Helping Teachers Find Their Flow State

Teacher Stress

Research into the state of teacher wellbeing in the UK makes for grim reading. According to the Teacher Wellbeing Index 2024, 78% of school teachers and 84% of school leaders described themselves as being stressed as work, which is having a negative impact on recruitment and retention in the profession. Department for Education research (2020) suggests that around one third of teachers leave the profession within their first five years, and over the past ten years the government’s recruitment target for secondary school teachers has never been met.

In my work as an educational psychologist, and as a former secondary school teacher, I have experienced first-hand the impact of low levels of teacher wellbeing on both individuals and schools. It would be easy to list the wide range of workplace stressors that contribute to low wellbeing, and to explain why teachers are stressed—this is an area with a substantial body of research. However, what is less well explored is how to promote good teacher wellbeing.

Exploring the factors associated with positive teacher wellbeing was the focus of my recent doctoral research as good teacher wellbeing is associated with positive benefits for both individual teachers and the students they teach. The lens I used was Positive Psychology, an approach that seeks to understand and promote the factors that support human flourishing, rather than focusing solely on the causes of stress.

The Optimal Psychological State of Flow

Have you ever had a moment when you became so absorbed in an activity that you lost track of time, forgot about everything else, and made strong progress without effort feeling forced? If so, it is likely that you were experiencing flow.

Flow is an optimal psychological state characterised by intense concentration, enjoyment, a sense of control, absorption, and a distortion of time. People often describe entering flow state when playing music, gardening, engaging in sport, or knitting—typically during leisure or hobby activities.

However, flow is not limited to hobbies. People can also experience flow at work, and teaching has been suggested as a profession that is particularly well suited to it. This is because teaching naturally aligns with the three key preconditions for flow:

• An optimal level of challenge (the ‘Goldilocks zone’ where tasks are neither too easy so they create boredom nor so difficult that they cause anxiety)
• Clear goals, which are present in well-planned lessons
• Immediate feedback, such as that gained through formative assessment and responsive teaching in the classroom.

What’s This Got to Do With Wellbeing?

Flow state is beneficial for wellbeing for three main reasons:

• First, the flow state is inherently enjoyable, contributing to an individual’s experience of happiness.
• Second, flow is associated with optimal performance, allowing individuals to experience a sense of competence and fulfilment.
• Third, the intense concentration involved in flow reduces self-focused attention and external distraction, both of which are closely linked to stress and anxiety.

Importantly, flow state is a particularly useful construct in education because it not only supports positive teacher wellbeing, but is also associated with high-quality teaching that benefits students.

How Can Schools Enable Teachers to Find Their Flow?

My doctoral research explored teachers’ perceptions of the factors that facilitate flow in teaching and identified a number of practical implications for school leaders.

1. Give Teachers the Freedom to Teach

Establish a clear “Do not disturb – I’m teaching” culture. Protecting the classroom environment allows teachers to focus fully on teaching without interruptions or distractions that can disrupt flow state. While many schools have out-of-hours email policies, messages and administrative requests sent during lesson time can still impact teachers’ attention and pull focus away from students and learning.

2. Teach Teachers About Flow (and How to Get Students There Too)

Understanding what flow is, and how it is achieved, is an important first step. Teachers in my research described entering flow more readily when students were also deeply engaged. Factors such as strong teacher-student relationships and lessons pitched at an optimal level of challenge were seen as particularly helpful in enabling students—and therefore teachers—to enter the flow zone.

3. Support Teachers to Find Their Optimal Level of Challenge

Teachers at different career stages require different challenges in order to reach the ‘Goldilocks zone’. My research suggested that when teachers feel both confident and competent with the classes they teach, they are more likely to experience flow state.

Early Career Teachers (ECTs) may benefit from carefully scaffolded challenges, while more experienced teachers may require new or varied demands to remain optimally engaged. In some schools, ECTs have limited opportunities to teach exam classes, despite many teachers reporting that these lessons are particularly conducive to flow due to clear goals and structured feedback.

4. Help Teachers Reconnect With Their Purpose

Feeling connected to personal reasons for entering the profession was found to support teachers’ experience of flow. However, amid targets, accountability pressures, and competing demands, this sense of purpose can easily be lost.

Building time into CPD for reflective practice—focused on values and motivations—can help teachers reconnect with their purpose and positively impact wellbeing.

5. Encourage the Development of Positive Teacher–Student Relationships

A key finding was the vital role that strong, positive relationships play in creating classroom conditions that enable flow. Investing time early on to get to know students as individuals supports long-term engagement and helps establish an environment where flow state is more likely to occur.

6. Promote Autonomy and Enjoyment

Give teachers professional autonomy over how they teach and encourage flexibility in responding to the moment. Creating space for teachers to enjoy the craft of teaching and immerse themselves fully in lessons supports both flow and wellbeing. Overly rigid constraints—such as strict adherence to highly detailed lesson plans—can inhibit autonomy and enjoyment.

7. Encourage Adaptive Teaching Strategies

Adaptive teaching was viewed as essential for enabling teachers to respond to real-time feedback during lessons. These strategies can be deliberately built into planning. Teachers highlighted tools such as hinge questions as particularly effective in supporting rapid, responsive decision-making that sustains flow

If you would like further information, our Educational Psychology Team can advise senior leadership teams, special needs coordinators and teaching staff on how to promote positive mental health in your school.