Teachers and Nurses Are Most in Need.

• Position: STRESS MANAGEMENT

Teachers are tied with nurses for the most stressful occupation in the U.S. today a Gallup poll has found--and that stress can have a trickle-down effect on their students, leading to disruptive behavior that results in student suspensions. Moreover, nearly half of all new teachers leave the profession within their first five years.

One of those overburdened instructors is Jennifer Lloyd, a high school English teacher in Maryland and a graduate student at the University of Missouri. She has noticed how perceptive her students are to her mood and their ability to feed off of her energy, for better or worse.

"If I come into class from a rough meeting or a stressful morning and I bring those feelings into the classroom environment, the kids notice," she says. "Sometimes they will give that negative energy right back to me, and we all end up having a bad day."

To examine the impact of teacher burnout on student behavior outcomes, Lloyd's...