Stress Expressed with Steve Carr

The value to mental health of simply sharing our thoughts

The value of talking circles for teachers cannot be overestimated. Teachers need to be able to think clearly. They deal in transferring knowledge from their minds into the minds of those they teach. More importantly, they do this most successfully when they navigate the maelstrom of emotions they encounter in every classroom and create connected relationships with pupils. These relationships need to be as free as they can be from any negative debris.

Talking about our challenges and verbalising our feelings to friends has been a source of relief for centuries.

Studies show that simply talking about our problems and sharing our negative emotions with people we trust can profoundly reduce stress, and strengthen our immune system. (Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988). We can also experience a healing effect by simply noting and labelling our emotions (sad, angry, confused, ashamed, scared). By naming our more negative feelings, we can watch them fade from our minds. We can become more mindful, centred, and at peace (Lieberman et al, 2007).

Neuroscience studies by Lieberman et. al. (2007) and Vago and Silbersweig (2012) have found that labelling our feelings reduces activation in the amygdala, our brain’s alarm system that triggers the fight-or-flight reaction.

When we give words to our emotions, we move away from limbic reactivity by activating those parts of the brain that deal with language and meaning in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Lieberman et al, 2007).

We become less reactive, more mindfully aware and more able to think clearly.