Eat well, keep fit and learn to relax

Auckland teacher Emerson (37) is disciplined in making sure he keeps to his lifestyle routines, letting himself unwind and enjoying the important things in life

“Kia ora, teaching 9 and 10-year-old children is a busy job and I like to do my best at school as well as lead a healthy lifestyle. Here’s how I try to do it.

I arrive at work around 7:45am and am continually moving between my classroom, the resource room and various other school buildings to teach the children and do my planning. My workday can finish around 5pm after syndicate and staff meetings.

I like routine and to be organised - before I leave home, I have breakfast with my fiancée, watch the TV news and talk about what we need to organise for the day and events on our calendar. It’s a good time to relax together before our busy day begins - my fiancée works hard in a marketing role, so we make sure we spend quality time together to start the day of well.

I like nutritious food - my breakfast consists of wheat and high fibre bread toasted, cereal, fruit and stovetop coffee. It’s a good combination that gives me energy and doesn’t weigh me down. I have a couple of breaks during the day for morning interval and lunch. These are used for dealing with school related tasks, so very rarely do I get a chance to stop and unwind, so it’s important to have plenty of fruit, water and light healthy foods during these times to keep me going.

A healthy diet (with low amounts of fats and oils and sugars) and a good sleep routine is really important for my busy lifestyle. I strive to keep on top of things all of the time, not just occasionally, so that when stress strikes, I can cope. Sometimes everything can just build up, eg, class planning, administration, assessment and evaluations, and all this is on top of personal management things, like banking, paying bills and household chores.

Exercise is good for relaxation

Exercising helps me relax – I play tennis one night a week for two hours, I also run for at least 45 minutes every 4 to 5 days. During the run, I do sets of press ups and sit ups, which isn’t as strenuous as when I played rugby full time in the UK! But it’s okay for a man my age.

Sometimes life events prevent me from keeping up my routines. I’m due to get married soon, and the wedding has become my priority over more exercise. Afterwards we’ll get back into regular exercise; we also mountain bike for 50 minutes once a week, which is good fun.

Music and dance also helps me - I run a Maori cultural group for the children, where we sing and perform action songs and I play the guitar. At my age and stage, I feel I achieve a good balance - and you can too!"