From the Deputy Head of Junior School – Wellbeing

Four Ways to Turn a Bad Day Around

This title captured my attention.

An article from The Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley, with suggestions about how to cope with a bad day was something I wanted to read. After all, we all have bad days where nothing seems to go right and we wonder “did I get out of the bed on the wrong side this morning?”

The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology and neuroscience of wellbeing and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient and compassionate society. I subscribe to their emails as I know that what they publish comes from a solid research base.

As we head towards to end of what has been another busy term, it is noticeable that the girls (and adults) are getting tired. When we are tired we tend to be less resilient, compassionate and calm. This is normal. But the good news is there are things we can all do to manage ourselves and this article outlines four ways to do this.

• Step One: Activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This assists to interrupt the stress response. Breathing techniques and immersing ourselves in nature are good ways to do this.
• Step Two: Flood the body with feel-good hormones. Feel-good hormones counteract the effects of stress and activate endorphins. Exercising is a good example of activating these hormones. Hugging someone is also effective – think of how our first instinct when our children are unhappy is to hug them.
• Step Three: Triage our stress. Now our brains are in a better state to think we can work through what might help us solve that problem. Most often we do have the resources on hand to assist us to resolve what is causing us stress.
• Step Four: Set yourself up for success the next day. This is a big one for me as I think of our girls, your daughters, who come home after a not-so-good day at School. It is so important to reset and to think about what tomorrow might bring, have a plan in place to make it a better day. Get up with an attitude that this new day will bring good things to me.

At MLC Junior School we do deliberately teach the girls about self-awareness and self-management as part of the five Social Emotional Learning competencies. Being aware of our emotions and feelings, things that trigger negative emotions and an awareness of how we react, learning and growing to react in an effective manner is so important. We teach this as part of our Pastoral Care programs, through Kimochis (Pre-K and Kindergarten) and URStrong (Year 1 to Year 6).

May your day be a good day!

– Joanne Sharpe
Deputy Head of Junior School – Wellbeing