Being a teacher comes with potentially stressful responsibilities. Back in 2022, the American Educational Research Association found that teachers were 40% more likely to report symptoms of anxiety than healthcare workers, 30% more likely than military, agriculture, and legal professionals, and 20% more likely than office workers. Unfortunately, stress is a major driver of teacher turnover, with some studies showing 78% of teachers considering quitting their jobs for less demanding professions.

Yet, being a teacher can also be extremely rewarding in a way that no other career can offer. Even substitute teachers can find fulfilling part-time or full-time careers. For those willing to stay in their teaching careers, dedicated to the rewarding but often challenging profession of education, these 7 tips and strategies can help lower stress and make teaching enjoyable again.

1. Establish Predictable Routines

Classrooms operate on a clear power structure. Teachers can offer students freedom within behavioral limits, but they also need to control the routine. Different grade levels should be approached with different strategies, but at every level, a clear and predictable classroom routine reduces the number of decisions that teachers need to make in real-time.

A clear routine is more than a behavioral strategy. If procedures are communicated early on, such as the way activities transition between each other and the way work is submitted, students will have a clearer idea of how they should behave at any given time. This helps prevent the need for unnecessary reminders and helps teachers save their energy for more essential decisions.

2. Create a Proactive Classroom Design

Proactive classroom setups prioritize the teacher’s ease of use, which reduces stress by preventing disruptions. Some examples of proactive design include arranging the desks to maximize the teacher’s visibility, setting up clear traffic routes from the desks to the doors, and designating spaces for materials or tasks. Proactive designs automate as many steps as possible to give the teacher more control and less busywork.

3. Default to Positive Reinforcement

Justified consequences have their place in the classroom, but studies show that teachers who default to positive reinforcement can increase student engagement by as much as 30%. However, positive reinforcement is a technique, not a shortcut. The three most important factors in positive reinforcement are issuing verbal praise, offering tangible rewards for good behavior, and granting perks for patterns of good behavior.

In terms of teacher stress, the goal of positive reinforcement is to help students self-regulate their actions. By offering positive incentives for good behavior, teachers can take on less of an active disciplinary role and become more of an enforcer and encourager, which is much less strenuous.

4. Set Clear Expectations (and Do It Early)

If student behavior is a primary cause of teacher stress, clear behavioral expectations can make disruptions less likely throughout the year. The important thing is to be practical and explicit about what the expectations mean. For example, “Respect Others” and “Be Prepared for Class” are nice-sounding ideas in theory, but they are likely not practical enough for students to remember or reliably follow.

Instead, the expectations should be actionable. Tell students how homework is turned in and graded, what they will be expected to bring to class each day, items that are prohibited from the classroom, how to ask questions, and anything else that needs clarification. The more honest teachers are with their students early on, the easier it will be for them to reinforce these expectations later as familiar reminders, rather than as completely new information.

5. Integrate Breaks, Transitions, and Movement

Reducing student stress can be a great help in reducing teacher stress. By integrating breaks and clear transitions into the daily classroom schedule, teachers can prevent students from becoming restless while also giving themselves a break from their desks. 

According to a global study conducted on desk-bound workers, just 15 minutes of movement per day increased confidence by over 13% and productivity by over 33% while decreasing perceived stress by almost 15%. This could theoretically help students focus and behave, further reducing the burden on teachers to control their restlessness. In addition to reducing student burnout, translating research-backed health habits from other sedentary jobs to the classroom can also help teachers physically reduce their own stress.

6. Learn to De-Escalate

Emotions run high in the classroom, from both sides of the desk. De-escalation is an art form that teachers can learn to reduce stress levels in their classrooms without becoming a part of the problem. It means approaching stressful situations with calm actions rather than stressful ones, even if an authoritative reaction is technically justified. To de-escalate a situation, teachers should use calm tones to respond to bad behavior, give students the space they need to calm down, and redirect attention to other tasks.

To some teachers, this may sound like being overly passive, which their years in the classroom have taught them to avoid. However, that’s not what productive de-escalation means. True de-escalation techniques use a calm tone that is not passive, retaining authoritative intensity without adding stress to the situation. Following through on stated consequences, such as referrals, without yelling or disrupting class further, can be a powerful statement that proactively fixes behavioral issues later.

7. Use Technology to Your Advantage

Technology is unavoidable in the modern classroom. Many schools forbid cellphone use, while others encourage multimedia learning approaches. Teachers can easily be overwhelmed by new technology workflows, which include student surveillance, strict task-setting, new multimedia lesson plans, laptop rental procedures, and other sources of stress.

Rather than fight the presence of technology, teachers need ways to use it to their advantage. Finding productive multimedia approaches to lessons can engage students in their work, provided they don’t lead to opportunities for distractions. Clear consequences for misbehavior can come in handy here. For example, teachers can offer students time to work on their laptops on the condition that they don’t play games. From their workstation, teachers can monitor students’ screens and switch to pencil and paper tasks if students get distracted.

The Takeaway for Teachers in 2025

As education recovers from Pandemic-era workflow changes and anxieties, teachers can relax somewhat into their new routines. However, as any teacher knows, stress and burnout are never far from creeping back in. Difficult legislative changes, lack of control, technology issues, and behavioral problems are just the tip of the iceberg for what teachers deal with daily.

Reducing stress can be difficult as a teacher, but Zen Educate is here to help you create a roadmap that allows you to keep the job you love with less pressure on the rest of your life. Regardless of your grade level or retirement timeline, there are resources out there to help you improve your career so that it works for you. Sign up for free today for more educational resources, including how to reduce stress as a teacher and find new classroom management strategies for 2025 and beyond.

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