41. How I Manage Panic Attacks and Anxiety as a Teacher

One of the greatest challenges of my teaching career and personal life has been learning to manage my panic attacks and anxiety. Teaching is an anxiety-inducing profession, and unchecked stress from the classroom can contribute to teacher burnout. In this season where teachers are continuously overworked and overwhelmed, taking care of your mental health is of the utmost importance. For this final episode of season four, I discuss my own journey with panic attacks and an anxiety disorder, along with how I have learned to manage as a classroom teacher for over 20 years.

Get your copy of Teachaholic: The 7-Day MindSET Shift to Conquer Burnout, Build Life-Changing Boundaries, and Reignite Your Love for Teaching at www.erinsponaugle.com/book.

You can download the Teachaholic Action Guide to begin your journey back from burnout here.

Download your FREE checklist, The Great 88: Rules, Routines, and Expectations to Go Over and Over, and feel confident establishing classroom management.

For more resources on classroom management, time management, and preserving mental well-being to avoid teacher burnout, visit www.erinsponaugle.com.

Find more upper elementary classroom resources by visiting Next Chapter Press on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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Transcript

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Being the teacher isn't what it used to be. The good news is you don't have to figure it out on your own. If you're looking for truth, inspiration, and tips for success, in the classroom and beyond, you're in the right place. It's time to turn the page to the future of the profession. This is the next chapter for teachers podcast. Hello everyone, I'm Erin Spinagle. Welcome to episode 41 of the next chapter for teachers podcast, and we have made it to the end of this season. This will be the final episode for season four. And it's been a comeback of sorts for me because I took some time off from doing this. The book came out in October, and I started getting back in the swing of things of sharing and writing again and being able to put myself out there and create things for teachers. So I'm I'm glad to be back and I'm happy that I was able to do this all the way through. So programming note, I'm taking the next two weeks off from podcasting, not necessarily taking it off from doing things for next chapter press. There will be more things coming in 2026, but I'm going to take the rest of the year to prepare for that and get things ready to go for when we return on January 4th. So that's when the next episode will be for season five. And I've been listening to your suggestions or the messages that I've been sent, and we're going to be leading off with talking about student issues or dealing with things that involve behavior management and things that our students do in our classroom that we need to manage or work with. But that is then, and this is now. So once more, I just want to say before we get into this episode, I am really not just proud, but I'm honored that I've had the opportunity to share Teach Aholic and its message with you because I'm I'm getting messages, which is really neat. I mean, it's it's cool to hear from people that re that read your work and then respond to it. But I uh I'm glad that it's having an impact. So there's more good things coming, but I I am proud to say and proud to hear that it is changing things for the better in some small way. So it's easy to see someone's success because those are the things we want to share, like when things are good and when I'm sharing things with you, but the highlight reel is not reality. Reality. And our lives are stories that only we can tell. So today on this podcast, to close out this season, I'm going to share with you, or the topic that I'm going to share with you has to deal with something that I have dealt with personally for a great deal of my life. Because I want to be authentic with my journey, not just with teacher burnout, but just in general, so you know how I got here and why I why I am the way I am and why I'm able to have the message, I guess is better, have the message that I do. So what I'm going to talk about today is my journey with anxiety and panic attacks, because that is something that I have dealt with for the majority of my life, believe it or not. And it's certainly impacted my teaching. Has it kept me from doing it? Well, it's probably been a challenge, but I've been able to conquer the problems or the issues that have that could have kept me from having success in the classroom and having an impact in education. But anxiety in particular is something that we all as teachers have to deal with. So in this holiday season, when this is being recorded here in December 2025, I felt it would be fitting and helpful to tackle this before we sign off for a couple weeks. So a little bit about me. I I have had been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I had panic attacks as a child, or that's when they started. My first panic attack was in fourth grade. And I remember that day very clearly what I was doing, what I was looking at, where I was. And it's something you don't really forget when you are a child and suddenly you feel like you're going to die. That's that was exactly how I I felt in that moment. And as a nine-year-old child, I didn't know how to process that. And it was the first in many of many episodes where I had to figure out what was going on with me. Now I had a lot of help, or I have worked on doing things to help myself over the years, but that doesn't mean I haven't dealt with the shame, fear, learning to cope. And I have not had a panic attack in many years, but I do contend with anxiety on a daily basis, as do, I'm sure, many teachers, whether or not they have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or panic attacks or not. Teaching, I mean, anxiety is almost inevitable if you are a teacher. Like the demands on a daily basis, the changes, the workload, I mean, it's just like a recipe for anxiety, that being a teacher. That's that's no way of getting around that, honestly. And on top of just those things I I mentioned, demands, changes, and workload, we we have the concerns for our own safety as teachers and for our students. The holiday season or our personal lives, you know, we don't just stop being people because we're teachers. That's going on too. It's like it's a perfect storm for someone to be overburdened by anxiety. And if you're already prone to being anxious or being in that mode where you feel flight fight or flight, it just makes it worse. And I speak from this from experience. Did it contribute to my burnout? Probably in some ways, but I feel like the burnout would have happened regardless. So we've chosen an anxiety-inducing profession, friends. Make it make sense, right? But I often was questioned when I first chose to be a teacher if this was a good profession for me because I had anxiety and I had panic attacks. I mean, putting someone in a high-pressure situation like that when they have something that they're already dealing with doesn't seem like a great idea. But the thing is the qualities about people that have anxiety, those are often what we're looking for in as for an education. We need people that are compassionate and have empathy and drive and creativity. And those qualities sometimes are intertwined with people who are more prone to being anxious or having anxiety issues. But that doesn't mean that we should tell those people or keep those people from pursuing something where they could have the most impact. But I will say that chronic anxiety, those chronic feelings from stress, will lead to burnout if you let them, which is what I'm hoping to do with my message and my resources is help people step away from that, step away from the brink of burnout. So we can't let it deter us, but we do have to learn how to manage it. So something that I have really worked on over the years. And like I said, I haven't had a panic attack in quite a while, but anxiety, yes, things do make me feel very anxious, and I get into a tailspin with it. But I have learned to manage that before it becomes a panic attack, before it starts to impact my health. Do I always get it right? No. But uh there are ways to cope, and there are ways to go about how you do things and how you think about things that can prevent things from getting worse. Now, I do want to say you should always seek professional help to get a diagnosis or to get help. I have certainly done that over the years, and it's, you know, there's nothing to be ashamed of. I feel like there's there's been a lot of shame or there was a lot of shame when I was a child of over mental health issues, but that's not so much the case anymore, and you should always seek someone who can who is trained and can help you if needed. There's there's absolutely no reason in this day and age where we can't meet those needs for ourselves or choose to find help. So let's talk about how I've gotten through this, because I've taught for 23 years now, and I have dealt with anxiety for all 23 of them. So this is this is how I have come with a lot of help and a lot of practice, how I have come to manage my anxiety and prevent panic attacks as much as I can, or do best I can with uh like I'm not perfect. I don't I want to reiterate that I am not perfect. I make lots of mistakes, and every day is different. But what I'm gonna share with you is how I've been able to get through it. Now, there are there are breathing can techniques, there are there's grounding uh practices that people use to help them come back from the edge of a panic attack or anxiety. Grounding has never really done it for me. Breathing exercises sometimes do, but the things I'm gonna share with you, this is just personally how I have gotten through it and how it has how I've used it to help me be a contributing balanced person during the day. So the first thing that I've really focused on, and this also came about from working through burnout, but it was also part of getting through or establishing a practice where I was not going to be consumed with anxiety, is to identify what triggers me. There are certain things that will make me feel more anxious and will get me into a place where I just feel overwhelmed and consumed by everything that's going on. So I had found I sat down and I really worked on what pushes the buttons. And for me, this comes down to these three things. I can distill it down to these three things. One is having lots to do or finish, like an like a checklist of lots of things to do. When I have a lot going on, I know I'm gonna feel that anxiety coming on. Being asked to do more when I already have a lot to do. Now that just seems like, well, that's just being a teacher. But when I already know that my plate is full and then I'm asked to do one more thing, and it's something that I can tell someone really wants me to do, that for me is a trigger. And then the last one, I'm not ashamed to admit this, confrontation sets me into a little bit of an anxiety, tailwind. I mean tail tailwind, is that the right word? I don't know. We'll go with the tailwind. Uh but I know I'm gonna confrontation when I know someone's not happy with something that I've done, that also can make me feel the way. So those are the three things that I know I'm gonna have to be prepared for so that I don't start spinning or spiraling into that place where I don't want to be. Now, what do I do? You know your triggers are now. How do I deal with it? It's something that I call BRB. So BRB. BRB stands for boundaries, routines, and blocking. Let me explain. So boundaries that goes along with my mindset for burnout or preventing burnout. Having boundaries, having a set stance on what I'm going to do, what I'm willing to contribute, when my day ends, that has helped a lot because it puts up a gate, so to speak. So that, you know, if there's a lot going on or I've still got more to do, well, we're stopping for today. Or nope, I'm not able to do that because I don't do that after a certain time. The R stands for routines. So keeping myself in a routine or having routines that I do every day, sometimes that it creates calm for me, knowing that this is the same thing that I'm going to do at this time. It's not really being, I am the least OCD person you will ever meet. So it's not really being compulsive, but it's just having routines, having things that I need to do at a certain time, or something that I do to get ready for bed or to get prepared for the day. Staying in a routine, that methodicalness of it really helps. And then the last bit is blocking. Alright, so there's certain times that are blocked off just to work on certain things that block. And that's when I'm gonna get it done, that's where I'm going to focus on it. So if I am anxious or if I'm feeling tense, I just know we're gonna work on it then. It's not something we're gonna think about or do right now. So BRB boundaries, routine, and blocking. So I got another thing that I do, and it's questioning. So, like I said, grounding has never really been something that has helped me out a lot, but questioning myself, self-talk has been very helpful. So I have some questions that I will ask myself, not out loud necessarily, but in my mind, whenever I am feeling anxiety coming on or just feeling very stressed out, these are the things that I ask myself to get myself back on track and to help myself stop being uh in a state of teness, nervousness, coming up with lots of different words today. I guess it's because I went and saw, went and watched Wicked, and I they have all those fun words they use in there. Anyway, okay, so the first question I ask myself is what is in front of me? When I have a lot of things going on and I feel overwhelmed by all the things I have to do, if I think to myself, what is in front of me, it helps me concentrate on what I need to do right now. Okay, what is the first and most important thing I have to do? If I say what is in front of me, that kind of takes my focus off all the things and puts it on one thing that I need to accomplish, and I don't feel as overwhelmed by everything else. So that's the most important question I've ever I ever I've ever asked myself in this in this place of anxiety is what's in front of me. The second is how can I make this easy? So sometimes we do overcomplicate things as teachers, or when we have a lot to do or we want to do a good job, we make things bigger and better than it has to be. So if asking myself, how can I make this easy, I visualize, I know I said grounding doesn't work, but for me that much, but the the easy button for I think it was Staples that had the easy button a couple years ago, probably more than a couple years ago at this point. I visualize like an easy button. What do I need to do to hit the easy button? How am I making this way too complicated and what can I do to fix it? Because sometimes even though we want to give the a hundred percent, sometimes we need to give an 85, and that's okay. The 85 is great. The 85 is probably better than we think it is. But how can what how can I make this easy? And often that comes down to what can I eliminate? Sometimes there's things that we can take out, even though there may not be things that we can take off of our responsibilities as teachers, but there are things that we can eliminate or not focus on in the present that can make things easier as well. The third thing, and this is when I'm being asked to do extra stuff, because I used to be the extra stuff queen. I don't know how I can reiterate that enough that I was always taking on more than what I needed to take on. But a question that I ask myself now when I'm feeling anxious and I'm being asked to do something more, and I know I really can't do it, and I hate that I'm gonna have to not contribute, is what is the trade? What am I going to be trading my time for? And usually what I'm trading my time for is something that I might resent later on that I really don't have enough time to to do, or I can't give my best effort for at this time. And I also think of it as, or sometimes I'll say to myself, will this become an albatross? I know that's like the poem, the Mariner's poem, or something like that. It's from a long time ago. That's like from high school I'm thinking, um reading about that. But I think to myself, will this become an albatross? Is this gonna be something that I agree to right now? And it will just make me feel worse later because it's not something that I need to be doing at the present. Because whether we realize it or not, we are already contributing more than enough to our classrooms. And taking on more usually takes away from what we need to or what we're able to give to our students and to ourselves. And then another thing that I will ask myself sometimes when I'm very stressed out and anxious is will this matter a year from now? And almost every time it's a no. And so many of the things that we are made to feel are the end-all be-all education aren't. They're not the things that will matter from now. What matter what will matter a year from now is how we make our students feel and what we're able to contribute to our lives. And somewhere in that mix we need to prioritize prioritize ourselves as well. Because without us, the classroom doesn't keep spinning or working. Hopefully, if your classroom's not spinning. It's the week before our winter break. So spinning spinning could happen at this point. Anything is possible. But that is a summary of how I get through my own anxiety. Those are the steps, the triggers, the BRB, and the questions. So as we go into what's probably our last full week before break, before we break for the uh first semester of the year, I I just want you to focus on what is in front of you. And if you are closing out a year that's been difficult, I understand, I feel for you. And to take the next two weeks or so before we come back for the second semester and the second half of the school year, if you are in a part of the world that does not start their first day of school or their first school day of the school year in January. There are some parts of the world that do. Because we have a lot to give to our students, but we can't give it if we don't take care of ourselves first. So I wish you the very best as we close out 2025. And I will see you or hear from or I will talk to you next year. That's all for this episode of the Next Chapter for Teachers podcast. If you like what you heard, be sure to rate, subscribe, and leave a review. Join us next time we turn the page to the future of the profession. Until then, remember to be different, but more importantly, be the difference. And I'll see you in the next chapter.