Principals use yoga and meditation to deal with stress at work

School principals are turning to different methods of relaxation, like yoga and meditation, to deal with the pressures of their jobs. According to a survey, principals suffer 1.7 times more stress, 1.6 times more burnout and 2.2. times more sleep issues.

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School principals have turned to yoga, meditation and cranking tunes in their locked offices to help with the day-to-day pressures of their job.

Wentworthville Public School principal Denise Lockrey was on the brink of burning out dealing with a boom in enrolments and an endless to-do list ranging from classroom construction to school finances and concerned parents.

“I was just surviving and I’d be the first to say I was close to burning out, although I couldn’t see it at the time,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.

“I wasn’t sleeping well and would regularly be awake between 2am and 4am thinking about work.”

Wentworth Public School Principal Denise Lockrey took part in a trial to help principals deal with stress and finds meditation has worked for her. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Ms Lockrey joined a research and intervention trial called Flourish Movement, which has helped 219 stressed and strung-out principals regain control of their schools and home lives with simple measures to increase their productivity.

Principals who undertook the Flourish Movement course have registered a 21 per cent improvement in work-life balance, a 20 per cent drop in stress levels and an 11.6 per cent bump in job satisfaction.

Wentworthville Public School has grown from 430 students in 2015 to 703 and is forecast to reach 1000, which has required installing demountables while plans are drawn up for construction of new classrooms.

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Overseeing planning and tendering for construction flooded Ms Lockrey’s email inbox, which was already overflowing with administrative issues demanding her attention such as compliance, staff working conditions and school bills to be paid.

While Ms Lockrey believes being a principal is the “best and most satisfying job in the world”, she could barely find the time to focus on her student’s learning needs or school curriculum.

“My car became my second office and I’d sit in the driveway at home on calls to finish off whatever I hadn’t completed during the day,” Ms Lockrey said.

Compared to the general population, principals suffer 1.7 times more stress, 1.6 times more burnout and 2.2. times more difficulty sleeping, according to the latest Australian Principals Occupational Health, Safety and wellbeing Survey.

The trial found yoga and meditation worked to help principals relieve stress. Picture: iStock

Principals work an average of 18 hours overtime each week and 75 per cent of principals reported their workload was “not achievable” or “difficult to be achieved”.

“At work I’ll close my door for an hour and say to my staff ‘no interruptions, unless it’s an emergency’ and I can finish tasks I previously wouldn’t have finished because I’d have lots of interruptions,” Ms Lockrey said.

“I’ll do three minutes of mindfulness meditation and be completely refocused.

“And now on the way home now there’s a certain set of lights where I stop making work calls, put on loud music and sing loud and proud to anything from Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun to The Sapphires or Little River Band,” she said.

The trial was overseen by Deakin University, which has recommended the program to all principals in NSW.