A COMMON-SENSE APPROACH TO FIREFIGHTER WELLNESS
BY BEQUI LIVINGSTON
After the first few seasons as a wildland firefighter in the early 1980s, I developed a program called Fireline Fitness, for which I own the trademark (find it at www. bodysensewellness.org). As a fitness specialist, I was dismayed at the lack of a comprehensive wellness program within the wildland firefighter community; the only semblance of fitness was the step test, which was a meager standard of overall fitness with no indications of overall wellbeing. I knew the importance of overall wellness, especially as a wildland firefighter whose life depended on it. The next several decades provided opportunities for the Fireline Fitness program to evolve.
Fireline Fitness revolves around the five key aspects of wellness: physical; mental; emotional; relational; and spiritual. When all the aspects are in balance, our health and wellbeing tend to be in balance. However, when things go catawampus and become out of balance, our health and wellbeing suffer.
Fireline Fitness provided a common-sense approach to health, fitness, and wellness, incorporating the essential components, realizing that wildland fire fighting is not just about physical fitness; it’s about paying attention to all the components of wellness, while listening to our bodies’ innate wisdom to ensure that our health and wellbeing isn’t compromised.
Physical wellness incorporates all the aspects of fitness, movement, nutrition, hydration, injury prevention and mitigation, rest, recovery, and sleep. The physical aspect is critical in wildland fire fighting but often takes precedent over the other facets. For decades, physical fitness has been highlighted as the most important factor in wildland firefighting. Even the step test and subsequent work capacity test highlighted this.
In 2013, exercise and sports psychologist Katie Sell from Hofstra University and I implemented the Wildland (Firefighter) Fitness Assessment Battery (WFAB) to highlight the importance of a well-rounded fitness program including aerobic and anaerobic capacity, muscle strength and power, muscle balance, core strength, lower back strength and flexibility. Among members of the wildland fire groups who tested the program, flexibility was extremely weak, especially in the low back and hamstring muscles, and there were a multitude of imbalances of opposing muscle groups. No wonder there were so many low back and hip injuries being reported!
Mental wellness focuses on brain health and the ability to make safe and sound decisions, especially in the face of adversity. Our mental aptitude is critical to the job, especially for personnel who need to be on top of their game, making life and death decisions.
That’s why it’s so important to focus on mental wellness, year-round, ensuring that you are not overwhelmed or stressed and can function in the face of disaster. Equally important is understanding when you’re not at the top of your mental game and taking a break to focus on self-care.
Stress often causes the nervous system to take control, with a cascade of hormones that oscillate throughout our body and affect the brain; this can adversely affect cognitive ability to make safe and sound decisions, especially in survival mode. Some call it, amygdala hijack – when the pre-frontal cortex (cognitive decisionmaking part of the brain) goes offline and our amygdala takes over, putting us in survival mode.
Emotional wellness is sometimes the most misunderstood, especially in our can-do world of wildland fire. Yet, it’s one of the most important aspects for overall wellbeing, because we deal with so much traumatic stress and grief. It’s essential to feel emotions and talk about experiences, rather than pull up our bootstraps, as many of us have been taught. Grief is the body’s natural way of processing loss. Yet our society and even our wildland community often minimizes grieving, not giving our emotions anywhere to go other than being stuffed into the somatic body and psyche. What is known is that our emotions are the body’s natural process of letting go of this energy, and when not expressed, will often manifest in chronic pain and illness. Allowing the tears to flow, and verbal ventilation (talk therapy) when needed, is a healthy, and normal expression of grief and mourning. We were never meant to grieve alone.
Relational wellness is also not often talked about but is so important. We are hard-wired for connection in safe and healthy relationships. But when we are stressed, our closest relationships often take the hardest hit. Just look at the statistics of divorce in the wildland fire community, which are similar to marriage breakdown rates among combat veterans during wartime. Being a wildland firefighter, or fire personnel, has a huge impact on our partners, children, families, friends and pets. It doesn’t have to be this way, if we are aware and informed.
Practicing tools such as non-violent communication, honesty, humility, trust and safety should be cornerstones of all relationships. When we are stressed and / or traumatized, we often isolate ourselves, turn to addictive behaviors, and / or shut down; this is not healthy for any relationship. Learning how to safely communicate our experiences and seek help from safe and trusting professionals should always be encouraged. Remember that loved ones are equal partners in our wildland world; they experience stress and trauma much like we do, even if they aren’t on the fire line.
Spiritual wellness is sometimes confusing and awkward to discuss but it’s vital to our wellbeing. I remember a few years back when my best friend and I were teaching wellness workshops, using some of the spiritual wellness principles and being told by agency leaders that we could not use the term spiritual.
Spiritual wellness is personal and unique to each person’s interpretation and choosing. The easiest way to explain is by saying that spirituality is anything that brings you purpose and joy along with a sense of something greater than yourself; it could be religion, prayer, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, music, dance, nature, children, pets, or quiet walks in the woods or watching a sunset. Spiritual wellness gives you a sense of awe, joy, purpose and passion, and it’s yours to determine for yourself. It’s important to have something to hold on to, especially when everything around you is falling apart.
My challenge to you is to find ways to balance all aspects of your wellness. And, most importantly, know when you have reached your limit, or are out of balance, and learn how to get back on track. Stay fit, take care of your brain and nervous system, listen to your body and emotions, make your relationships a priority, find things that bring you meaning, and ask for help and support when needed.
