Before you can help a room settle, you need to know what state you're bringing into it. This is one tool from the CARE Method's Awareness pillar: a short, silent check-in a teacher can do standing at the front of the class, before reacting to a stressful moment.
Pause. Feet flat on the floor, arms unclenched. This can happen mid-lesson; no one needs to know you're doing it.
Scan, head to feet. Jaw, shoulders, chest, stomach, hands. Just notice; don't try to fix anything yet.
Name it, silently. "My shoulders are tight." "My jaw is clenched." Naming the sensation is often enough to loosen its grip.
One breath, longer exhale than inhale. This is the only "action" step; it signals to your body that the moment has passed.
Re-enter. Go back to the room as you are now, not as you were 90 seconds ago.
Adapted from the body scan used in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction; the classroom framing draws on evidence that a teacher's own regulated state shapes the state of the room (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).
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Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308325693
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Delacorte.