Future TalentEd Summer Term 2020 Summer 2020 | Page 26

COHERENCE
How selfmanagement
begins with
breathing
By gaining control of your emotions and
behaviour, you will be better placed to
support young people, writes head teacher
Matt Silver, in the first of a wellbeing series.
ver the past months, coronavirus and the subsequent
O
lockdown has tested the physical and mental
wellbeing of even the most resilient and experienced
educator. Whether (like me) you are a headteacher,
a teacher or a careers leader, school closures and
exam cancellations will have been disruptive and challenging.
However, no matter what external factors are influencing elements
of your life, strategies can help you to be the best version of
yourself every day, to remain calm in chaos, and to think clearly
when you most need to. Gaining a clearer understanding of what
really drives peak performance, and learning management
technique, puts this ‘coherence’ within your control.
At Shaftesbury High School, as a leadership team, and working
with learners with complex needs, our ability to manage ourselves
– and therefore how we show up every day – is seeing a huge
shift in culture and overall satisfaction in our work. Here are our
top tips for starting out on such a journey.
TIP 1:
First, look to yourself
Educating others is a vocational occupation and the desire to
help people comes high on the list of motivations. Putting yourself
before others can therefore feel uncomfortable or plain wrong.
However, at Shaftesbury, working with our leadership development
partners at Complete (whose approach is rooted in physiology
and neuroscience) we have learned why it is vital to look to yourself
first in order to support others. The concept of putting on your
own oxygen mask before helping another to do so is a useful
analogy here.
TIP 2:
Understand what you need to control
Comprehending what really drives our behaviour means taking
a much closer look inside ourselves. Most of us tend to be unaware
of what is influencing us day to day, so how can we possibly
control what we are not aware of? The iceberg model (below)
provides a framework to get to grips with what is really going on
– and it may surprise you. Deep down, it is our physiology that
dictates our emotions, and so how we feel, what we think and,
ultimately, how we behave.
RESULTS
BEHAVIOUR
THINKING
FEELING
EMOTION
PHYSIOLOGY
Source: Complete
TIP 3:
To gain control, breathe rhythmically and smoothly
Gaining control of our physiology starts with how we breathe.
When we are under pressure, or feel anxious and threatened, our
breathing can become erratic and our physiology chaotic. The
chaos in our system signals to the thinking part of our brain to
switch off and our ability to think smart is disabled.
Consider the contestant on a TV quiz show who, under pressure,
cannot answer the simplest of questions. Having succumbed to
physiological chaos, they have essentially given themselves a
‘DIY lobotomy’. Breathing rhythmically and smoothly creates
‘coherence’ in the system and switches the brain back on. Answers
to problems, forgotten details and creative ideas come back
online and we feel on form again.
TIP 4:
Practice makes perfect
Stress and anxiety can creep up on you, so building a routine to
practise becoming coherent will help you to find your inner calm
when you really need it. Building the ‘breathe’ muscle will also
reduce the number of times you feel the ‘red mist’ descend in
the first place.
Giving yourself visual prompts is a good place to start. Try putting
a red cup, a sticky note or a poster somewhere visible where you
face your daily challenges, or even set an alarm to remind yourself
to breathe at regular intervals during your day.
• Next time: Understanding the link between your body’s
hormones and your emotions – and how to manage this.
Find out more
• Complete’s Leaders in
Education Offerings
• Subscribe to Matt Silver’s
weekly webinar, Beneath the
Waves, and the related
podcasts, to find out more
about how our physiology,
emotions and feelings influence
our thinking, behaviour and
connections.
Matt Silver
is head teacher of Shaftesbury High School in
Harrow and heads up Complete’s offering for
leaders in education. He is also director of the
National College of Education’s MBA programme.
His doctorate created Meaningful Mastery, projectbased
learning, a curriculum for the 21st Century.