Book Review: Unstressable

To misquote former Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, “Teachers, you’ve never had it so bad!”

The annual Teacher Wellbeing Index provides an insight into the wellbeing of teachers and education staff working in the UK. For the past seven years, data shows that education professionals have poorer wellbeing than the general population. Now, the latest report (November 2025) shows that teacher wellbeing has hit a crisis point – with overall wellbeing at its lowest level since it was first recorded. 

Digging deeper, the figures make for pretty stark reading;

• 36% at risk of probable clinical depression.
• 76% report feeling stressed.
• 77% experience symptoms of poor mental health due to work. In particular, the most common symptoms include insomnia (50%), mood swings (45%) and difficulty concentrating (41%).

What’s worse is that the prevalence of these worrying mental health symptoms have risen by 10% in the past year alone.

Similar findings were reported in the government-funded research on the ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders’, published in the same month. Stress and high workload are highlighted as the most common reasons for individuals who are considering leaving teaching (both standing at 89%), while pupil behaviour and dealing with parents/carers showed the biggest increase in the last four years of research (each increasing by 14%).

I’m sure those increases are of no surprise to anyone. Currently, teachers and leaders feel under attack from every angle. It’s no wonder that this pressure is taking a toll on their mental health. 

But all is not lost. Teachers tend to be a remarkably resilient bunch – practical, solution-focused, optimistic, and above all, dedicated to the children in our care.

As always, entering the new year provides us with an opportunity to reflect and refresh. For many teachers, that means setting resolutions to achieve a better work-life balance and look after our health – particularly our mental health. 

Maybe you’ve promised you’re not going to spend your weekends trying to tick off every job from your to-do list, or you’re not going to let THAT unreasonably angry parent get to you – and you definitely aren’t going to take the worries of work home anymore.

Against the backdrop of these damning reports and desire for change, I want to share a book that I have found particularly useful in helping me manage my own stress levels and overall wellbeing: Unstressable by Mo Gawdat and Alice Law, a book billed as a ‘practical guide to stress-free living’.

Book Review: Unstressable

The central message is that stress is not caused by events themselves, but by how our brains interpret those events. Since this is learnable, stress can be dramatically reduced – or even eliminated – through understanding, reframing and practice.

As the former chief business officer at Google, co-author Gawdat views stress as a solvable engineering problem, not an unavoidable part of modern life.

The first step in learning these skills is to actually better understand the stress response. In simple terms, the brain is designed to protect, not to make you happy. The wiring of the brain means that you exaggerate threats, over-focus on negative possibilities and replay worst-case scenarios. The authors label these as the ‘endless cycle of stressful thoughts’. This is ideal if you’re living in a pre-historic cave surrounded by wild animals, less perfect if you live in the modern world. 

There are the ‘flashbacks,’ which refers to the brain replaying what happened and what you think you should have done. Then, there are ‘flash forwards,’ which means pondering what you should do and, most damagingly, creating an endless series of what-if narratives, none of them with a happy ending.

In Unstressable, the authors introduce the ‘Three Anchors of Sanity’ as mental reference points you can return to whenever you get stuck in the endless cycle of stressful thoughts that pulls you towards anxiety, overwhelm, or panic.

• Is it true?
• What can I do to fix it?
• Can I accept it and do something to make life better despite its presence?

The first question anchors you to reality, instead of imagined futures or replayed pasts.

I have had several conversations with teachers and leaders over the past year where they worried that a certain event would result in them losing their jobs. In no circumstance was this ever remotely close to becoming true. Perhaps stopping to ask the ‘is it true?’ question would have helped to stop spiralling into the endless cycle of negative thoughts.

The second anchor is about taking charge. By considering what can be done to fix a situation, you learn how to accept what you can’t control and act on what you can. As a result, the fog of stress is more likely to be replaced with clarity and focus. This is similar to the Circle of Control in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or the ‘Let Them Theory’ proposed by Mel Robbins.

The final anchor relates to the age-old premise of what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Stress often arises from a single underlying thought: “I can’t handle this.” On the other hand, calm comes from the acceptance that you have been here before (or if you haven’t, someone else has). And you lived to tell the tale. This anchor is the deep trust that you are more capable than your anxious mind believes.

Taken together, the three anchors help to stabilise your mind, turning stress from an emotional storm into a solvable problem.

As school staff, you’re likely to be juggling multiple different tasks and demands at once. But whatever situation you find yourself in, remember that the event is not the stress. Stress comes out of the story we tell ourselves about those events. Therefore, changing the story changes the stress.

Or as a wise colleague once told me, “Deal with the situation, not the emotion.”

About the author

Jason Hughes is in his 10th year of headship. He is currently headteacher at St Margaret Ward Catholic Primary School in Sale, having previously been part of senior leadership teams as deputy and assistant head at schools in Manchester and Salford. At the moment, he is also studying for a leadership coaching diploma. In his spare time, he enjoys running, listening to podcasts and heading up into the hills of the Peak District. Before starting in teaching 20 years ago, he worked as a journalist, writing for various local and national media organisations.  

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