Firefighter Wellness Point to Ponder

Today's point to ponder is firefighter health and wellness. It's no secret that our firefighters suffer from diseases of affluence due to overweight and obesity. It's not a secret because those are the diseases from which the general population suffers: cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, cerebrovascular disease, hypertension, cancer and alcoholism among others. Just because they (we) are firefighters doesn't make us immune to those consequences. In fact, the shiftwork that we do makes us MORE likely to suffer from those diseases, not LESS.

What can be done to bolster the health and wellness of our firefighters? I'm going to try to hit this from three directions: that of the firefighter, that of the administration and that of the health and wellness professional. This is the first email of an ongoing series regarding Firefighter health and wellness.

Firefighters:

Personal accountability is crucial. No one is going to take care of your health and wellness except you. I break it down into 4 primary "pillars" of health and wellness: Sleep, Nutrition, Mindfulness/Mental Health and Movement. I focus on the pillars in that order because sleep has a large impact on all three of the other pillars. If you haven't yet jumped on the sleep bandwagon because you're not aware of how critical it is, I encourage you to grab my sleep course from the Strategic Initiative. You can find my course as well as other courses and their certification at the by clicking the button below.​

Over the course of my next few blogs, I'll dive into the 4 buckets, but in the meantime, start figuring out how you can give yourself a 7–9-hour sleep opportunity off duty and your best fighting chance for good sleep on duty.

Administration:

Of course, you want a healthy and well workforce. Healthier firefighters are happier firefighters. They use less sick time and when injured, tend to return to duty much more quickly. But did you know that you can positively impact their health and wellness?

I know at some point; you probably spent a little or even a LOT of money on physical fitness equipment. Maybe you purchased treadmills, rowers, jump ropes, foam rollers, dumbbells, kettlebells and so forth for your stations. That's absolutely fantastic, but have you considered that your employees also need TIME in order to complete physical fitness? And saying "our employees are allowed" to train on duty isn't the same thing as carving out time. And just like you, your personnel get tired throughout the day when they're overloaded with busy work and call volume and it's easy to say "forget it" when 4 pm rolls around. Consider doing an analysis of your call volume and dedicating the least busy time of the day to physical fitness training time. And then make it mandatory just like throwing ladders and tying knots.

Once you've locked down time, aim to budget for an experienced and culturally competent coach (strength and conditioning coach, dietitian, physical therapist, athletic trainer or mental health expert) to guide your health and wellness program.

Health and Wellness Pros:

Firefighters and fire departments need your services. In some cases, they might not yet know it, but your guidance is a crucial part of long-term health and wellness. Our firefighters are experts at fire, EMS, hazardous materials, technical rescue, dive and recovery as well as a laundry list of other areas of expertise. They are NOT health and wellness professionals and they suffer from the same analysis paralysis that our general population experiences.

That’s all for now my friends.  If you like this content, please share this blog as well as giving me a follow on Instagram.

AZ is out!