The Erasmus+ Course ‘Stress Management and Burn Out’ immediately attracted our attention. We applied for it and got accepted. That is how immediately after the closure of the last scholastic year, in July 2024, we found ourselves in the beautiful city of Split, in Croatia on this very interesting, meaningful and exciting experience.  We are two teachers from Immaculate Conception School, Katya Maria Zammit and Stefania Abela.

It was a great opportunity to meet various participants from different countries including Spain, Hungary, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy and Romania. Throughout this week we had the opportunity to experience diverse cultures and ideas and we had time to integrate with various groups of colleagues while carrying out a variety of activities.

The course started off with a welcome event where all participants introduced themselves and shared traditional cuisine. In the following days, we had a mixture of indoor lectures and outdoor sessions.

The indoor lectures started with an introductory session where teachers shared the most common causes of stress which are afflicting the teaching profession. We realized that most stressors are similar irrespective of the country.

One indoor session focused on the importance of developing emotional intelligence, a skill which we need to become more aware of in present times. We realized that what causes stress is the need to control everything around us.  Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, manage and use our emotions effectively. This requires us to learn how to say no in certain situations and to develop our own individual way of distressing, such as meditation, having a hobby, interacting with pets or practicing a sport. It also involves living in the present moment and learning to reduce our stress by dealing with what we can control and accepting that other factors are not in our control. These concepts were brought up again during one outdoor session called ‘Mindfulness in nature’ which took place on Bene Beach, one of Split’s picturesque beaches.

Another very interesting session was ‘Controlling stress using Mindfulness and Yoga practice’, whereby we did breathing and relaxation exercises, muscle contraction, visualization, double breathing and hyper ventilation. The aim of these is to reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep quality, enhance overall wellbeing and aid in emotional healing and clarity. We applied all the above in a Hatha Yoga session by a river in the authentic ambiance of an old mill. We ended this session with a dip in the ice-cold flowing water.

The main outcomes of the course were that to manage stress and avoid burnout we need to:

• learn to be aware of and live in the present moment;
• accept all our emotions and learn to observe them in an objective manner;
• learn to respond not react because reaction is impulsive and based on our past experiences and fears while response is thoughtful and deliberate action.

Our Erasmus+ experience was stimulating and thought provoking and we recommend others to embark on this learning journey.

Ms Katya Maria Zammit and Ms Stefania Abela