No one doubts that teaching is stressful. The workload is intense, the emotional demands are high, and many teachers feel underpaid, undervalued, and constantly judged. It’s no surprise that burnout is rising and that some consider leaving the profession altogether.
But teacher stress isn’t just a teacher problem. It reaches students, too.
Stress can spread through a classroom like a ripple. When teachers feel overwhelmed, students often feel it in the tone of the room, the pace of lessons, and the way conflicts are handled. And because student stress affects learning, this has real consequences for academic growth and emotional well-being.
Students learn—and thrive—best in classrooms that feel emotionally warm, safe, and organized. Research has consistently shown that positive emotional classroom climates are linked to better academic outcomes.
So, what can help?
A new study suggests that supporting teachers with mindfulness training may be a powerful piece of the answer.
Why Teacher Stress Matters for Students
Teaching isn’t a job you can step away from in the middle of a tough moment.
As lead researcher Patricia Jennings puts it, if you’re a teacher, you can’t walk out when things get overwhelming—and if you’re a student, you can’t walk out either. Everyone is in the room together, navigating a lot of pressure in real time.
When teachers feel:
- Rushed and overloaded
- Emotionally exhausted
- Reactive rather than grounded
students often:
- Sense that tension
- Feel more anxious or unsettled themselves
- Have more difficulty focusing and learning
A calmer, more emotionally balanced teacher doesn’t just feel better personally. They help create a classroom climate that’s more open, curious, and ready to learn.
How On-the-Job Mindfulness Supports Teachers
A large study from the University of Virginia looked at whether mindfulness-based training could help teachers cope better with job stress—and whether any changes would show up in the classroom.
Here’s what they did:
- Participants: 224 teachers from 36 urban elementary schools in New York City
- Student population: Primarily low-income, high-risk students
- Program: Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE)
- Format: About 30 hours of training spread over four months
The CARE program focused on:
- Mindful awareness
- Stress reduction
- Emotional skills
Importantly, the program was designed primarily for teacher wellness—not as a direct teaching-skills workshop.
Before and after the training, teachers:
- Reported on their well-being, mindfulness, confidence in their teaching, and physical and psychological health
- Were observed in the classroom by independent raters who didn’t know which teachers had received the training
This allowed researchers to see whether shifts in teachers’ inner lives showed up in their outer behavior and classroom environment.
What Changed for Teachers
The results were encouraging.
Teachers who received CARE training showed:
- Increased mindfulness
They became more aware of their thoughts, feelings, and reactions in the moment. - Better emotion regulation
They felt more able to manage anger and other difficult emotions without being overwhelmed. - Lower psychological distress
Their overall levels of stress and emotional strain decreased. - Less “time urgency”
They felt less of that constant “rush” or pressure that can make every moment feel like an emergency.
In other words, mindfulness training helped teachers feel more balanced, present, and resourced in the middle of a very demanding job.
Happier, Calmer Classrooms
What may be even more striking is how these changes played out in the classroom.
Observers noticed that teachers who’d been through CARE:
- Smiled more
- Asked more questions and stayed genuinely curious about students
- Responded to misbehavior with curiosity rather than immediate punishment
- Took deep breaths and slowed down when annoyed instead of snapping or yelling
As Patricia Jennings notes, teachers after CARE were more likely to “take things less personally.” That shift alone can transform the tone of a classroom.
Researchers also found:
- A more positive emotional climate in CARE classrooms
- Better classroom organization, with smoother routines and transitions
These are conditions in which students are more likely to feel safe, engaged, and ready to learn.
Why Training Teachers (Not Just Students) Matters
One of the most powerful aspects of this study is that the intervention focused entirely on teachers.
The program:
- Did not directly train students in mindfulness
- Did not add SEL or mindfulness lessons into the student schedule
And yet, students still benefited through the teachers’ presence, behavior, and classroom tone.
As Jennings points out, while many schools would love for students to learn mindfulness, carving out class time for separate lessons is often difficult. Supporting teachers’ inner lives can be a more practical—and deeply impactful—entry point.
When teachers are better able to:
- Notice their own emotional triggers
- Pause before reacting
- Choose responses aligned with their values
everyone in the room feels the difference.
Looking Ahead: Mindfulness, Bias, and Better Support for Teachers
Jennings’s study is the largest to date examining how mindfulness training affects both teacher well-being and classroom climate. It adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that mindfulness doesn’t just lower stress—it also improves relationships and interactions, which are at the heart of learning.
Future research directions include:
- Expanding access to teacher-focused mindfulness training in schools
- Combining programs like CARE with student-focused mindfulness or social-emotional learning
- Exploring whether mindfulness can help reduce implicit bias and other barriers to effective, equitable teaching
At the center of all this is a simple but important message:
Teachers need support—not criticism.
If we want thriving schools, we need to care deeply about teacher well-being. As Jennings warns, if we don’t turn a corner in how we support teachers, we may face a future where there simply aren’t enough people able—or willing—to do this vital work.
When we invest in teachers’ inner lives, students feel the benefits every single day:
in calmer classrooms, kinder interactions, and learning environments that honor both hearts and minds.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners.
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