curriculum. Strange timing, releasing it a week or two before the end of a year when they really need to be thinking about themselves and their families.

So how will you start your wind-down? What approaches do you take to avoid that illness that kicks in so often?