Why Am I Already So Tired in the First Week Back at School?
You can love teaching and still not want to go back.
You can care about your class, miss people and even feel a bit excited about starting again.
And still feel that drop in your stomach the night before.
Then the week starts.
Maybe nothing terrible happens.
It’s just a lot.
By Wednesday, you’re tired.
Someone asks how your day was and you say:
“Fine.”
And maybe it was fine.
Nothing awful happened. You taught your lessons. You answered the questions. You dealt with whatever came up.
But somehow you still get home with very little left.
“But I’ve only just had six weeks off”
This is often the bit that gets you.
You expected to be tired.
Just not this tired.
Not already.
I’ve only just had a break.
I should have more energy than this.
I’ve done this before.
Why am I struggling already?
And now you’re not only tired.
You’re judging yourself for being tired.
Everyone else seems to be managing
Then you look around.
Someone else seems completely on top of things.
Their classroom is sorted. They know what they are doing next week. They look calm when you see them.
You’re trying to get through Thursday.
You know you don’t actually know how they feel.
You still compare.
Maybe they are more organised than me.
Maybe they cope better than I do.
Maybe I should be better at this by now.
Then there’s the lesson that didn’t go well
You know it was one lesson.
But you’re still thinking about it later.
What you should have said.
What you could have done differently.
Whether somebody else would have handled it better.
You know it was one lesson.
You’re still thinking about it while brushing your teeth.
And at some point:
“That lesson was hard”
becomes:
“I’m not very good at this.”
Sometimes you can see yourself doing it.
It doesn’t necessarily stop you.
Sometimes the week is just tiring
I don’t want to turn this into another piece telling teachers to have better boundaries, go to bed earlier or practise more self-care.
Sometimes you are tired because the week has been tiring.
There are new classes, new routines, emails, changes, behaviour, planning and things that apparently needed doing yesterday.
The job itself can be demanding.
Feeling exhausted at the end of a demanding week does not need to become another thing you have failed at.
But sometimes something else happens alongside the tiredness.
A hard day starts to feel personal.
It isn’t:
“That was difficult.”
It becomes:
“Why can’t I cope?”
“Everyone else seems fine.”
“Maybe I’m the problem.”
That can be a lonely place to end up.
Especially when you’re back in school the next morning doing it all again.
How much room is teaching taking up?
Maybe this really is just a tiring first week.
Or maybe you’ve noticed that teaching has started taking up more room than you want it to again.
You’re thinking about lessons when you’re supposed to be watching television.
You’re replaying conversations on the way home.
You’re technically not at work, but part of your head still is.
If you’re not quite sure what has been going on for you, I’ve made a short private check-in for teachers.
It isn’t a diagnosis and there’s no right or wrong result.
It’s simply a chance to notice how much room teaching is taking up at the moment.
When “I’ve had a hard week” becomes “I’m not good enough”
This is also where some of the things I’ve written about before can start to show up.
That feeling that you should have done more.
That somebody else would have coped better.
That no matter how much you do, it never quite feels enough.
Read: Why Do I Never Feel Like I’ve Done Enough as a Teacher? →
And if you want somewhere to talk about it
Therapy cannot make your timetable smaller.
It cannot change difficult behaviour or remove everything your school expects from you.
But it can give you somewhere to talk about the bits that follow you home.
The lesson you keep replaying.
The comparison with everyone else.
The pressure you put on yourself.
The thought that keeps turning up:
“Maybe I’m the problem.”
I work with teachers online and in person, and you do not need to have worked out exactly what is going on before getting in touch.
For now, maybe just notice what happens after a hard day.
Does it stay as:
“That was hard.”
Or does it start to become something about you?