What Is First Responder Burnout?
Key Takeaways
- Burnout arrives in stages: exhaustion, irritability, detachment, reduced performance, behavioral changes, demoralization.
- Drinking, taking it home, and taking it out on a suspect all make it worse.
- Resilience is trainable across four areas: physical, psychological, social, and spiritual.
- A coping kit (exercise, journaling, time outside, delegating, saying no) keeps stress from accumulating.
- Seeing a therapist is maintenance, the same as maintaining your gear.
Why Are First Responders So Exposed to Burnout?
Police officers, EMS, and co-responders are regularly exposed to malevolence and suffering. They see the worst of human behavior every day. It will take a toll on your mind and body, and if you have a family, it can be too easy to bring it home to them. Chronic stress can result in burnout, a gradual process of erosion of your will until you are rendered ineffective.
What Are the Stages of Burnout?
Exhaustion: A pervasive feeling of exhaustion all the time and an inability to recover even after days off and a solid night’s sleep. “I am so tired.”
Irritability: Patience wearing thin, easily frustrated, and overreaction to minor provocations. “I said wait a minute!”
Detachment: Avoiding eye contact, looking bored, and an indifference to your profession. Some officers count the hours until 5:30, the days until Friday, and the years or months until retirement. They have become too tired and worn out to be effective. “Leave me alone. I can’t do this right now.”
Reduced performance: Lack of focus, difficulty exercising sound judgment, and frequent slips in motivation. Standards that officers previously held themselves to are abandoned because they no longer have the energy to uphold them. “Whatever. That’s good enough.”
Behavioral changes: Drinking too much, too often, self-isolation, arguing with family, neglecting physical fitness, engaging in reckless and impulsive behavior. “I’ve got some bad habits.”
Demoralization: This is the end stage, where there’s a feeling of no longer being capable of doing anything effectively. There is no confidence, sense of purpose, or energy left, and you have lost the will to continue. If you are a first responder, you have become a liability to yourself, your team, and the public. “I can’t do this anymore.”
What Should You Not Do When Stress Builds?
There are unhealthy default behaviors to manage stress that only make things worse.
Don’t try to drink your problems away. It cannot ever work. I have spoken to countless people who have tried hard to drink their stress away, and it results in an avalanche of new problems and an unmanageable life.
Don’t bring it home to your family and take it out on them. You’ll alienate yourself from your primary sources of support, and your life will become much more unpleasant than it already is.
You maintain control of the situation by being professional, maintaining discipline, and not giving someone a beating, while teaching them some manners, no matter how badly they may need it.
It isn’t worth it. You don’t need to be disciplined for excessive force. You don’t need to lose your badge. You don’t need the media exposure and the scandal, nor does your family, because they will have to endure it with you.
What Is the Difference Between Fragile, Resilient, and Anti-Fragile?
Fragile people are prone to burnout. Fragile people will break down under stress. They will not function well in situations of adversity and uncertainty, and they will have a low tolerance for discomfort. This is not a moral judgment or intended to shame. Working as a first responder is not for everyone, and some people are too frail in body, mind, and spirit to do it. That is OKAY, as there are plenty of other meaningful, rewarding, and important careers available. Police or EMS may not be one of them. There is no shame in an accurate appraisal of one’s abilities.
Resilience is the ability to withstand chronic stress, to function optimally in adverse and uncertain situations, and to have a high tolerance for discomfort.
To be anti-fragile is a step beyond resilience. Those who are anti-fragile do not just withstand stress; they become stronger and more refined with exposure to stress.
How Do You Train for Resilience?
Resilience encompasses four areas: physical, psychological, social, and spiritual.
The physical aspect is training the body. Running, weightlifting, and calisthenics blended into CrossFit-type workouts, BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu), and range time all prepare you for a fight. A part of this is rest and recovery: sleep, sauna, massage, and proper nutrition.
Psychological resilience is about mindset, discipline, and being able to cope with stress. Know who you are: You are a warrior. You are a rescuer. You are a protector. You staunch the flow of evil, you impose order on chaos, you save lives. Preparation for discomfort, violence, and exertion will build resilience. It builds self-efficacy. Confidence is mostly about what you think you could do, hope you could do, or wish you could do. Self-efficacy is much more valuable. Self-efficacy is knowing what you can do because you have already done it. You have delivered. Competence has been demonstrated rather than assumed.
Social resilience is about connection to your teammates, your colleagues, trusted friends, and family.
Spiritual resilience and a message for Christian First responders: Strength, discipline, courage, service, restraint, and faith are not contradictory qualities. Prolonged exposure to danger, death, violence, degeneracy, and suffering can cause some people to reconsider questions of God, faith, morality, purpose, and their own mortality. They may experience a conversion or a deepening of existing faith. Being a Believer is not about pacifism, passivity, or weakness. A person can practice mercy and compassion while also holding others accountable.
What Are Practical Ways to Reduce Stress Under Pressure?
You need a kit filled with coping skills; practical things you can do to mitigate stress instead of letting it accumulate and crush you.
Use exercise as a stress reliever. Get a daily dose of iron, go to a gym, and start weight training. Ballistic or percussive movements, such as hitting a heavy bag, slamming a medicine ball, and hitting a tire with a sledgehammer, are especially good for stress management.
Write in a journal. Get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper or a Word document. People have been keeping written records of their lives ever since humans developed written language. It is one of the simplest methods available for gaining and maintaining perspective when the world feels crazy.
Unplug and get outside. Spend time in nature. Hike, go fishing, and get some sun.
Get a pet. Cats and dogs are great companions. They will love you unconditionally, and you can tell them anything, and they will never repeat a word of it.
Delegate rather than trying to do everything on your own. Outsource what you can. Instead of doing your own laundry, drop it off at a Laundromat. Pick it up a few days later, fresh, clean, and neatly folded and packed away. Hire a housecleaning service to come in and give your place a deep clean monthly or quarterly. Yes, these services cost money, but your sanity is worth the investment.
Learn to say no to unreasonable demands or impositions. A good strategy is to say, Let me get back to you. After 24 hours, if you decide you want to do what was requested, say yes. This prevents the automatic response of agreeing to every demand.
Expect to meet Mr. Murphy regularly. Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. When you enter a situation anticipating that things may not go perfectly, you adjust your expectations and develop a mindset conducive to flexible thinking and problem-solving.
Reframe: the situation does not have to be perfect; it has to be good. Manage your expectations to manage stress.
Sometimes it will not be good. Situations will be messy, unpredictable, and far from ideal. This is about accepting the chaos, unpredictability, and complexity inherent in life and in the world.
Should First Responders See a Mental Health Professional?
Your gear has to be maintained. You need to clean your gun. Your vehicle has to be maintained. You need to maintain your body after an injury; you may need physical therapy. Regular exposure to suffering, degeneracy, tragedy, loss, and death is going to erode you. Your heart and mind need maintenance too, and seeing a good therapist is an effective way to do that.
The best definition of therapy I’ve ever heard is expansion of free will: the idea that we all have a multitude of choices, but we can’t perceive all of them. We are blinded; our biases, expectations, past experiences, fear, and anger limit our vision.
A good therapist can be as objective and unbiased as an external third party, helping you recognize the choices you do have.
Conclusion:
Stress is part of having a front-row seat to everything wrong with the world. You do not have to succumb to stress and pressure. Resilience is something you can train for.
