Regulating Classroom Energy with Lisa Danahy
As educators, we’ve all experienced that afternoon. It’s been a rainy lunchtime; the students have been cooped up indoors, and they file back into the room with frantic energy. Someone is tapping a ruler, others are squabbling over a textbook, and the volume is climbing.
Suddenly, you feel it in your own body: your chest tightens, your palms get sweaty, and you feel the urge to shout just to be heard.
In the latest episode of the Nurturing Educators Podcast, I sat down with Lisa Danahy, founder of Create Calm and author of Creating Calm in Your Classroom. We dove deep into why our own nervous systems speak louder than our words and how we can stay anchored when the classroom environment feels chaotic.
Co-Regulation vs. Chaos
When a classroom feels frantic, your nervous system automatically responds to the stress around you. As the adult in the room, you have two choices: join the chaos by shouting and tensing up, or anchor the room by stabilising yourself first.
"If I'm not stable, then they're not going to be able to neutralize. I am setting the tone." — Lisa Danahy
The common mistake is demanding immediate quiet. When kids are physically restless, telling them to "sit down and calm down" rarely works because their energy is operating at a high frequency. To bring them down, you first have to meet them where they are.
3 Quick Tools to Reset Classroom Energy
Lisa’s philosophy centres on simple, 20-second tools that require zero setup. Here is how to handle sudden energy shifts throughout the school day:
1. Stomp, Shake, and Freeze (Meeting High Energy)
Instead of fighting big energy, guide it to gain the collective focus of the room.
Ground down: Firmly plant your feet on the floor.
Invite movement: Tell the class, "Stomp your feet! Shake your body!"
Take the lead: By channelling the movement, you capture their attention. Once they are locked into your frequency, call a sudden "Freeze!" and transition straight into a breathing anchor.
2. The Balloon Breath
This quick technique physically engages the vagus nerve to trigger the body's calming response.
Inhale: Reach your arms wide and lift them overhead, imagining your torso filling up like a rising balloon.
Exhale: Bring your hands together and lower them down the midline of your body, stopping in front of your heart. Bringing your hands together at the centre helps connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
3. Pop the Balloon (For Transitions)
To release tension: Have students fill up their "balloons" with a deep breath and then "pop" them, releasing the air with a loud, extended "Shhh!" sound. Moving the breath with sound is the fastest way to soothe an overstimulated nervous system.
As an anchor: Use the Balloon Breath right at the classroom door after recess to act as a physical and mental boundary line, signalling a return to a safe, focused learning environment.
Connection Before Instruction
It is incredibly easy to get swept up in the external demands of teaching—marking, reports, and lesson planning. But true teaching requires connection before instruction.
Lisa references the ancient analogy of Indra’s Net, which views us all as interconnected jewels. When one jewel regains its clarity and begins to sparkle, that light ripples through the entire net.
By pausing at your classroom door, dropping your shoulders, and taking a few deep breaths to centre yourself before you walk in, you change the literal vibration of the room. Your calm becomes contagious.
About the Guest
Lisa Danahy is an author and social-emotional learning expert with over two decades of classroom experience. Her book, Creating Calm in Your Classroom, provides simple, movement-based mindfulness exercises tailored to cultivate resilience in both students and teachers.
Website: www.createcalm.org
Email: Lisa@createcalm.org
Book Availability: Available on Amazon and Balboa Press.
Want more strategies for staying anchored in the classroom? Listen to the full episode of the Nurturing Educators Podcast on your favourite streaming platform, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @NurturingEducators!
