A problem is any difference between the current situation and the desired situation.
So we have a problem.
The current situation is this: personnel are dying or being forced out of the emergency services by conditions and events that are largely preventable. Heart attacks remain one of our leading causes of death, and more of us were killed by cancer last year than died on the fireground in the last five years combined.
Cancer and cardiovascular disease aren't our only problems, though.
Injuries are a problem. Roughly one out of three firefighters who get injured are off the job for at least a month. 25% of emergency medical personnel suffer a career-ending injury within their first four years on the job.
Beyond the obvious human cost, this represents a huge organizational expense in, among other things, insurance, litigation, and overtime.
Not to mention the effect this job can have on our mental health.
The expense of our physical injuries can't compare to the cost of our invisible wounds. Stress tends to hit us harder and deeper than it does the general population, reflected within our profession by a suicide risk that eclipses any chance of dying in the line of duty.
That's our current situation. The desired situation is, of course, crews that are healthy, safe, and alive.
The role of the emergency services has always been primarily reactive: we wait for something to catch fire, then go put it out. And all too often, we take that same attitude toward our health, fitness, and wellness. Everything is 10-2 until alarm bells go off, then we rush to treat the emergent situation.
The best way to stop a fire is to make sure it never starts. "Community Risk Reduction" (CRR) seeks to do this by understanding the risks in a community and developing proactive education, engineering, and incentive programs to help mitigate those risks.
If it's predictable, it's preventable.
I believe our current problems - the ones both data and experience can predict - need a CRR inspired approach of proactive prevention. A sort of "Personal Risk Reduction" or PRR. Over upcoming installments of this column, I want to look at some of these predictable preventables through this "PRR" lens, in the hope that we can shift them out of our peripheral view (or even hindsight, in some cases) and more into our direct field of vision.
Body, Mind, and Spirit
I worked many years for the YMCA. Something I always appreciated about their organizational culture was the commitment to whole-person development: "Body, Mind, and Spirit." We are creatures of action, of intellect, and of emotion. Neglecting one of these areas is like eliminating one element of the fire triangle: your potential will be seriously limited, leaving you imbalanced, fragmented, or fizzled.
What does this have to do with the problems mentioned earlier and Personal Risk Reduction?
Routinely challenging ourselves in each of these areas can be a starting point for addressing many of the physical and mental health risks we face in our industry.
Huh? How? By pursuing three daily "ops."
Every day, challenge yourself to complete a physical "op" for your body, a mental "op" for your mind, and an emotional or spiritual "op" for your well-being.
Physical ops are essential for overall health.
Regular exercise like strength training, jogging, or simply going for a long brisk walk lowers your risk of many cancers, slashes your chances of having a heart attack, and can make you harder to hurt on the job.
Plus, working out for even a few minutes releases mood-boosting chemicals that help improve your resilience to anxiety, stress, and depression.
In fact, a huge study published last year by the University of South Australia showed physical activity to be one-and-a-half times more effective than counseling or medication at managing depression, anxiety, and other psychological stresses.
A daily physical op could even include crew or department training drills that get you active and help build task mastery - though drills shouldn't be a replacement for regular exercise, which has specific and measurable benefits.
Want more ideas for physical ops? Go back and check out my recent series of articles on the fire-fitness triangle, or reach out.
Mental ops include anything that challenges or stimulates your mind. Think things like reading a book on leadership or personal development, reviewing the latest fire service research at www.fsri.org or your favorite industry news website, or taking one of the free self-study classes online from the National Fire Academy.
Mental ops could even include something as simple as doing a daily puzzle on your phone instead of doom-scrolling or dwelling on social media.
Daily flexing of your mental muscle helps keep you sharp, improves your critical thinking skills, and can also strengthen your resilience to psychological stressors like anxiety and depression.
Generally speaking, we as a group tend to be really bad at self-care because we're usually too focused on helping someone else. This makes daily spiritual or emotional ops that much more important for us.
It's been said before and I'll say it again here: you can't fill someone else's cup if your own is empty.
Taking time every day for spiritual or emotional practices like journaling, meditation, connecting emotionally with friends or family, and other types of self-care can help reduce stress, improve mindset, and promote a stronger sense of emotional well-being.
Emerging research in the new field of affective immunology suggests that crosstalk between our emotional and immune systems can directly influence not only mental health, but also our susceptibility to cancer and heart disease. Calming your emotions can improve your physical health.
In upcoming installments, we'll take a deeper dive into each of our "problem areas" and explore how we can address them with a Community / Personal Risk Reduction approach.