Podcast: 11 Ways to Improve Teacher Well-Being

Teaching is hard (often draining) work, and educators’ instincts about what will bring relief are frequently wrong—just as they are for most people. 

That’s because our minds deceive us, says cognitive scientist and Yale professor Laurie Santos, one of the world’s leading researchers on well-being and happiness. “One of the most annoying features of the mind is the fact that we all have these intuitions about the kinds of things we should be doing to feel better. But the research shows that many of those intuitions are just incorrect.”

In this episode of School of Practice, Dr. Santos joins host Kristin Leong to debunk some of the most popular and persistent myths about happiness—more money *mostly* doesn’t buy more happiness, for example, and a values mismatch at work may be more consequential for burnout than you think—and shares a set of evidence-based tools teachers can begin to apply right away to reclaim a sense of balance. 

Related resources:

• The Research on Protecting Teacher Well-Being Laurie Santos, host of the popular podcast The Happiness Lab, on how our minds deceive us, why “time affluence” matters, and what we can do to reset our parasympathetic nervous system.
• Coursera: The Science of Well-Being Laurie Santos’s free Coursera course.
• The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos Laurie Santos’s award-winning podcast.
• Yale’s Happiness Professor Says Anxiety Is Destroying Her Students In a 2021 interview with The New York Times, Laurie Santos explains that most people are bad at predicting what will make them happy. Research shows that strong social connections, gratitude, exercise, and managing time well have a much bigger impact on happiness than money or social status.
• What a New Survey Says About Teachers’ Plans to Leave Their Jobs RAND’s national survey of U.S. teachers found that 53% of educators report feeling burned out.
• The Burnout Challenge Two pioneering burnout researchers, Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter, reveal that burnout isn’t an individual problem. Instead, it’s largely caused by a mismatch between people and their work environments.
• No, You Don't Always Have to Confront Your Feelings Right Away Psychologist and neuroscientist Ethan Kross shares evidence-based advice for regulating strong emotions with NPR’s Life Kit podcast.
• Ross Gay on Finding Everyday Delights Poet Ross Gay shares his practice of cultivating joy through deliberately noticing everyday moments of delight and writing about them. 
• Research: Exploring the Ripple Effect of ‘Always On’ Digital Work Culture in Secondary Education Settings (2021) This study examines how increased use of digital technology in schools has created an “always-on” work culture that blurs the boundaries between school and home life, contributing to stress and increased workload for teachers.
• Research: Time Confetti and the Broken Promise of Leisure (2020) Harvard Business School researcher Ashley Whillans explains that the constant notifications and multitasking of modern life break our free time into tiny fragments called “time confetti,” making it hard to truly relax.
• Research: Buying Time Promotes Happiness (2017) Research by Harvard Business School researcher Ashley Whillans finds that people who spend money to save time report more happiness and satisfaction than those who spend money on material things.
• Research: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself (2015) Researcher Kristin Neff draws on research to show that self-compassion supports resilience and emotional well-being, while being hard on yourself after mistakes or stress usually makes things worse.
• Research: High Income Improves Evaluation of Life but Not Emotional Well-Being (2010) This study finds that once basic needs are covered financially, relationships, health, and daily experiences play a bigger role in well-being than money.
• Research: Toward a Durable Happiness (2008) Researchers find that while your income or environment matter somewhat, well-being is more strongly influenced by intentional activities that people choose, like practicing gratitude, building relationships, or engaging in meaningful goals.
• Research: Achieving Sustainable Gains in Happiness: Change Your Actions, not Your Circumstances (2006) This study shows that while people quickly adapt to changes in circumstances (like a raise), daily actions and routines that build well-being are less likely to fade over time.
• Research: Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life (2003) Researchers find that people who focus on gratitude experience higher well-being than those who focus on hassles or neutral events.