Implementing Effective Strategies to Reduce Teacher Stress and Reclaim Joy in the Classroom

Teachers are stressed. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of mindfulness

breathing strategies on teacher stress. This study used mixed methods in an explanatory

sequential design. In phase one, quantitative data was collected. An experimental group was

formed with 12 high school teachers from the same high school, teaching grades 9-12, who were

willing to learn mindfulness breathing strategies. Twelve other teachers were selected by the

researcher to be the control group. Teachers were trained in the morning twice a week for three

weeks before school started for 30 minutes by a certified yoga instructor, who is also a language

arts teacher at the high school. The mindfulness breathing strategies teachers learned were

complete breath or diaphragmatic breathing, counting breaths, box breath or balanced breathing,

five-finger breathing or starfish, bee breath, bellows breath, and cooling breath. After the threeweek

training, teachers used the mindful breathing during the school day for six weeks for five

minutes in the morning and five minutes in the afternoon without students. The experimental and

the control group took a Perceived Stress Survey on paper before using the breathing techniques

and after the trial. The pre-and post-test was compared statistically using a Two Sample t-Test.

The results showed that there was compelling evidence to support a statistically significant

difference between the control and experimental group's differences in perceived stress. Phase

two collected qualitative data from five pre-selected interview questions with the experimental

group of teachers who used mindful breathing strategies for six weeks. The results showed that

teachers appeared to feel less stress. The experimental group noted feeling more balanced, more

relaxed, more focused, and more patient in the classroom and out of school after using the

breathing strategies. This most likely suggests that the breathing strategies did influence teacher

stress levels.