¶ Firefighter Sleep and Mental Health
Welcome to another episode of our firefighter support podcast . We are excited to have with us today Dan fast , a new clinician in town , captain Seth Francis and also Seth We were joining us again . Before we get into our topic , let's get an introduction from ban and captain Francis .
Dan , why don't you kick us off and tell us a little bit about you and how you got into clinician work ?
Yeah , thanks .
So I am the clinic director of the Logan sandstone psychology and I got into this because , you know , i I've experienced a lot of crises in my life , a lot of death and suicide , that I've been surrounded by and experienced my own mental health challenges over over the course of my life , and so , you know , in my journey I found someone that helped me be
better essentially , and or become better and grow into the person that I am now , and so I wanted to give back and be that one person for someone else , and So my experiences and background is in marriage and family therapy .
So I work a lot with couples and families and individuals as well , but the system of , or the framework of , therapy that I do is systemic and we're all part of a system .
We're all affected by everyone around us and we're not isolated from that , and so I'm a systemic therapist and I like to bring in a lot of people to do that work , because while something might affect you , it affects everyone in your system , and so it's important to incorporate that . So that's a little bit about me .
Yeah , that's great . Maybe just one quick follow-up on that is going through it yourself and kind of seeing what is kind of your Outlook on change .
You know , it seems like like if once you experience kind of that change yourself , getting from a bad spot to a better spot , and then you just kind of have this renewed sense of what other people can accomplish and change from , no matter what's kind of happened to them in their life .
Yeah , that's a good question . Let me say this most people come into my office expecting change And they don't know what's required of them to get there .
At the same time , i didn't know what was required of me , and what I think that I've learned over the years in myself seeing other people change is It comes down to consistency and effort and patience with yourself and resilience and developing some of those things . So my outlook on change is It's possible . A lot of people think that it's . It's not .
You know , i have couples come in and they're like my husband can't change or my wife can't change or my kids can't change . But that thought in and of itself is limiting . You know what I mean . And so my thought on changes can you change ? Do you believe that you can change ? And if so , then change is possible .
And I think that personally , if we're not trying to like grow and progress , i mean we're going to stay stagnant , we're not going to . We're not going to get to Where we want to be . We're not going to be the person that we want to be If we're stuck in that .
Yeah , no , i think that's a great point , because I think a lot of times We just feel like naturally , that change is going to occur , like if I just keep plugging along , you know , i mean these things in my life that I don't like , whether it's my relationship or Certain behaviors I have , or sleep deprivation or whatever like I'll just keep plugging along and
eventually it'll get better .
But I think we misunderstand or maybe don't appreciate the value of having the right tools to facilitate the change right , and so I think that's great And that's why we love having clinicians here is because they have all the training in the tools and and things to give us a different perspective , that , even though firefighters think we know it all , there's probably
one or two , maybe two things we don't know yet And so we're hoping clinicians can kind of fill those gaps .
So yeah , well , i'm happy to be here . Thanks for having me . Yeah , captain .
Francis Tell us tell us , give us the a picture of the deep mind . Oh man , there's not a lot of deepness here .
Seth Francis , captain , paramedic , been with lovin fire for 17 years , volunteer firefighter before that for five years , still a new captain , going on Two and a half years as a captain now , so still learning quite a bit .
And yeah , where did you ? I didn't know you were a volunteer . Where was ? you doing that in mending .
Yep .
Cool . What was the transition like for you going from volunteer to ?
full time . I was green , so green It was . It was scary . It was scary , but it was fun .
Yeah , awesome , and tell us a little bit about your career with logan . Is you kind of have Like , did you always hope you're gonna promote up the ladder to be captain ? Is that something that kind of you know changed later on or no , for a long time I wasn't .
I had no desire at all to be a captain . I wanted to be an engineer and Become an engineer . I went and got my medic to become an engineer , and then from there , it's just like man , let's just keep moving on . And so here I am .
Yeah , battalion chief next for south francis . there We'll see it .
Speaking of couples counseling , i don't know if that applies to , like fire crews , but maybe we should do a life session .
We probably have some counseling for the two of us A live session for you too .
I love them , but I hate them at the same time . It's it confuses me .
Well , so one of the things we wanted to go over today and me and seth I had a chance to go to a conference in rena where they talked a lot about sleep and the impact that has for better , for worse on firefighters and Both on and off shift , and so , seth , you got your . You took much better notes at the conference than .
I did , i can kick us off a little bit , tell us a little bit about some of the things that we walked away with from the conference and what Stood out to you .
That's pretty interesting . It was over Cognitive behavioral therapy for sleep insomnia is what the main point was , but there was a lot of facts in there that I don't think many of us realized are happening with this , with our sleep . So 40 percent of firefighters have a sleep disorder is what the study found , with 80 percent Not knowing that .
So those are pretty high numbers whenever you look at it . I think last time I read there's something like Just over a million firefighters in the united states and then there you got another 300 000 that are just EMTs or paramedics , specifically on the medical side , and so you look at that combination , that's a large number that have sleep disorders .
And if you know firefighters , we don't like to do tests , we don't like to be analyzed , and so I'm imagining that number is pretty low because there's a lot of them out there that just said no , not doing this , and so we don't know . So if you look at those numbers , a lot of us don't know that they
¶ Quantity vs Quality of Sleep
do . But the effects of sleep insomnia are great . We already have enough scares . We've already talked about cancer , poor nutrition , health Whenever we're not getting enough sleep or getting enough quality sleep . You know we all nap , but if it's not quality sleep it leads to .
It leads to cardiovascular disease , anxiety , depression take a hit there too , and then diabetes even comes out of it . And then we get into our mood swings . So how we interact with people and our families and stuff are huge too .
I met him in Somnia So it was pretty interesting to listen to him kind of talk about that And then he got into kind of ways we can improve it . So I'm a big fan of like if I know how it works , then I can fix it . You know , i don't like just listening to people teach me how it works And that can fix it .
And so we went over the sleep cycle and kind of why we need each stage of sleep And if we don't get it , what's happening to us . So it was a good conference Did you ?
did it have a good definition in there for what a sleep like ? what classifies as a sleep disorder Like is that me , and on average , you're getting so much , Yeah , there was a few .
The biggest one was , like their sleep deprivation , where you're not getting enough sleep . Sleep insomnia is where and correct me if I'm wrong , you might know a better definition but it was your ability to not go to sleep Or get a quality night's sleep . So whenever you do fall asleep , you're not sleeping well .
So maybe you're only getting into stage one and REM sleeping . You're not hitting stage two and three and you need everything to get it proper . You can't just have nitpicking stages there And so yeah , right , no , that's exactly right .
And with that , with the sleep stages , there's four sleep stages , but you're supposed to have at least four to five cycles of that each night , and so if it's fragmented and you're only getting like one or two , i mean that's that insomnia that we're talking about that can disrupt and create a number of those issues for people .
That's why sometimes you get eight hours of sleep at night and you wake up and you're like why do I feel like crap ? It's because you're not getting quality sleep . You're not going through that cycle a couple of times like you should . You're jumping around and you're disturbing your own sleep and you don't even know it , just by what you do during the day .
that was the part I liked . You talked about some of the things you do during the day that affect you at night .
That's one of the things that I remember from the conference is he pointed out that you have to have eight hours of sleep . That's a myth , yep . Really it's more like four or five , as long as it's quality Quality .
But if you get four to five hours of quality sleep , there's no reason for you to feel like you have to have eight , or I think sometimes we get ourselves into a mental rut of if I don't get eight , then I've already set myself up for failure for the day , and the reality is that's not true at all .
Right , Like if you got a few good quality hours . you're just . The national recommendation is seven hours of sleep , officially from the Sleep Foundation . But yeah , if you're getting good cycles all the way through and then that four to five hours , you're just fine . There's no problems there .
Yeah , And so anybody can chime in on this . But what , like during sleep , there's specific functions your brain is doing . It's not like your brain shuts off during that time . Right From what I've understood , it's like while you're getting good sleep you're kind of banking those memories .
Correct .
Is that right ? And it's almost like somebody compared it to like doing a firmware update on your phone or computer . It's like when you're sleeping it gives your brain time kind of process stuff , kind of install the new updates , so that when you wake up the next day you're kind of I don't know at full function or whatever .
Yeah , i mean , there's a number of things that the brain does , like cell regeneration , for when you're asleep , but to what you're talking about as well is the brain is logging the experience of the day , storing it in long-term memory or things that it's going to need to recall , essentially to protect you going forward .
Right , and that's why we know that people that you know have experienced trauma , typically they have a hard time falling asleep because the brain is having a really hard time falling asleep or staying asleep . The brain is having a hard time logging those things right .
So , yeah , in addition to that cell regeneration and things along those lines , to be able to help you properly function I mean , when we think about sleep , it is a biological function There is a necessity for us to get proper sleep so that we can do the things that are necessary throughout our day , and without that , we've run into those problems anxiety ,
depression , obesity , diabetes things like that .
Yeah , so maybe Captain Francis give us a picture of having the most experienced firefighter here , because sometimes it's good and well to talk about all the ideals right , it's ideal to get X amount of hours of sleep and hit all these cycles , but shift work kind of screws that up , especially B-shifts
¶ Improving Sleep Quality for Firefighters
72 .
I swear , you guys are up every single night like sleep all day , you're in all night . We're our worst enemies on sleep too . You know , at work We'll stay up and shoot the shit or watch a movie , and then we'll try and go to bed , and it's after midnight And then what happens ? We have a call .
So it's like you know we probably need to do better and go to sleep a little earlier . But you know , it's kind of like a little vacay when we're away from home , enjoy each other's company . But yeah , i believe we're our own worst enemies on that . We could do a little better .
Has it changed it all for you over the career , for different sleep patterns , like maybe year one and two , or you didn't have that many calls behind you , versus now you have , you know , a ton of calls behind you that maybe you're getting less sleep Yeah .
No , well , i'd say I'm getting the worst sleep now as I have ever . Just being a captain , i'm up listening to the radio making sure everybody's okay If I've got a crew out on a transfer . I can't sleep . But I'd say my sleep is worse as a captain now But I still get , you know that , good four or five hours hopefully , yeah .
And so maybe we can jump into some of the things that we can do to get better sleep .
I know one thing that I don't know if this is from the conference or from something else I was looking at , but I was talking specifically about firefighters and shift work , and while it's never ideal to have to get up in the middle of the night , the attitude that you have when you wake up is either gonna Well , it's a catalyst either way for positive or
negative . And so if you wake up and You know you're getting a call , and you're just super angry and frustrated and you're just you know It's some frequent flyer not that it ever happens to you guys , but Riverwalk Parkway , but you know and but that just propels the negative aspect of having to get up in the middle of the night .
That's just like or is gasoline on the fire ? That's a lot . It goes downhill . You've got to wake up and even if you've only been asleep an hour , you got to have that mental . You know like , hey , let's go on a call , yeah . And then things go good . But if you do wake up and you're just pissed off , It's yeah , that never happens , that be .
Well , it's hard , right , it's super hard to maintain that attitude , but if you think about it , this isn't just about like trying to be the ultra optimistic person , but it's actually for my well-being . The guy , the article I was reading and it compared it to an airbag .
Right , it's never good to get in a car wreck , right , but if you can maintain a semi positive attitude when you get up in the middle of the night , it just makes it a softer landing on your body versus this jarring .
I mean imagine cracks with no airbag or that's going to have much more significant injuries than Somebody had an airbag seat belt , all the protections , and so they just kind of framed it as our attitude . Is that Kind of protection for our mental ?
well-being definitely a positive attitude . It is what you need to have in the fire service on those middle of the night calls .
Well , and I'm sure it also helps like work to be better as a team .
Oh , yeah , if you've got someone that's woke up and they're just pissed off That the team doesn't function .
Yeah , throws that dynamic off , and then It makes it hard to work together .
Yeah , I just trust the captain's gonna fix it .
This is a story about life , though , like in everything , you have a choice . You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be negative . So if we just keep implementing that into whenever it's tough which it's tough at 4 am , whenever you're going on like a dumb call , it's tough to choose to be happy to go on that call .
But if we can do it , then we can do it with everything in life And it just rolls into the next day and the next week and whenever those really hard moments come . Once again , we've already been through it , waking up at night and choosing to be happy . We can keep it going .
Yeah , yeah , and maybe even just telling yourself I can , you know , hopefully we'll get some catch up on this in the morning or get a good nap or something , you know , if the captain lets us but maybe walk through some of the other things , that some of the other stuff from the conference , those kind of bullet points that they gave us of some steps you can
take to fall asleep faster and to get better quality .
So I want to talk a little bit about that sleep cycle . So there's stage one , which is a light sleep . Stage two I just call it kind of medium sleep . Stage three is deep and then you have REM rem after that And that's the full cycle of sleep that you need to get .
That they talked about , and there's some contributing factors during the day that what we do Determines if we get a full cycle or if we jump around . One of the things they hit on pretty hard was that alcohol lowers our quality of sleep and makes it more disruptive . Most people think , hey , let me have a couple of shots to go to sleep , put me to sleep .
But what they don't realize is they're actually disrupting their sleep by doing that . The recommendation was Within three hours of bed .
You don't drink alcohol within three hours of bed because what happens is it puts you to sleep quicker , but as it metabolizes in your body it actually does an adrenaline dump And so it wakes you up after a short amount of time , or it makes you kind of start stirring and get crazy legs in your sleep , and so that will affect your sleep quality .
So while it might put you to bed fast , you're not going to get the quality of sleep you need .
Well , and I would agree with that and in , in addition to that , conditioning yourself to do that every night And let's say there was one time where you didn't have the opportunity That's going to inhibit your ability to fall asleep , when you're staying up later or longer and Or not getting the rest that your body needs .
Yeah , whenever you drink within three hours of going to bed , i believe they said you spend majority of your sleep time in REM , so you're not getting all the stages like you need . You just sitting REM sleep and so it's not a quality sleep . You need your cycles To go through .
So that was pretty interesting and they talked about a lot of us might take some melatonin or something to help us Go to bed . Well , whenever they do , the study about that actually increases Your ability to go to sleep by 10 to 30 minutes . That's it . That's all it does for .
So you're going to sleep sooner , for 10 to 30 minutes , but whenever you stop , you're right back where you started . So it does not fix insomnia . It puts a band-aid over . It helps you for that little bit 10 to 30 minute window , but other than that , you're not fixing the problem .
So we need to look at okay , what's causing me to have insomnia and how can I fix this ?
right . I mean I don't know about you guys , but anytime I take melatonin to go to sleep I'm back up in like 30 minutes . You know like Didn't get you a little nap and now you're up for forever . Yep Yeah .
Yeah , so that was some of some good stuff they gave to us , just about those little things there , but some of the changes we can make . You know , it's like they recommended going to waking up at the same time every day .
That was a big push they had as far as going to bed and they said that's gonna , you know , very in our day-to-day schedule when we go to sleep . But they recommended make sure you're getting up at the same time every day .
It helps train your body To know when it's time to sleep , when it's time to wake up , and so it can start regulating going through those cycles for you .
Oh , that was pretty neat , yeah , something that's hard to do on shift all the time . But I think it makes it that much more critical if our sleep practices are good On the four off , like because we need it . Like those four off we need The sleep because we know the two on are going to be a little bit rougher , but I even found it interesting .
So whenever I was a probationary firefighter , i was determined to get up before everybody else . Even if I took a transfer at 3 am And I got back at 5 , my alarm was going off at 6 30 and I was getting up and I found Throughout my day I felt a little happier than normal . Now I'm not on probation , that drive to beat everybody up isn't quite there .
So I come back and it's hard for me to get out of bed after a late night transfer And so I'm sleeping till 9 10 o'clock trying to make up for that late night transfer . And I get up and I'm still grumpy and groggy and feeling a little bit more ill-tempered than normal .
And so whenever they started talking about getting up at the same time every day for that year I was on probation and doing this I meant like I did feel better . Yeah , i wasn't getting as much sleep at night , but yet I felt better in my days because , i don't know , i guess that's why I was helping my body regulate .
Well , a lot of people think that if , oh , i didn't get a whole lot of sleep the night before , so I'm going to try and get some more tomorrow . Let's say you sleep three hours more than what you would normally do , so you wake up at 9 instead of 6 , or something like that .
That's actually almost the same effect of having jet lag , like your body's not used to that , and so you're kind of thrown into this . You're feeling more lethargic or irritable or things like that , not feeling like you had a full night's rest , feeling like , man , i could go back to sleep and sleep the rest of the day . Right , we have that groggy feeling .
Yeah , and there is some ways to make up for it . I seem like in the class they talked about . you know , a good way to nap is as long as this before 3 pm And Less than an hour I think , and so , oh man , i'm no good at that , yeah , yeah , no naps at 7 pm . That doesn't work , okay , yeah .
So they talked about a couple of naps we can do , and there's one that's made for you . It's called the coffee nap .
It applies to the energy drinks , yeah .
Yeah , so there's a few things . They talked about how to improve our sleep time , but basically it's we all have bad habits whenever it comes to sleep and they say it's time to get rid of those bad habits and put In good habits when it comes to sleep and that's all it is . It's not our bodies Oh , i can only fall asleep here .
No , it's a habit and so you just got to unlearn it and force yourself to learn a new habit . But some of the things they talked about , like naps , cannot disrupt our night time sleep . So they recommend like limit naps to less than 45 minutes and after like 3 pm , don't nap after 3 pm . Try to get it done before 3 pm If you're going to nap .
They said the optimal time 1 pm To 3 pm Is that nap time . So everybody put that on your schedules now up on the board . 1 pm To 3 pm .
Pass that on all the battalion chiefs , like we have to .
Now for that time we're turning off everything .
Power naps , which are 30 minutes , they consider they get you to stage 2 in your sleep cycle And so you hit stage 1 and stage 2 for your power nap . Then they have a restorative nap , which is a 90 minute , which is usually one full sleep cycle . But the coffee nap I thought was pretty cool .
So you drink a cup of coffee and then you go immediately to bed , lay down and sleep for 20 minutes and then get up after 20 minutes . And what that does ? they said it gives a better caffeine effect .
So your adenosine receptors get kind of a refresh and they absorb that caffeine better and so you get a better kick from the caffeine whenever you get up after 20 minutes now do they recommend take naps in the same spot ?
No , it doesn't matter . Bed like in bed in bed .
So that was another thing they went over . They said the bed is for two things out there It's for sex and it's for sleep . That's it . No cell phones now Little disclaimer that out there . So they said no cell phones . Don't lay in bed , don't look at your phones . Don't watch TV Like they were even recommended .
Don't get in there , read books , like whenever you lay in bed You should train your body to know hey , i'm laying in bed , it's time for sleep now , because anything else you do in that bed is training it to think it's just a comfort place , it's
¶ Establish Healthy a Sleep Pattern
a lounge . We got recliners for that and so they said don't nap in the recliners . Whenever it's nap time , go to your bed . They said the bed should be there for naps and for sleep , and that's it .
And that's probably a tougher stigma , i think , in the service , because you feel like if you go to your room to sleep you're being a little bit more , even though it doesn't make any sense , but you just feel like you're being more lazy than if you just take a quick nap in the recliner right , or you're being more or like less social or whatever , and so
that's probably Something that's a little bit of a hump , i think , for most crews to be able to do , because the norm definitely is like I'm gonna take a quick nap .
We do some target solutions in the recliner real quick And but I don't know , buddy , all laying that recliner and I fall in asleep sometimes And I always feel like I'm on the verge of sleep . So I'll be down for an hour and I just still wake up feeling like total crap Because I'm like I was just at the verge of sleep the whole time .
The TV's going , people are moving like I can never get .
Like that's one .
Yeah , somebody snoring like they're dying .
Next to me There's a couple people on the department that I can just fall asleep like that .
They can , but just they're out and once again it goes back to like , yeah , they're asleep , they're laying there asleep , but yet they have to sleep for three hours or whatever it may be , like it's not that quality that we're looking for , and so That's what I'm hoping to educate everybody on like , yeah , you can go to sleep , but it doesn't mean you're getting
the sleep you need . Need to get quality sleep .
Where you're going through those sleep cycles in Restoring everything so one thing that jumped out of me too with the whole like keeping everything to your bed And just as far as sleeping there is , if it's not working , if you haven't fallen asleep in like 20 minutes , you have to get out of bed .
Yeah , 30 minutes .
Just don't lay there and wait to fall asleep , otherwise you're messing up that so they said 30 minutes as well .
So the study showed you lay in bed for 30 minutes . If you can't fall asleep , get up , go do the dishes , full laundry . Most times we lay there because our brains are spinning at 100 miles an hour . I think we've all had that . We lay down and we can't shut it off .
So they said you go do these tasks to help slow down your brain and after you've done one , go try again for another 30 minutes . Keep repeating that process until you fall asleep . But the key there was , they said , you shouldn't be going to bed until you're drowsy .
So you should be on the verge of falling to sleep and saying , okay , now I'm going to bed , so you can go lay down and lights out so that'll help retrain your brain as well .
It's kind of amazed me that how much I mean , how much we're kind of like Animals in our dogs . Like , if you're training a dog to do a certain task , right , a pattern is everything and if the dog knows you do this task or this behavior , you get this reward and You establish this pattern .
The dog is going to be locked in and we'll do exactly what you needed to do because you've established a good pattern . But then your kids or spouse or somebody like gives a treat at the wrong time and starts breaking that pattern . It is a ton of work , right , to bring the dog back to That established pattern .
So it's just kind of impressed me like we're not much better Right like for us to train our bodies to sleep , we have to have that pattern . The pattern of this place is just for sleeping , it's not for looking at phone , not for any of that . If it's not working , get up , go do something else .
And so it's almost like our goal is to protect that pattern , establish the pattern , and then do everything we can to protect it , and so and then it's just , you know , it's almost seems too simple to work , but I think , we over , complicate things a lot sometimes and really just by Being intentional about the pattern we have and we're trying to fall asleep , i
think can go a long way and getting to that quality sleep cycle .
Yeah , and I would agree with that .
There's a concept that I believe James clear brings up in his book Atomic habits , and the idea is like habit stacking , and so when we're talking about sleep hygiene or behaviors that help us Follow sleep easier or better , one thing you got to do is do a number of these things in order , right , kind as you're talking about .
We're conditioned to kind of follow these patterns , but we also have to do them consistently , right ? if you were just to do these patterns , you know , two days out of the week , it's not gonna prove to be that beneficial for you or that effective for you .
But if you're trying to do this as much as you can , that your schedule allows , or things like that , you're gonna be able to find that consistency in being able to fall asleep , right . So I think that's super important .
And if we're not like stacking these things , like we're stop eating Food at a specific time or we stopped drinking caffeine at that five o'clock because you know You're gonna go to bed at midnight or things like that , and then you have like this routine where you are doing , you know , whether it's meditation or other things , to really wind yourself down , to calm
yourself down , so that when you're able to enter into that drowsiness Right , it's like okay , i can go to sleep right after that , yeah , so yeah And I kind of want to circle back to Captain Fritz's point is you know , sometimes we're on shift .
That is like a little bit of a break , We get to step outside of our normal life , And so I think there's room in the pattern for that connection with our crew . You know , movie time at night , like like no one's going to want to disrupt that , to go to bed early to get because I'm on my pattern or whatever that I want to .
I don't want to break that pattern , And so I think the human connection side of that is just as important in my opinion as the sleep side . But it just seems to me like there's room to adjust your pattern And especially I love the like control the time you get up and not necessarily the time you go to bed , Because that's the part .
No one's getting up early to watch a movie , right , Like you control that part .
But as far as hanging , out with the crew and that kind of family time . He said we'll make all that up . All that will come into play . As long as going to sleep at different times , as long as we're getting up at the same time every day , it'll all kind of come out with the wash , so to speak .
But yeah , just those simple habits , like I love staying up with the guys , but I could probably not bust open an energy drink at 11 o'clock , like Captain Francis here just watched me . Man , i love it . I just I don't know Like put it away , man .
Yeah , he tells me dude .
And I'm like no , it's movie time , let's go , and you know . But yet movie's over And I'm still wide awake , man , i still got the ceiling I could probably do without . So it's just changing those habits in myself that I know I can improve my quality of sleep and still enjoy the quality of the time with the crew .
Now , what do you guys think about banking hours of sleep ? Can you bank hours in anticipation of not getting good quality sleep ? They never mention it .
But what they did mention was something if we are sleep deprived . So remember , sleep insomnia , sleep deprived two different things . If we're sleep deprived , then it takes up to three days to recover from being sleep deprived . Oh man , three full days .
So as far as banking like one night of some extra sleep , i don't think does much for us Because , like we said , if we're sleeping in , we're still kind of not doing ourselves any favor by sleeping in . As Dan mentioned , we need to get up at the same time every day and kind of keep our body in that cycle .
And so I mean , i don't know , i'm not an expert on it , they didn't talk much about it , but I'd assume just from the information I know like that's a tough one to do .
It seems like our mindset needs to shift from counting hours to counting cycles , right , like quality , like that . Yeah , it's not about the hours you spend sleeping , it's about how many of those quality cycles that you make it through and get that quality sleep .
Because I'd imagine if you've got on your four off , if you have four solid quality sleep days , then you could probably survive a rougher better than if you didn't do that . But yeah , i don't think it and from what I've understood , i don't think it works as I miss three hours here . So I'm going to make up three hours here ahead of time .
But it certainly helps to have to come on shift or to like like even the night before shift . You know , this may be my last good night's sleep for a couple days . I'm going to make sure it's awesome And I go to bed on time and whatever right , so that I can function at my best .
I don't think it's as much banking hours as it is having a relaxed state of mind Like all right , i'm going to bed now . This is going to feel good . I already felt tired And more or less you're like mentally getting prepared to come in and get your butt kicked all night . you know .
So one and just kind of wrap up on this part of sleeping which I think is probably the hardest at times throughout your career in firefighting is those moments when you are laying in bed and you know some of those rougher calls start coming back And some like for me it's weird , it's like sometimes it's a recent one , but a lot of the times it's just weird .
It's like you'll be laying there And it's like this call from like six years ago , like comes back and it's like why is that in my head right now ? And then that keeps you from sleeping .
What and this goes for everybody , but just kind of , what have you done or what have you found has been most helpful , as maybe some of those calls start creeping back up in the middle of the night to kind of I don't know process it or to get through it , so that you know , because sometimes it seems to linger for a long time .
But you got 17 years on .
Yeah , i wish I knew . I would like to have that answer as well . Yeah , because sometimes they do come back , but you just gotta tuck them away .
¶ Coping With Trauma but Losing Sleep
And I don't think I have a healthy way to cope with it because , like , I woke up at 4 am from a bad dream this morning , So I'm laying there . what I did ? I distracted my mind . I pulled up my cell phone and started scrolling Instagram . Until I forgot about it , and then I fell asleep again .
I got like two more hours of sleep , so And I think that's it right .
Like we're gonna find a way to cope with it . It's whether the coping is actually helping or just kicking the can down the road . Because , like , like we've talked a lot about the sleep when we did the conference but for me , like I can't remember the last time I fell asleep just because I wanted to .
It's always like I fall asleep watching something And whether it's at home or on shift , like even if I go back to my room , everybody's going to bed . I'm usually watching something on my phone and I'll wake up with my phone .
That's that habit , that's what's happening , and so it's part of those habits , right ?
But it's been my way to like turn off my brain so that I don't think about this other stuff , this other baggage while I'm trying to fall asleep . It's distracted myself , like you said . some guys it's alcohol or some guys you know whatever they're trying to do , but they found some way to fall asleep .
But there's got to be a better way , dan , solve our problems . Yeah , let me help you , right .
So a lot of what you're talking about , too , is like these whether it's flashbacks or these anxious thoughts that you're having , whether it's right before bed , when you're falling asleep , or even when you are asleep , you'll wake up from having some of these nightmares or these images fresh in your mind , And that activates the brain , right , Because the brain has a
hard time differentiating between what's reality and what's going on when you're dreaming some of these things , right ? And so I mean doing a lot of trauma work or even working with thoughts , specifically thoughts that are anxious thoughts .
being able to use things like CBT or there's , you know , specific modalities out there like EMDR or ART accelerated resolution therapy that can help kind of process those images so that they don't disturb you , so that when you do lay down to go to sleep that they're not as strong or they're not as present , Because those absolutely will disrupt those regular cycles
that you need . And so being able to go to that . and so that's kind of where we come in as clinicians .
we're trained in that , or at least a number of us are , and we work with people through those so that they're not disrupted by that , Because what we know is if people's sleep is disrupted , they're at a greater risk for suicide , for anxiety and depression , and that kind of just perpetuates itself .
And so if you're never fully taking care of these things , they're always gonna be there , Just like you guys were talking about . you kind of just push it away and it works right , Like you'll whip out your phone and you kind of aren't thinking about these things anymore . but it doesn't mean it's gone , It's just gone for the time , right , And it'll come back .
And so being able to process through these things with a mental health professional I think will prove to be beneficial for anyone that's struggling with something like this .
Yeah , and I think you said it at the beginning . Right Like when we're trying to sleep , it's our brain's time to like process the experiences of the day right And so yeah , on a traumatic call , especially if we had one that day . Like our brain's gonna be working overtime while we're trying to sleep to try to process that .
And so it makes sense to talk to a trained professional to help get the correct processing done . It seems like I don't know from some of the . I mean , it's not like nothing's an overnight fix , but it just seems like the more I've been able to process some of those calls , the less they come back .
Or when they do come back , it's not Nearly as impactful as it was once .
It's kind of been through that correct Processing mode well , and a lot of people struggle even reaching REM sleep . Like there's a lot of people that don't make REM at all right . They don't make it to that stage , which is why .
So REM stands for rapid eye movement , right , and a lot of the trauma modalities that are out there right now Activate that rapid eye movement . So when you go in and do these , that's how your brain is processing these images , and if it's unable to do so , we have to do that in real time when you're conscious , to be able to activate that .
And the cool thing about the brain is the brain knows how to do these things right . Sometimes there's things that get in the way of being able to do that right , and so we kind of implement those modalities in A therapeutic setting to help people do that right . It's fascinating , it's . It's .
Crazy . It's been neat . I can speak from my personal experience where for a long time I never remembered my dreams , and I think that was my way of coping for a long time , as I just finally started blocking everything out . I could wake up with a bad dream . And I'd wake my life up and she oh , what's wrong ? I don't know .
Like I don't know , i just had a bad dream out , i don't know what about , couldn't tell her anything about it , and I've been doing that ART therapy . I'm dreaming and remembering again , which has been really weird . It kind of shifted the brain .
But at least now I know like , hey , i'm processing these things again , like they're coming back and now I can talk about them , i can work through them , and There are things that I don't think about anymore , but yet there's still some . So I could just I'm going through my bucket , i'm clearing it out as I got .
It was pretty interesting to see how my brain adapted once I started doing ART .
Yeah , that's powerful .
I'm glad I'm not crazy , because I did ART for the first time like three or four weeks ago And my sleep was so weird . After that , like like I and it's just weird dreams , but like I , like I never before that had like yeah , same thing , like I'd wake up . I didn't know if I dreamt or not .
And Now after that , for at least a couple weeks after doing it , like I would wake up and I'd remember the dream for like the first couple minutes And then it would like then you can't remember it anymore . Yeah , but I didn't make the connection until you said it . Dan is like , rem is like , and then ART , or basically the same thing .
Ert is like a conscious like REM . Yeah , and I thought that makes so much sense going into it . I was telling her I was like you can't hypnotize me , you crazy lady . I was having a very redneck like you ain't gonna fool me and I let her try it and , sure enough , i came out of there thinking like , oh , that was just weird , that didn't help .
But then I tried to sleep and I started doing these things .
I was like , okay , it did , it had a bit of a turn right , because the whole time I felt the same way . I was like , yeah , i don't think I'm doing . I didn't want to tell him Like assess myself .
I was like , i felt like once again I don't know what to do in my hands And it's totally weird and people are super skeptical
¶ Trusting Your Brain for Self-Healing
of it too , right .
But in that process of therapy it's like trust your brain , because your brain knows what to do . And it's gonna feel weird And it's gonna feel hokey , but like , yeah , the brain , the brain is so powerful , right , and so we just have to trust that yeah .
Well and I think that's a great way to end is just remembering that . You know , we really already have all the tools we need , like they're there .
Our brain is capable of fixing itself And sometimes we just need that little extra coaching , and that can come from , you know , the peer support team , which is exactly why we're here doing podcasts and trying to help support people in any way we can , whether it's privately , by Just providing some of the information you want to kind of do the self-help on your
own or providing access , easy access and private access To all our vetted clinicians , like Dan , the others on the website . But we hope that anybody that's listening is willing to reach out and talk to any one of us , because we're always happy to at least get you pointed in the right direction and get you started on Path to better sleep , if nothing else .
So Thanks everybody for being here today and we'll catch you on the next one .
Thanks , thank you , thank you .