Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years of teaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host, him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
Teachers podcast, the podcast for teachers that don't want to just survive teaching but
actually thrive. So today I'm going to be talking about an episode that pretty
much nobody's asking about if the one is really searching for it or talking about
it in the education space, because I don't think that they're really thinking about
it until it's pretty much too damn lee. To say that teaching is a
stressful job is such an understatement, as crazy as it may sound, I
kind of liken teaching to like being the president of a country. What do
you think I mean? Just follow me here. Your classroom is like its
own state or country, and the needs and once of your classroom are your
concern, but also the needs and once of all the other states and countries
they kind of encroach on you just trying to do your job, meaning the
needs and ones of parents and admin and the district and the community, things
like that. And also in the same way of being a president of a
country. It can really take a toll on your body. I mean,
if you go back and compare the before and afters of previous presidents who served
two terms, you'll see that they aged a lot faster than your average person
would in eight years. So today I'm going to be discussing how to slow
down aging as a teacher so you don't have to play catch up later on
in life when you kind of look at yourself in the mirror and wondered what
happened. So just a little bit of background here, I am forty five.
Hoops, I'm gonna turn forty five this summer. I just round up.
I always round up, And somehow I had the foresight since my twenties
even to take care of myself early on. So here are some of the
things that I've done to not only stay looking younger longer, but also saying
relatively healthy despite the stressors of teaching. Okay, so the first part of
this, obviously is taking care of your body. Okay, you have to
take care of this vessel. Your skin nWay, is the biggest organ on
your body. So we're gonna talk about that first, because that's the part
that you notice the most in terms of aging. So the first hit that
I have for you is sunscreen. And I know that you've heard this before
and Edward's talking about how you should always use sunscreen, But you need to
always use sunscreen. And here's why. The sun's raise the UVA and UVB
rays. They are pretty much like chipping away at your skin, and it's
basically chipping away at the collagen and your skin, which starts to kind of
dry up, and that's what causes you to a look older. The collagen
is what keeps your skin looking pump and keeping new looking young. And so
if you expose your skin without any kind of a barrier called sunscreen, then
it's going to cause more damage. So the number one thing that I can
tell you in terms of anti aging is sunscreen. And getting a good sunscreen
is pretty much a journey because the sunscreen of might back in the day,
peopre really greasy and thick, and no one really wanted to use them on
their face. I didn't anyway, but not enough. I only used it
like if I knew I was going to go to the beach or be out
in the sun or something like that for an extended period of time, which
is pretty common when you live in San Diego. But I did use sunscreen,
and it took a while before I found one that I really really liked,
And after spending money on it and finding one that I can bear,
I use it all the time, even inside the house, because I don't
know if you know this, you might not know this sun gets through your
windows too, So ahead and take the time to find a sunscreen that doesn't
feel, you know, greasy on you, or maybe you have really dry
skin, so then having more of that moisturizing feeling isn't such a big deal.
What I love about Amazon or even like Target, actually a lot of
drug stories, you can return things, so you can try something out,
and then you can return it if you don't like it, if it causes
any kind of irritation or it causes like some sunscreens they like make your face
kind of look lighter, and then like when you take a picture, it
looks like there's this white cast over your face. And so you just have
to find the sunscreen that works for you. And I'll link in the description
some of the ones that I use religiously. Again, I use them even
when i'm just going to stay at home. I use them even on a
sunny day, on a rainy day. I just pretty much make a habit
out of it. So I'm going to link to those below. I also
don't forget about things like my net. I don't forget about the tops of
my hands. I mean, you, guys, if you are like a
little bit younger, like in your twenties and thirties, you probably still have
like smooth hands, right, and you don't really maybe see any veins or
anything like that. But as you get older, because if you think about
when you're driving and you put your hands up on the steering wheel, all
the sun is getting to the top of your hands, and so that's actually
one of the places that shows your aging. First you start to get these
spots on there, and then the skin starts to get really thin on there,
and then you can start to really see your veins. And so if
you put sunscreen on the top, sue your hands. And some people are
like, Okay, Kim, this is a little bit excessive, but it's
really hard to fix it later rather than being preventive. Now, I actually
have gloves that I wear in the car, and I have a sunshade that
I put on my window because on the driver's side, all that sun's coming
here, and so you'll actually see yourself aging faster on your left side of
your face, unless you tend to be the passenger, then we'll be the
right side of your face. But I put a sunscreen there, and I
have driving gloves. And I had a friend that was like, Kim,
you are so Asian because I had all of this sun protection. I'm like,
yeah, but check me out when I'm seven and people still think that
I'm in my fifties. So I know. Maybe you don't want to do
something that extreme like putting on gloves or putting sunscreen on the tops of your
hands, But if you can at least get up on your face and your
neck, don't forget about your neck, then that will go so far in
terms of preventing your face from aging quickly, Especially if you live in a
sunny place or you really like to be out in the sun a lot.
You got to wear sunscreen, and apparently we're supposed to be reapplying it every
two hours. I will admit that I don't do that. I just don't
think about it to do that every two hours. Especially because I'm inside my
classroom. So even just getting one layer on a good thick layer SPF fifty
or more your goal. Okay, So the second thing in terms of taking
care of your skin is retinal. So when I was a teenager, I
started using retin a I don't know if you guys have heard of that for
acne, because oh boy, my skin was so so bad, and so
I used retina ever since I was like sixteen, and I actually haven't stopped
using it. And that is something that really helps your skin out in terms
of keeping your pores from being blocked and keeping the collagen in your skins.
That again, it doesn't like dry out, well I wouldn't say dry out,
but it doesn't make it so that your face starts to wrinkle up and
sink in. If you think of collagen, it's like a grape versus if
you didn't have a lot of collagen, it would be like a prune or
a reason. Right, So you want to keep that collagen in your skin.
There are other people on like TikTok and YouTube who are a lot better
at explaining how retinal works, and I follow a lot of them. But
the point is you want to start using retinal probably like in your thirties.
I started early only because of acne, But if I didn't have acne,
if I had started in my thirties, I still would have had the same
effects. And if you aren't listening to this until you're later on in life,
you can still get the benefits of retinal, especially treat no tretton no
when that's the medical prescription grade stuff that's a little bit harsh, a little
bit a lot, a bit harsher in your skin, but you're going to
have faster effects than if you use the over the counter drug store ret tinel.
But still using either form will help keep your skin turning over so that
the stuff that's on top, that's like the dead skin that's going to come
off, and that'll keep like recycling the good skin, and that I'll make
it so that you don't really see as many wrinkles. So like I don't
have any kind of a filter on me right now, if you go onto
the video on YouTube, unless you're watching this on YouTube, I turned off
from a camera filter, and I have very few wrinkles. I have no
crow's feet. I have like a couple lines here, like the sides of
my mouth nose area. I do have my little like frown lines here,
but they're not as deep as they could be, and a lot of that
it's because of the retinal that I use and because of the sunscreen that I
use. So those together are a powerhouse. And retinal you only use at
night because the sun degrades it so doesn't really work that well. So you
use the retinaal retina at night, and then you use the sunscreen during the
day because retina also makes you more susceptible to sunburn. So if you're gonna
use retin all you have, use sunscreen. If you refuse to use sunscreen,
boat use retinal because you'll just get sunburned and that'll just make your wrinkle
even faster. So just think about that. But I highly recommend retinal.
So the next thing that I do so that I don't eat very quickly is
I don't smoke anything anything. So you know, I know that like in
many states marijuana is legal, but I don't smoke that, I don't vape,
I don't smoke cigarettes. And if you do, I mean you already
know like the whole like mung cancer thing, and you already know about like
you know how it affects your body. I don't need to tell you that.
I'm not going to lecture you about that, but I will tell you
that you will age voice as fast is anybody else because you're smoking because of
the chemicals in the smoke that comes out. They just have a really bad
effect on your skin and the shape that your mouth makes when you're smoking,
and it causes like these wrinkles around the sides of your mouth, and so
you'd want to think about that. In addition to obviously what's happening inside your
body. You're going to notice that people who have smoked a really long time
they h a lot faster. It's just a fact, and it's really hard
to prevent that because of the double toll of the internal stuff that's happening from
smoking and the external stuff that's happening from the chemicals that are attacking your skin.
How similarly, something that also can make you age faster if you do
this in excess is drinking alcohol, not water. Alcohol. So I mean,
technically alcohol is a poison. And I know that some of you are
like, you cannot take my wine away from me. Him his job is
too stressful, And I understand that you know, there are also studies that
say that a glass of wine has really good effects on your body, but
doing that in excess any kind of binging, it's actually really dehydrating. You
need hydration in order for all of your organs to work well, including your
skin. So if you're someone who like is so stressed off from teaching that
you go home and you binge drink every night, that's just to think about
because that's going to also make your body age faster. So if you can
keep that down to like a glass of wine a night or a beer at
night, and just like minimize the amount that you do drink, that's going
to also help it so that you age slower. I'm not telling you not
to drink. I'm saying minimize the amount that you do. Similarly, hydration
already mentioned this, like you have to drink a ton of water. I
don't know how teachers cannot drink a lot of water. We do so much
talking, so much talking that I just feel like if you don't drink enough,
not only is it not good for your body because your body needs hydration,
but also it's definitely not good for your skin. You'd be amazed,
like if you decide that you're going to drink like a gallon day, like
some people can manage that. If you can drink a gallonta day, you're
going to see huge benefits in your skin. And I'm not even exaggerating huge,
huge, huge benefits. Okay. Now, I don't mean like just
liquids, So I'm not saying a gallon of liquid including mountain dew and soda,
no, no, no, I mean water, maybe iced tea or
just tea in general. You can add that to water things that are healthy
for you, like tea and water. Otherwise it's probably not helping you in
terms of hydration, So go ahead and consider increasing them out that you drink.
I mean, you don't have to quite get to a gallon. I
know that's really hard for some people. I have like my water bottle here
that I'm showing on my video, and I drink at least two or three
of these a day. Plus I also have like some other beverages that I
drink, like protein drinks and things like that. I make a smoothie in
the morning. But you just definitely want to stay hydrated, and that's going
to slow down the rink link because you want to keep doing these things that
will keep your skin plump so that it doesn't kind of like dry out.
And again they give a grape or a plum versus a prune. You have
to keep things hydrated if you want them to stay plumped. And so that's
inside and out. Okay, the next thing in terms of taking care of
your body so that it's the aging process slows down. Kind I don't need
to tell you this, but exercise. You've heard this. I'm not going
to give you a lecture on how to exercise, what exercises you should be
doing, but basically getting your heart rate up, I'm getting that blood pumping.
When you become sedentary, that also makes it hard for your body to
function properly to get the blood going where it needs to. It can lead
to things like hypertension, you know, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol
and things like that. So even if you're just like walking your dog,
if you have a dog, walking your dog twice a day, or just
like taking a walk during your lunch break, that can really help in terms
of keeping your body more youthful and functioning better so that you don't age as
quickly. I mean, if you think about it like there are times when
I have to like squat down and pick something off the ground, or I
have to have store and shelves that are low and I have to bend down
and get things out. If you're not moving enough, if you're not staying
limber and keeping your body active, that stuff hurts like it hurts after a
while. Even at forty five, there are times that I'm like, you
know, I haven't worked out in a few days, and I can feel
that. I can definitely feel that, So I'm considered just adding some exercise
to your routine. Again, I'm not telling you to join a gym or
a yok class or plodies or anything like that, not that I have anything
against those, but I work out at home because I just can't be bothered
to leave my house to do that kind of thing. But that's stuffing's going
to help keep your body functioning better. I'm not talking about weight loss or
anything like that. It's just going to keep your body functioning better. Also
want to add to that, obviously, is diet. You definitely want to
eat things that are going to nourish you. And as we get older,
I've done a lot of research on this. As we get older, your
protein needs are more important than your carbohydrate needs. I'm not telling you Yoketo
or Atkins or anything like that, because I don't do that. Your girl
needs some rice and bread and chocolate. I need that kind of stuff.
But my point is I prioritize protein first before vegetables, before anything else.
Every male, I'm thinking about what is my source of protein, because from
what I've researched, you need protein to maintain muscle. And one of the
things that happens as we get older is muscle loss and muscle loss later on
in life. Also, you know, in conjunction with bone loss can lead
to getting injured more easily. And so what we want to do is we
want to maintain our muscle as much as possible as we get older. Am
I telling you to lift weights? I think it's a really really good idea.
But the point is if you prioritize protein, you're going to lose your
muscle a lot slower. If you prioritize protein and you lift weights, well,
then you know you can pretty much just like maintain your muscle. Doesn't
necessarily mean you're going to gain muscle, but you can at least maintain it,
which is really good as you get older, like especially when we get
into like our six season stuff. You know, when we retire, we
want to be able to move around and go travel and you know, live
it up after being such good teachers and like giving so much of ourselves to
our students. So if you want to maintain your body so that you can
go and like be crazy and take salsa lessons when you're sixty five or something
like that. So proper diet meaning prioritize protein of course, you know,
vegetables, and they want you to not eat that much processed foods. I
would be hypocrite to say not to eat a lot of processed foods because your
girl likes are baked goods. I love my rice, although that's not really
processed. But again I prioritize protein always. And of course the last part
in terms of taking care of your body is sleep. I wish I could
be better at this. I would love to get eight hours of sleep at
night. I probably could, but I would love to so I get between
six and seven hours at night. I know some people who get a lot
less because they're up late doing work, social media, whatever. But set
yourself a bedtime and stick to that now. The reason I don't get a
lot of sleep, I'm going to be honest, is because I get up
at four in the morning to work out. I know that sounds crazy,
but I have to prioritize exercise because I kind of have like health factors that
make me more susceptible to things like stroke, Like I have hyplood pressure and
cholesterol and things like that, So exercising helps me keep any kind of heart
disease away. And I have to make sure that I go to bed by
in time so that I can get at least six hours of sleep. So
usually I'm in bed between like nine thirty and ten, so I can get
my six hours of sleep. I would love to get eight, but I
also know that by the time they get home from school, I just don't
have it in me to work out. So sleep is really important. You
can definitely feel it when you don't get enough sleep, and you can definitely
see it on your face. So when you don't get enough sleep, you
know what I mean. And also can you really be there for yourself,
your family, your friends, and your students when you're not taking care of
yourself in terms of sleep. So I have a lot of friends who have
a hard time sleeping. I don't know if you've tried things like melatonin.
I've used that before when I've had some issues with insomnia. It's not common
for me. I actually sleep really well, but when I have had difficulty,
I've used melatonin, and I'm going to also link to that in the
description, the one that I use that doesn't give me a hangover, because
sometimes when you use melatonin, it can make you feel super drowsy later on,
and so you want to test it out, like on the weekend.
If you decide that you're going to use melatonin, I wouldn't try it on
a week day because you might be sleepy during the week. And I know
some people they like to try to make themselves go to sleep with alcohol,
but actually studies have shown that alcohol messes with her sleep and you don't get
as RESTful sleep like the rim dream stay sleep. And so that's why things
like melatonin or CBD can really be helpful in terms of helping you get more
RESTful sleep. So that was taking care of your body. Now you also
want to think about managing stress obviously. I mean, our jobs are so
stressful. You guys like I'm at a point. This is my twenty first
year of teaching, where teaching is easy for me. I have to be
fully honest with you about that. But it's still stressful. In the day
to day things, it can get really stressful. So here's how I manage
that. How I'm at the point where in general I don't stress out about
teaching as much as I used to. So the first thing is, I
use my days off for mental health days, and I have no problem about
that. I have no shame admitting that I'll just have a ditch day,
and I will make sure that I plan my lessons leading up to that day
that I'm going to take off, so that the substitute, no matter who
it is. Maybe I would even have the substitute, but whoever has to
come and cover my classes, it's relatively easy. I'm setting the substitute up
for success so that I can feel comfortable when I take that day off,
so that I'm not stressed out that like my students are pulling the posters off
the walls and like standing on the desks and turning into lord of the flies.
I just I make sure that I lead up to it so that I
can have the mental health day that I deserve, and a lot of times
i'll do it, like on a Friday, sometimes a Monday, although it
doesn't feel as satisfying on a Monday. I also don't like to take a
mental health day on a day that I have my planning period, because I
feel like that's a waste. I want to have a ditch day on a
day when I have to teach the whole day, because I only have my
planning period every other day and it's just not worth it. If the sub
is only teaching two out of my three classes, I want them to teach
all three classes. So use some of your mental health days just for you,
and it doesn't mean you have to go like do something. You can
just stay at home and binge watch something. Especially if you have kids and
they're off at school or daycare, send them to school or send them to
daycare so you can have some time for yourself, or if your kids are
older, if you want to take them with you when you guys go and
do something like they have a day off too, that's fine too. I
have no judgment against that, but the whole point is to take some time
for yourself. Don't feel bad about it. There's so many teachers that feel
bad about it. There have been times when sometimes it's not worth it to
take a day off because it's so much planning and work to take that day
off. But then I realize that's stupid. It's totally worth. It's take
the day off to just sit and do nothing, or go and have a
wrench. With my entrepreneur friends who can take time off whenever they want.
I really encourage you to do this at least once or twice a year,
maybe like once or twice per semester, something like that, so that you
can refresh. And I love taking a day off on a weekday because like
no one is out and about. It's really peaceful. It feels great knowing
everyone else is in school, what you're out and about. Another thing that
I do to manage my stress is id prioritized teaching, meaning teaching is not
the center of my world. It was in the beginning, I mean I
really was like, I'm a teacher and I do all these things and I
tell all these things for my students and my school and my community, and
maybe you're that way too, and it feels really really good. But then
as time went on, I have made it less of a priority for me.
And what I do is I give my all while I'm teaching, and
then when I'm not teaching, I give my all to my personal life.
Before definitely teaching and school would bleed into my personal time and my personal life.
So then basically I was giving everybody about you know, sixty or seventy
percent of myself because I only had so much to give. And now when
I'm at school and i'm planning, or i'm grading, or i'm teaching,
they get one hundred percent of me. But then when I'm not teaching,
whatever else in my life that gets one hundred percent of me. And so
that's the work life balance is to not allow it to bleed in. Sometimes
I will grade at home, but I plan for that, so especially like
if I have a looming deadline and I have fallen behind because I didn't use
my planning period well, or let's just say that I gave a huge assignment,
like essays can take a long time degrade. If you're an English teacher,
you know what I mean. And so I will block out like two
or three hours on one Saturday or one Sunday. But that's something that I'm
consciously doing. It's not something that I'm doing out of guilt or panic,
and it makes it so that I don't have to give up unintentionally my own
personal time. So deprioritizing it and focusing on yourself, but not like I
will do a second of work outside of school. It's not that mentality.
It's more like, you know, I don't have to. It's very like
laid back and matter of fact. I feel like some people get so like
about doing work outside of school, and I don't have that attitude about it
because I love my job and sometimes it does deserve extra time for me.
But I feel like my personal life, I'm going to guard that and I'm
going to prioritize that. Also along with that is I practice gratitude all the
time. I'm constantly marveling at how lucky for my family and my friends,
the house that I live in. I'm always grateful for my job. I
mean, I have a job and I'm good at it. And I know
some of you don't necessarily feel that way about your teaching job, but I
find ways always to be grateful about teaching and my job. I'm grateful for
my students. I'm grateful for the fact that even though my administrators aren't like
the strongest administrators, they stay up from my way. They truly just stay
out of my way and let me do my thing. And from what I
read about, some of your situations that are listening or watching like your admin
are crazy. So I am truly grateful for what I have. Some of
the teachers in my school don't like them, and they accuse them of being
ineffective. I'm like you, guys, when our next admin comes in,
they're going to be the kind that's going to be all up in your face.
And then what I would much prefer someone who just stays out of my
way and lets me teach. So I'm just grateful for so much, and
I find that when I choose to focus on that rather than on things that
are going wrong in the world or that, you know, things that come
up in my life that are really challenging, I find that I'm a lot
happier. So I think that's one of the reasons why I have been able
to thrive as a teacher for twenty one years, and I haven't felt like
I have to try to survive and drag myself across the finish line. It's
because I focus on the good and I focus on things that I can control,
and that's a huge part. I can't control a lot of things,
and so I just choose to not worry about it. And finally, one
thing that I do to help me manage stress is meditation. And I started
doing this during the pandemic while I was locked down in my apartment. And
at first I was like, I can't do this, this is dumb,
and I would just fall asleep. That was the best part. I would
just fall asleep while meditating. But you know, I used different apps,
like the Calumn app and things like that. But then I just went on
YouTube and I found different meditations and I kept looking for ones that really resonated
with me, ones where I felt really relaxed at the end, where I
wasn't necessarily falling asleep, although I still sometimes fall asleep. But if you
just find some that don't feel weird to you, that don't make you uncomfortable,
I don't know if you know what I mean. Like, sometimes there
are certain ones, like guided meditations, that just make me want to turn
it off and walk away. But I found ones that I really really like,
and so meditating really helps you clear your mind. I'll do it between
fifteen to thirty minutes a night. I do mine at nights and people do
theirs in the morning that I'm working out in the morning, So fifteen to
thirty minutes at night, sometime before I go to bed. Maybe that's why
I sleep so well, because it helps you calm down and it helps center
me, especially after I've had like a stressful day. It just makes it
so that my brain kind of ships and rewires, and then I can go
to bed and be peaceful, and I can wake up and seeing things from
a different point of view so that I'm not as stressed out the next day.
So that, like sunscreen, is kind of a journey in terms of
finding meditations that will work for you. If you feel like you can't meditate
or you don't understand how to meditate, just find something that's recorded and guided,
stick it in, sit in a room with your eyes closed, and
just try. You'll never know until you try. I can't meditate in silence.
I have to be listening to something because I hear every single sound.
But I would just recommend finding something that resonates with you. And there's all
kinds of meditations for also like different types of moods, so maybe want like
a meditation for feeling more grounded. There's also meditations for like manifesting money.
There's meditations for working on like self worth issues. You know, like if
you're feeling really down on yourself, then there are ones to help you with
that. So I would research that on YouTube. It's so personal. I
could give you recommendations for that, but it's a journey to figure out that
one out. So again, no one's asking for this episode, but I
hope that you found it helpful because it's just something that we'll always think about.
We don't think about ways to care versals as teachers. I mean,
we hear so much about self care, but that's kind of like a term
that a lot of us have sort of started to resent because you know,
now it's being used by admin like, oh, will focus on self care,
go to yoga and things like that. But it goes beyond that.
It goes really in terms of taking care of your body and your mind so
that you can really be present whether you're teaching or not, whether you're parenting
or you're teaching, or you're doing your hobby. You just need to take
care of your body and yourself before it's kind of too late. There's going
to come a point where if you keep abusing your body because you think that
you're invincible, your body is going to have a really hard time or maybe
it won't be able to recover from that. So the sooner that you guys
start soon you start slapping on that sunscreen, you guys, the better because
trying to get rid of the signs of aging later on in life it takes
a lot of money and it's painful. I don't know this from experience,
but boy, have I watched it, and I've actually known some people who
did things like getting like peels and laser and stuff like that, and they're
recovery was kind of early. I don't want to have to do that.
I don't want to poke needles on my face. I mean, I have
tattoos, but those are the kind of needles that I like. I don't
want the kind that's like injecting stuff in my face. I just want to
age gracefully, but very very slowly. So I hope that you've got a
lot of value out of today. If you want to hear more tips not
necessarily at anti aging unless you like this let me know. You can email
me and let me know if you want to hear more about this kind of
stuff because I'm kind of a geek when it comes to anti aging stuff.
Thanks for hanging out with me today, you guys, I will see you
next time. Thanks for listening to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast. Love this
episode, Head over to Apple Podcast or Google Play to subscribe, rate and
leave a review.