Hello! Welcome to Day 5 of the 2022 First Responders Are Human event. The event hopes to encourage mental wellness in first responders through physical fitness. Participants should engage in one deliberate physical activity each day of the event. We will also be sharing a daily resiliency tool that can help first responders be resilient on and off the job. While many of the stressors first responders face are systemic, it is still important that we be able to maintain our own mental health.
Today’s Tool: Breathing Exercises
The topic today is breathing exercises. Breathing exercises are a tool you can use any time and anywhere to help regulate feelings of stress and anxiety. Breathing exercises work on the principle that there is a connection between body states and emotions. If you can manage the body state you can also manage the emotion that goes with it.
This same principle is the reason that beta-blockers are sometimes prescribed to people with anxiety. When we get anxious, our heart rate increases, which in turn can make us feel even more anxious. Since beta-blockers reduce the heart rate, they can also reduce emotions associated with an increased heart rate.
Breathing exercises affect both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system and can help reduce the flight-fight-freeze response people sometimes feel during times of high emotion. One reason many people find yoga extremely relaxing is because breathing is typically done in a controlled deliberate manner during yoga. Breathing exercises and mindfulness also have a strong connection (and we’ll talk more about mindfulness in a few days). In this presentation, Terry Oliver walks you through a couple of the breathing skills he has taught to civilians and first responders to enable us to perform our jobs better and with less stress.
Terry Oliver is a former first responder of 28 years. Terry has used breathing methods his entire career to lessen his stress and to enable him to respond to high-stress calls optimally.
Helpful Links & Sources:
To Do:
Follow the event on Facebook, Instagram, and join the Strava group.
Download the daily posters to use on social media.
Reflect on today’s tool and how you’ve incorporated it into your life or how you might incorporate it.
Post your reflection and physical activity on social media or the participant’s group to help spread the word and to encourage accountability and camaraderie.
Use the hashtags #movementismedicine and #firstrespondersarehuman on social media.
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