Winter break offers more than a pause from lesson plans and deadlines. It is a chance to truly rest and restore, not by adding more “self-care” to our to-do lists, but by rethinking how we support ourselves in sustainable ways. I am intentionally trying to move past the buzzwords and focus on practices that can live alongside the realities of teaching and education. These are habits that become automatic responses to stress, overload, and the everyday chaos of this work.

These weeks matter. How we rest now shapes how we return, how we listen, respond, create, and care in the months ahead. Pouring into ourselves is not selfish; it is necessary. Our health, energy, and well-being ripple outward into the spaces and people we serve.

So, how will you spend your winter break?

Below you will find 115+ ideas for gentle, realistic self-care, organized into mental, physical, practical, social, writing-focused, and teacher-specific categories. I have also included a section at the end just for fellow mamas who are navigating rest alongside caregiving.

As we all return to school this fall, the buzzwords of “social-emotional learning,” “SEL,” and “mindfulness” are swirling around faster than Starbucks is serving up Pumpkin Spice Lattes. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning otherwise known as CASEL is one of the main research institutes regarding SEL work for PreK-12 education. If you are unfamiliar with social-emotional learning, their website provides a great resource and graphic with the topic introduction including information on the competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. CASEL also offers an interactive online Guide to Schoolwide SEL that has more information. My district rolled out their plan for options to return to learning, and both options include a day dedicated to SEL lessons and learning. The district helped form a pacing guide, but I wanted to reach into my own teacher toolbox for some of the strategies and tools that I use to address social-emotional learning in my classroom. The main resource for SEL is the power of the read-aloud. I have written before on the blog about the power of the book talk, and the read-aloud stands right next to the book talk as a powerful tool to use in any classroom from elementary through high school. This post contains 12 book recommendations for read-alouds, some classroom routines to consider including my own goals with my own SEL work, and some links to further reading. My game plan is to use the power of the read-aloud to begin each social-emotional learning session.

This post outlines the emergency response to helping you calm your teacher brain. This is what worked for me in a big moment like this example, and also in small moments when I feel like everything is piling up. Both types of moments can call for a teacher to scream, “TIME OUT,” and take a moment to breathe. This isn’t the first time I have written about teacher stress, but I wanted to share what worked for me when I was having a particularly difficult time dealing with the amount of stress.