It’s not uncommon for teachers to experience what Ellen Moir, founder of the New Teacher Center, calls a “disillusionment phase” shortly after the start of the school year. Other educators call this phenomenon by a different name — the “October Blues.”

The October Blues affect teachers who find themselves in an emotional trough only a few weeks after the excitement of the new school year wears off. When they do catch a case of the October Blues, they often find it hard to focus and their energy saps.

The October Blues are particularly hard on first-year teachers, says Mike Anderson, author of “Rekindle Your Professional Fire: Powerful Habits for Becoming a More Well-Balanced Teacher.” Many new teachers have never heard of the October Blues and are ill-prepared to cope with this dip in enthusiasm. Unexpected bumps in the road like the October Blues are partly why teachers are 2.5 times more likely to quit after their first year.

An educational consultant and former teacher and swim coach, Mike Anderson has seen teachers grapple with the October Blues many times over the course of his career. He also experienced a bout of the October Blues  himself.

EdSurge spoke with Anderson about the October Blues and how teachers and administrators can keep them at bay.

EdSurge: How would you define the “October Blues”? Is there an actual definition or research?

Mike Anderson: If you talk to any [veteran] teacher, they’ll tell you there’s a predictable slump in energy that follows the first few weeks of school. When I was mentoring new teachers in my district, we used a graph showing the predictable energy curve of a teacher’s first year — it starts off high with anticipation and joy, then plummets early in the fall.

I think that happens for a couple of reasons. There’s so much energy and anticipation at the start of the year, and there’s only so long your brain can stay in that high place. When we get a real surge of joy, that’s fantastic — but the brain wants to return to a level playing field, and it often dips below baseline before it settles back to normal. It’s the hangover after the high.

The reverse happens, too. I’m about to go for a hard run right after this interview, and afterward I’ll get a runner’s high — a surge of positive emotion that follows pain or discomfort. I think something analogous happens with the October Blues: all the positive energy and anticipation of the first few weeks of school is exhausting. You’re “on” all the time. So there’s a predictable crash once that wears off, and both physical and emotional energy drop — but fortunately it’s not permanent and their energy will increase again.

Do we see the October Blues more in newer teachers or do veteran teachers get it too?

That’s a great question — I don’t know for certain. My guess is that once you’ve experienced it a few times, you start to recognize it as just a thing that happens. One of the scary parts of the October Blues in your first year is that if you don’t know it’s a known phenomenon, you start to question whether you should even be in the profession. Once you’ve been through it a few times, you can say, “Right, October’s a rough month, but I know I’ll have an upswing again.” So my guess is veteran teachers are more aware of the cycle and less panicked by it.

How does it show up in the classroom — for teachers and for students?

That’s such a multifaceted question. When I was writing “The Well-Balanced Teacher” — which I later rewrote into “Rekindle Your Professional Fire” — I looked at a study on how teachers’ emotional states are directly reflected in their students. It wasn’t specifically about the October Blues, but roughly 400 elementary students, mostly 4th and 5th graders, had their cortisol measured through saliva samples. Their teachers were surveyed on health, balance, and energy, and teachers who reported higher workplace stress had students with elevated cortisol levels.

So when teachers get stressed, kids get stressed too — and it goes the other way as well. In “Hugging Porcupines,” one chapter is called “The Honeymoon Is Over,” which is really about October. Kids and teachers both work hard to be their best selves for the first few weeks of school, and there’s only so long you can keep that up.

The work also gets harder in October, especially for students who struggle with learning — they can start to feel more overwhelmed, just as teachers start to feel the semester piling up. I’ll admit I’m speculating here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if decreasing daylight plays a role, too. By October in the Northern Hemisphere we’re getting more dark than light, and that’s got to have some influence.

What does it actually look like for a teacher who has the Blues while teaching?

Their fuse gets shorter — it’s harder to be patient with students who are struggling. It’s also harder to keep up with the planning that great teaching requires, so you might start winging it more, which is more stressful once you’re in it. Overall energy is lower. I remember trying to hold reading and writing conferences with students in the late morning and feeling blurry, almost like being hungover — everything felt a little fuzzy. It’s harder to stay sharp, harder to be patient, harder to keep your energy up for engaging lessons.

What was the October Blues like for you personally?

Early in my career, I was also a swim coach, and swim season started in October. So, I wasn’t just a month into the school year and feeling the regular fatigue that comes with that — I was also coaching an age-group team and a high school team, three or four hours of practice after school every day, on top of all the lesson planning. That extra load tends to hit right when the first few “easy” weeks of the school year — before committee meetings and most extracurriculars ramp up — give way to everything piling in at once, unless you’re coaching something like football that starts in late summer.

Have the October Blues gotten harder or easier over the years?

(Laughing) What hasn’t changed in the last 10 years on this planet? I think we’re all a little more on edge than we were 10 years ago — and honestly, we were already in social chaos back then, too. We’re more dysregulated now than we were 10 or 15 years ago. Politics is chaotic, the social and online environment is chaotic. You rarely hear anyone say, “I feel so much more relaxed and healthy than I did 10 years ago.” If we’re all more dysregulated, it makes sense our kids are, too — and the number and severity of behavior problems in schools is going through the roof. There’s a lot we could point to, and I think we need to stop blaming COVID — that was real and it was hard on all of us, but the rise in dysregulated kids has been especially pronounced over the last decade, and that takes a huge physical and emotional toll on teachers.

Do you think AI is affecting this at all? I’m not sure it’s even measurable yet, but I do wonder if there is some residual effect from using AI in the classroom and out.

Maybe. My take is that for teachers, AI is one more new thing they have to learn, manage, and figure out — both what’s OK in their own teaching and planning, and how to manage students’ AI use. That’s part of what’s accelerated over the last 10 years: teachers almost always feel like they’re on the steep end of the learning curve. Something I talked about in 2017 was how a sense of competence is critical to wellness and happiness at work — not just in teaching, but in any profession. If you don’t think you’re good at what you do, it’s hard to stay positive and energized. That’s especially tough for teachers, who rarely get the chance to feel like they’ve finally got it down. AI is just another learning curve on top of that.

Is there any way to avoid the October Blues, or do you just have to get good at recognizing it?

There’s probably no way to avoid it entirely — the same way you can’t run a marathon and avoid being tired. But recognizing that it’s a normal, shared experience and not a personal flaw really helps. Beyond that, it’s not rocket science: sleeping, eating healthy food, a healthy exercise routine — even something as simple as putting on your sneakers for a brisk 20-minute walk as soon as the last kid leaves. Small, sustainable habits that keep your energy up over the long run were a big theme in “Rekindle Your Professional Fire,” which is all about supporting teacher health and balance. Don’t look for major changes — those are almost impossible to sustain. Look for small ways to get a bit more sleep, a bit more movement, and some healthier food. Those things help not just in October, but all year long.

How can administrators and principals help? I wonder if their experience can be of help here.

Acknowledging the reality of October Blues with faculty can help, especially for new teachers who might not know to watch for it. Beyond that, school leaders can look for small ways to help teachers stay healthier and happier — providing healthy snacks instead of the highly processed junk food that’s often the easiest option at faculty meetings (fresh fruit or cheese and crackers instead of candy), making sure hydration stations are available, and paying attention to workload. There are almost always a few teachers in a school doing way too much — running committees, leading the union, and so on. Finding ways to take a few things off those teachers’ plates is another way leaders can support them.

Are there resources to prepare first-year teachers about the October Blues? 

I certainly didn’t know it was a thing my first year. Some mentoring programs do train mentors to understand the common energy cycles new teachers go through, so teachers lucky enough to have well-trained mentors may get more information. But for a lot of new teachers, it’s just not on their radar — they’re too consumed with the day-to-day work of running a classroom. One of my daughter’s close friends, practically a second daughter to me, is a first-year 4th grade teacher in San Francisco. She’s smart, well-prepared, and both her parents are teachers, so she had a real head start. But I know from talking with her parents that she’s already overwhelmed just a couple weeks in, because there’s so much new to learn all at once. She doesn’t have the headspace to think about her own emotional energy — she’s just trying to manage the class and get through the day.

When do the October Blues stop being just the October Blues? How long does it typically take to recover?

I honestly don’t know if there’s a documented answer — whether it’s one week, two weeks, or four. As a teacher, I didn’t experience the whole month as a slog, but I think every teacher is a little different. There’s often another predictable energy dip later in the year, too — late winter or early spring, around the start of the second semester on a high school schedule — when it’s cold, dark, and everyone’s tired. So there are cycles of energy through the year, but I don’t know of a specific documented recovery timeline.

Should it ideally ease up so teachers can rebound?

If it’s lasting more than a couple of weeks, I’d tell a new teacher to talk to a colleague, a mentor, or an administrator — say, “I’m having a hard time right now,” and get some help. It can’t last all year. Our students need us to have good, positive energy.

How do the October Blues relate to teachers’ feelings of competence?

When we feel incompetent, our energy for work drops. It's hard to be motivated when you feel like you're not good at what you're doing.

I once worked with a group of teachers for a couple of years. I remembered how hard that first October had been for them — they were down in the dumps. By the next October, after we'd done a lot of work together on classroom management and student engagement, their energy was noticeably brighter and they were laughing more. When I pointed that out and asked if their classes were just easier that year, they said no — if anything, their classes were harder! But this time, they felt like they knew what to do; they had strategies to try. The year before, their classes had felt like they were falling apart, and they didn't know what to do — that's what had made them feel so defeated. Having practical strategies for management and engagement meant they didn't experience the October Blues the same way the second time around.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

EdSurge is an editorially independent digital news site of the International Society for Transforming Education.