One of the biggest challenges in tackling teacher stress is that the majority of the causes of that stress are not going to disappear any time soon, according to Marc Jones, professor of stress and emotion at Staffordshire University.

“Teachers are going to face tight deadlines, demands from children, from managers, from parent expectations around exam results and student performance,” he says, “[and] we can’t change those demands.”

That those demands are damaging teachers’ health is clear: more than a quarter of teachers use medication to deal with their stress and nearly a third have been to the doctor for the same reason (see bit.ly/Tstress). Almost every teacher will tell you that the job negatively impacts their life.

But just because the reasons for that stress are near-impossible to eradicate, that does not mean stress has to be something that teachers simply have to endure, says Jones, who has spent the past decade studying how people respond psychologically and physically under stress.

“[Reducing stress is not always] about reducing the demands put on us,” he explains. “It’s about raising the bar to meet those demands and dealing with them in the best way we can.”

Some people do that more naturally than others, he says.

“There are two main ways people respond to stress,” argues Jones. “They either see it as a challenge - so they respond positively - or they see it as a threat, and respond negatively.”

These different responses depend on the individual and can be measured at the physiological level. In the challenge state, there is a decrease in vascular resistance - meaning blood can be pumped faster round the body, suggesting that the person will approach the stressor. In the threat state, there’s an increase in vascular resistance - it’s an avoidance response.

“Importantly, what we see persistently is that [when under stress] those individuals who respond with a challenge state perform significantly better than those with a threat state,” he says, adding that this has been shown across cognitive and physical tasks.

He notes one study that suggested those who respond with a challenge state behave more democratically and delegate more to those around them. In contrast, those who feel threatened become autocratic and dogmatic - leading to more negative outcomes.

“It’s a coping mechanism,” says Jones. “When we can’t deal with the demands around us, we try to take control.”

So are those of us who have a threat rather than challenge response to stress doomed to fail? No, says Jones. He’s developed a methodology consisting of four steps that can help you develop a challenge mindset.

Firstly, feeling confident in your abilities inoculates you against some of the negative effects of stress, and is a big predictor of performance in terms of effort and persistence.

“When the going gets tough, those who feel confident in their abilities are more willing to work hard and get through it,” says Jones.

There are different techniques you can use to increase your confidence, but Jones recommends fine-tuning your inner dialogue - and making it more positive.

“It can be a little bit abstract,” he says, “but it encourages people to be good coaches to themselves.”

For example, imagine you’ve made a mistake: your predicted grades were too high or you’ve had an altercation with a parent. For many of us, our internal dialogue in these situations would be negative - you may think “I’ve let everyone down, I’ve messed up,” and so on.

But Jones encourages you to ask yourself: “What would I say to a friend in that situation? What would a great headteacher say to me in that situation?”

The likelihood is that they would be much more positive and encouraging - and this is the sort of dialogue we should have with ourselves, he says.

“It’s easy to get into that negative spiral of thinking,” explains Jones. “But thinking in a positive way will help us to face issues and carry on.”

Positive reflection

Another simple way of improving your confidence is to write down three things at the end of the day that went well. The teaching profession lends itself to being self-critical, always focusing on improvement and how to do better.

“If you’re always thinking about when things didn’t go well, it’s going to have a negative effect on your confidence,” he says. “You need to focus on when things did go well.”

The second area of focus is control.

“In any profession, there will be a lot of things that are out of your control,” says Jones. “You may go in with the best lesson plan but suddenly be faced with children being disruptive who you hadn’t accounted for or expected.”

Focusing on what is within your control can help with the stress of uncertainty. You can control the structure of the lesson and the behaviour management techniques you have in place to deal with disruption.

“Thinking about what you are going to do, no matter what, is a way to reduce uncertainty and, therefore, to reduce stress,” Jones explains.

Similarly, the third area is about getting your focus right.

“We get people to think about what they want to happen, what they want to achieve - not what they think could go wrong,” says Jones.

Though he points out that the fear of failure can be a powerful motivator, he says it’s not something we should aim to cultivate.

“If you just focus on avoiding failure, you’ll never put yourselves in situations where there’s a potential for you to mess up,” he says. “You won’t put yourself forward for those extracurricular activities or opportunities that might lead to a promotion because you’re focusing on what could go wrong, not what could go right.”

He argues that thinking about the potential benefits of what you’re doing will encourage you to do your best and take more calculated risks, leading to better outcomes - for you and your students.

The final area to focus on, Jones says, is social support.

“We spoke to football coaches and asked them how they’ve developed resilience in their career, and almost all of them outlined the importance of social support in helping them deal with demanding situations,” explains Jones, who has worked extensively in high pressure sports. He says the benefits of social support are both physiological and psychological: when we feel connected with people, we’re more likely to take their advice and accept support - which can reduce the negative impacts of stress.

To build this connection, you need more than just work relationships. “You need to connect on a social level with people,” says Jones. “Have a conversation at work about things that are non-work related, so that you can connect as people as well as colleagues.”

Taking a time-out

Aside from these four pillars, the other important thing Jones emphasises is rest.

“Teachers do very long hours and have lots of demands, but you need to rest and allow the body and mind to recover from the demands you’ve put on it,” he says.

In a busy world, where marking and other demands stack up quickly, incorporating time for rest can seem impossible. But Jones says that it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might think.

“It might be: I won’t do any work past 9pm, or I won’t look at any emails. It may be turning off the iPad and laptop an hour before bed,” he suggests. Physical exercise can be a great help too - a half-hour walk after work, or a run in the morning.

“If we don’t have any time when we’re not thinking about work or work-related things, then we’re not allowing ourselves time to recover,” Jones states. “This is going to impact negatively on your performance.”

He concedes that many of these tips will require a supportive headteacher.

“The principles we’ve talked about on the individual level would require - or at least be enhanced by - some kind of institutional approach,” he says. Heads could incorporate a “no emails after 9pm” policy to encourage rest, or one meeting a week could be a “no work” meeting, where staff talk about anything other than work, to encourage social connection. Positive feedback is especially important to build teachers’ confidence.

That headteachers are so crucial to how teachers can manage stress is probably not a surprise to most. But with strong evidence that this is the case, there is nowhere to hide for any head not taking it seriously. As Jones says, “research shows that high-demand jobs do not necessarily have to be stressful in and of themselves.”

Essentially, under the right circumstances, stressful jobs do not have to be stressful.

Georgia Ziebart is a freelance writer based in London