Managing Burnout: Strategies for Sustainable Yoga Teaching

Feeling burnt out as a yoga teacher? You’re not alone. Teaching yoga is rewarding, but it can also be draining if we don’t care for ourselves. In this episode, I explore what burnout looks like, where it comes from, and, most importantly, how to manage it so you can find joy in teaching again.

Chapters:

1.[00:00:00] Introduction to Burnout

I explain why burnout is common among yoga teachers and how to identify its signs.

2.[00:00:33] Burnout vs. Nerves

Learn how to differentiate between healthy pre-class jitters and true burnout.

3.[00:02:03] What Stress and Rest Teach Us

Lessons from exercise physiology about balancing effort and recovery and how this applies to your teaching.

4.[00:05:56] Tips for Managing Burnout

Discover practical strategies for self-care, building consistency, and setting boundaries in your schedule.

5.[00:07:26] Structuring Your Teaching Schedule

Smart scheduling and optimizing your classes can help prevent burnout.

6.[00:11:03] Streamlining Systems for Longevity

Learn how simplifying your teaching process can help preserve energy and keep you inspired.

7.[00:18:13] Affirmation: I Refill My Well

Use this affirmation to remind yourself of the importance of self-care and balance.

👉 Ready to reclaim your energy and joy in teaching? Check out my books and mentorship program to support your teaching journey:

• The Art of Yoga Sequencing

• The Workshop Workbook

• The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery

• Mastering The Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

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Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Explore my continuing education workshops and 300/500-hour teacher training programs. It's all at sagerountree.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Burnout
• 0:33 Burnout vs. Nerves
• 2:03 Exercise Physiology and Burnout
• 5:56 Recognizing Burnout Signs
• 7:26 Tips for Managing Burnout
• 11:03 Structuring Your Schedule
• 13:53 Streamlining Systems to Avoid Burnout
• 18:13 Affirmation: I Refill My Well

Transcript

0:00

Can I tell you something? Teaching yoga can be a grind. If you're feeling burnt out, this is the episode for you. You're not serving your students at your best when you're feeling exhausted or overwhelmed or unexcited to be there for them. Yoga teacher burnout is real. In this episode, we'll explore what it is, what it looks like, where it comes from, and what we can do about it. I'm Sage Rountree. And this is Yoga Teacher Confidential: The Secrets of Becoming a Really Great Yoga Teacher. I've been teaching yoga for over two decades now. And while I'm always glad to have taught a class. There are days when I really need to get myself psyched up to go and lead the class. As you may have heard if you listen to episode 11, I have come to realize that this is an expression of my nerves for teaching class. But if I were to look back and see that there was a string of weeks, three, four, or five weeks, or even months, two or three months where I universally had this feeling and had to really work to overcome it, I would qualify that as a sensation of burnout. We each have an individual threshold and individual number of classes that we can teach an individual number of students that we can serve over the course of a day or a week after which we reach the point of burnout. Now what that threshold is, is completely dependent on you. It depends on your energy levels. It depends on your life circumstances. It depends on the modality of yoga that you are teaching. Is it something that requires some physical demonstration or being in a warm or hot room, or is it something that you do seated, uh, or walking around the room without much energy expenditure. All of this is going to be completely dependent on you. And while you have this individual threshold, you can occasionally transgress it, but not for very long. This brings us to some concepts from exercise physiology I would like to explore because they apply to us in a variety of circumstances. Now, training in sports training for sports is a combination of the proper application of stress in a dosage that encourages your body to adapt and grow combined with the proper adaptation of rest, which allows your body the time to do that adaptation and undergo that growth. This is something I explore in great depth in my book, The Athlete's Guide to Recovery, which is now out in a second edition. Let's take some of the ideas about adaptation and this stress rest balance, which I hope sounds to you a lot like the sthira/sukha balance we discover and explore in a yoga practice, and see how it might help you manage any sensation of yoga teacher burnout. As I learned as an endurance athlete and an endurance sports coach, the only real way to know where an individual's threshold line is, where we're running too many miles in a week where we're swimming too many yards or meters in a week where we're teaching too many yoga classes in a week is to mess up and cross that line. If you are interested in achieving your maximum output, whether it's in training for a race and being as fast as you can be, or in teaching as many classes as you can, and helping as many students as you can, the only way you're going to get out that last little iota of effort of expenditure is to come so close to your line. That occasionally you cross it. Now in sports, when you cross it, you can bring yourself into a well of fatigue or you can create an injury, either an acute injury or an overuse injury. The equivalent here in your yoga teaching career is that you hit this state of burnout. You lose interest in your teaching. You have to really work to bring yourself into the classroom. So let's recognize that the only place we're going to know exactly where that threshold is, is by pushing across it, and then we know. So it, this, that's the silver lining of finding where that line is, is that now we know, oh, leading 15 classes in a week is too many. You're also capable of occasionally going toward, or even beyond your threshold. This is something that we work in sports training. When we go into, say, training camp, there's a period where we're doing a whole lot of heavy work. In order to create huge adaptations in our bodies. The term we use for that is over reaching. Uh, sports training is about reaching then these heavy adaptation periods, the training camp is a a period of overreaching. But we don't do that for more than a long weekend or a week, maybe two at the most. Because when we work too hard for too long, without adequate application of rest, then we bring ourselves into a far more serious circumstance that we call over training. And vis-a-vis teaching yoga and your yoga career, that's what we would call yoga teacher burnout. It's the difference between an acute period of doing a lot and a chronic period of doing too much. Overreaching. And over-training. It can be easier to bounce back from overreaching and it can take quite a long time to bounce back from over-training. So to avoid going from one into the other, you need to pay extra attention to yourself, know what your triggers are, know what the signs of you being over committed and burnt out, look like what they feel like, how they manifest in your life. And when you first see the signs of them, pull back and make tweaks. As I explained in episode 11 of this season, for me, the actual nerves that show up for me before class can feel a little bit like burnout. But as soon as class starts, they go away. That's one way that I have learned to read my body and my mind to know that any effort I need to put in to get myself up in front of the classroom and rolling, to serve my students quickly, evaporates when I teach that's how I recognize that it's simply nerves and not a period of burnout for me. Pay close attention to your own circumstances, make notes in a journal. If you keep a teaching journal, or if you keep notes after class, which is something I highly recommend you do notes on who was there, what was the sequence, what you taught and how it landed and what you might tweak for next time, you might add a line including how you felt before, during and after the class. If you teach the class and you never felt that good sense of arousal, that positive engagement, the flow state that we're looking for when our ability and the task at hand are perfectly matched, then that might be a sign that you're somewhat in over your head, that you're out of your depth and that some tweaks may need to be made. Hopefully, this is something that you catch when you're simply in the acute phase of burnout, when it is a short-term problem and short-term problems can have short-term solutions. When you're talking about burnout. Here are my best tips for managing burnout. A stitch in time saves nine. If you are feeling overwhelmed, frazzled, unexcited to show up and teach your class, get a sub. Get a sub to come and teach your class, do something self-indulgent in a positive way. Some self care. I get a massage, spend the afternoon, curled up with a book and a cup of tea in front of the fireplace, whatever it takes to let yourself feel nourished and cared for. That is going to ultimately help your students better than you showing up feeling unexcited, to teach feeling uninspired. Because that energy that you carry into the classroom, then transmits directly to them. When you're in an acute phase of yoga teacher burnout, it might make sense to lean away from yoga. If only for a day or a week, give yourself some yoga free days, do not put on your yoga clothes in that day. Do not engage in your own physical practice in that day. Do not look at social media. If your feed is full of images of yoga. Lean out in a way. And instead, see if you can find some other practices that nourish you and make you feel cared for and supported. Alternatively an acute phase of burnout might be the time for you to lean into your yoga practice as a student. Sometimes the problem is that you have been putting out too much in the yoga equation and not taking in enough as a student. It can be a lot of work to be a teacher. We give a lot of energy to our students and you need to make sure that you're not simply pouring out, but you're also receiving in. Go to your favorite class study with your favorite teacher or watch a new video, go to a new class. Find a new modality that will help you feel excited about the practice again. But what if you feel like your burnout has gotten more extreme and that you're now in the quality of chronic overextension of what in endurance sports we'd call overtraining. This can be a very serious condition that can end athletes careers, and I don't want it to end your yoga teaching career. So when you find yourself really in a long-term rut vis-a-vis or yoga teaching, it is time to pull. Back even more than getting a sub for a day or taking a day without thinking about yoga in these circumstances, depending on your situation, it could be really useful to go ahead and take a yoga teaching sabbatical that might mean that you take a month or more off, maybe three months, maybe even six months. Of course, this all depends on the scheduling at the studio or the gym where you teach. But remember you're not helping your students. If you're showing up. Um, feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and not at your best. If this is not feasible for you, it then it's time to make some adjustments to your schedule. Number one you may want to think about changing the class format. Is the classes you've been teaching have been physically demanding for you for some reason, because they require a lot of demonstration or they're putting you in a hot room. It might be time for you to have a discussion with your manager or with yourself. If you're booking your own classes. About how you could change modality to something that's more sustainable for you in the longterm. It may be that you've got a whole new wonderful student population just waiting for you to offer gentle yoga or restorative yoga, or one of these softer comfort styles of yoga once you've got the format dialed in. I suggest that when you think about your yoga teaching schedule, you're thinking in terms of stacks, And prongs. A stack means a day in which you are putting on your yoga clothes to teach a class. You are also doing another yoga related activity, either teaching two classes or maybe even three classes or teaching a class and also taking a class. That's the beautiful order to do them in, but if you need to take a class first and teach your class second, that works too. This saves your energy and ensures that you are not on a terminal lake, that you have a fresh wellspring of new ideas and studenthood, that will then feed directly into your practice and onto your students. And it makes your laundry load so much easier because any day when you were putting on yoga clothes, you're using them for more than an hour at a time. It can also cut down on your commute time. If you're traveling distances to teach or take a class, this is one way you can preserve your energy. Prongs. I mean that you're teaching similar styles on non-consecutive days so that you're not diluting your student base. So if you're teaching a class on Monday, don't teach a similar class in the same style around the same time on Tuesday. If you can help it instead, look for a Monday, Wednesday prong or Monday, Wednesday, Friday prong, or a Monday and Thursday prong. That means that your students can repeat. Remember students love consistency and your students love you. They would love to see the same sequence in a slightly different permutation across the course of the week and across the course of the month. So you'll be able to increase your repeat student retention. And you'll be able to give yourself that downtime, that a prong confers on you. So you're not teaching back to back days, but instead giving yourself time in between. If you are not teaching live classes, but are instead recording classes for your students to enjoy on demand. See whether you might also stack your recordings to the point where you are able to fit in several at once, but you haven't crossed that threshold of too many recordings to do in a day. I know, personally, when I go down to my studio to record, I have to really psych myself up to do my hair, to do my makeup, to set up the lights, to set up the camera and then perform for the camera, which is what this kind of filming is. It takes a whole lot of mental energy. So I would rather knock out a whole bunch at once and then have a massage the next day or a warm bath later that day, then have to get all of that excitement in place day after day after day, It also saves me in set up and break down time. Once you figured out the best schedule to help you manage and avoid future burnout. Then we need to check your systems. What are you spending your time on in yoga class planning in transit time and set up time and where can we create more efficiency? Where could you reduce redundancy and streamline these systems? I imagine you are probably still, unless you have dutifully listened to every episode of this podcast and been following my advice all season, you're probably spending too much time planning your lessons. We get into this trap as yoga teachers of trying to entertain ourselves or trying to prove ourselves to our own selves by making things new and exciting week in and week out. But that's not how you help your students best your students will grow best when you offer them consistency week in and week out. See whether you couldn't just repeat the same sequence next week and the week after, and the week after with only minor variations and tweaks that saves your mental load, it saves your planning time and it fast tracks your students' progress. It gets them the results of yoga feeling better, connected, better balanced. And learning these shapes and these movements and these breath techniques and these mindfulness tools. Comes with repetition. It doesn't come with an exciting new sequence every time it's exhausting for you and it's exhausting for them. So going with more consistency week to week is a great way to fend off burnout as well as to enhance your students' practice considerably. By the way, if you are looking to create consistency across your classes, you should pick up my book, The Art of Yoga Sequencing, which gives you a whole host of recipes and consider joining the wait list for my forthcoming mentorship membership. It's called Mastering The Art of Yoga Sequencing of reference to the Julia child book, mastering the art of French cooking in that program. I will give you all the recipes and help you with the techniques that will make you a really. Great yoga teacher will make you into almost everyone's favorite yoga teacher would pack your classes up with students who are hungry for more. You can read more about that at the link in the show notes. So consistency in your recipes, consistency in your lesson plans helps your students and it helps you. Another area to check your systems is in the amount that you are giving to your students before and after class. Do you have proper boundaries? Are you sticking around and hearing your students woes after class? Are you sharing too much with your own students before class? Either one of these makes a leaky container of energy. That doesn't serve you, ultimately. Upholding strong boundaries, being friendly with your students while not being friends with your students will help you maintain your energy across the course of your career. Again, that also serves your students at the same time as it serves you. As you're thinking about your systems and the class format that you're teaching, maybe it's time to focus more on workshops and less on the hustle and grind of the weekly class. Four lots on building a workshop on why it can fast track your career and how it can level up your confidence in huge ways. Listen to episode 10 of this podcast.

But know this: 17:27

workshops give you the time and space to focus just on the things that really light you up most. They allow you to teach from exactly what you know, so you can show up with confidence and help your students solve problems with yoga. Maybe it's time to avoid burnout by focusing on the very students and the very problems that you can connect and help resolve. My wish for you is that once you have found where your threshold is, where the number of classes you can teach in a week where the number of yoga related things that you're doing in a week is nourishing and healthy for you and it's at least one or two steps back from that edge so that your career as a yoga teacher can be sustainable for decades to come. Here's an affirmation to help you with this. I can't pour from an empty cup. I refill my well. I can't pour from an empty cup. I refill my well. I hope this is helpful for you. I hope that it winds up avoiding a problem that was to come in your future and alleviates the suffering that is to come for you. Please let me know how it lands. You can find me on the socials at Sage Rountree with no letter D or at my website, sagerountree.com. Do check the show notes for information on my upcoming mentorship membership, mastering The Art of Yoga Sequencing. To get a link to my book, The Art of Yoga Sequencing, and to get a link to my Workshop Workbook, which is a planner that helps you create wonderful workshops that help your students and help you avoid burnout. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential. I'm Sage Rountree. I'll see you next time.