Studying During Covid-19 - protecting our Mental Health
At first when I realised my mental health was suffering I was experiencing panic attacks. Work pressures were just getting on top of me but this was a new experience and it kind of felt like I was losing my mind.
While it was by no means a humorous experience, in hindsight the above image shows exactly what it felt like - I was standing to one side waving goodbye to my sanity with little or no control over what was happening. I had never experienced issues with my mental health in any serious (or at least identifiable) way up until that point. But I am sure that the life changes and restrictions introduced post Covid-19 has certainly turned up the pressure.
Perhaps my training made me realise that I needed to talk to someone. I was never embarrassed about these mental health issues, but I prefer to think of myself as the kind of person who is able to cope with things, so the idea of being in a place where I wasn't coping properly scared me. I didn't know how to deal with it. So I spoke to someone, one of the mental health ambassadors at my workplace, and that set me in a direction where I could get the help I needed.
On a personal and professional level I've had a lot to deal with - again, I'm sure I'm not unique in that respect. This isn't a martyrdom post about how I came through my experience and survived. I accept that managing my mental health as well as my physical health is all part of my life experience. But also as a student myself I've experienced days where I've just found it difficult to function and compose my thoughts. It was at that point I realised how some of my own students might be feeling which is why I wanted to write this blog.
I've managed through these experiences because of my social connections. But my friends and family have been by far the biggest source of support for me. As an educator, this got me wondering about why these social connections were so important and whether that could in turn be of value to my own learners. In a post Covid-19 world where people are arguably more disconnected than ever before (or certainly during my lifetime), how do we maintain these social connections in order to support our mental wellbeing and in order to function as learners and educators?
Chuter (2019) highlights how important social connections are in saying:
"While it was once thought to have been incidental to learning and cognition, it is increasingly evident from neuroscientific research that a sense of belonging has a profound effect on the knowledge and skills that students can learn, retain, and apply."
However Chuter's research was conducted in a face to face setting within schools. So the question therefore arises as to how we, as educators, can generate and maintain that sense of belonging and community between our learners?
Some more insights from Chuter's work:
"Students spend more of their cognitive energy focusing on the source of their stress than on what they are learning."
Yeah, just let that one settle for a minute. When we are stressed as teachers, we focus our attention on the source of our stress rather than on what we should be doing - supporting our students. Sound familiar? What about our students? What could be the sources of their stress and how can we help minimise that?
Here's another:
"...social connection is fundamental to human happiness, and when we are unhappy, our critical thinking skills are highly depressed."
Again highlighting how important it is for us to give proper consideration to maintaining social connections between our learners, even when working online. But how do we do that?
If anyone has any thoughts, strategies or techniques that have worked with your students, I'd love to hear about them. Please share in the comments section below.
You can follow me on twitter @McintoshMclean.
References
Chuter C. (2019) The importance of social connections in schools [Online]. Available at: https://theeducationhub.org.nz/social-connection/ (Accessed 5th November).
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