It’s increasingly common to see walking and standing desks in dispatch centers, evidence of a growing awareness of the physical toll sedentary work can wreak. We see reminders of wellness campaigns and peer support with greater frequency too. These are posted on bulletin boards, social media feeds, and personal effects, such as wristbands and screensavers. In other words, there are growing and concerted efforts to address occupational hazards common to this work at both the agency and individual levels. Folks are stepping up to confront dogged challenges.
Making a difference at the agency level, taking responsibility as individuals, and seeking to better understand the nature of challenge, all of this is undoubtedly progress. This moment also presents an opportunity to explore the distinction between physical and mental health that permeates emergency response and society at large. It’s a distinction that can be unhelpful.1
And we know this intuitively: When we feel better physically or mentally, we feel better entirely. This moment allows for consideration of new approaches to old problems. In this, yoga has the potential to be instrumental.
Yoga as a bridge between mind and body
Roughly translated, yoga means to “yoke” or “unite.” It is, in other words, a system for strengthening the connection between mind, body, and breath. While variously presented as a spiritual, physical, or even scientific endeavor, yoga can be all of these things at once. Yogic practices that may help us to experience greater personal integrity are postures, conscious breathing practices, and meditation.
Today, secular Western yoga practice is regarded by the National Institutes of Health as “Complementary and Alternative Medicine.”2 As such it has been studied extensively, both as a treatment for a variety of ailments and also as a means of building resilience. Benefits of yoga have been found to include lower resting heart rate, increased oxygen uptake, decreased stress, and increased compassion for others.3 It can increase flexibility, strength, and endurance as well. Its enthusiastic practitioners include psychologists and professional athletes—and yes, emergency dispatchers.
The connection between mind and body
The system of yoga with its emphasis on body-mind awareness may help to shed some light on the challenges facing emergency dispatchers. The fact is, mind-body awareness has historically been lacking among emergency responders, and for understandable reasons.
In training firefighters, medics, and law enforcement professionals, it’s common for breathing exercises and simple mindfulness practices to introduce new and, at times, challenging responses. Sitting on a yoga mat or meditation cushion with encouragement to focus attention on breathing, it’s not uncommon for emergency responders to express skepticism and unfamiliarity. These are professions that valorize action. Being, as opposed to doing, can be uncomfortable.
Similarly, emergency dispatchers have often trained their minds over time to the emergency environment. You might override bodily sensations—hunger, bathroom breaks, sleep, lower back pain, hydration—in order to respond to the desperate needs of others. Over time this disconnection from the body can make it challenging to respond to our own needs. We might not know how to feel. Are we experiencing pain or pleasure? Calm or arousal? Is it something more amorphous we should pay attention to? Or something to let go? Not knowing how we feel can create challenges to knowing what we want or need, what we stand for, and, at the root, who we really are.
One way to bridge the divide between mind and body is to return to the breath. In our trainings with emergency responders, we will often encourage them to pay attention to their breathing. We aren’t looking to control it or even necessarily to focus on it, but to simply become aware of the coming and going of breath, the sensations that follow throughout the body, and the eventual calm of simply being.
We encourage emergency responders to lay comfortably on their backs with the yoga block resting comfortably on their abdomens. Time slows as they extend the length of their inhalations and exhalations. Gradually, an awareness of warmth and space, as well as muscle contraction and relaxation, can be felt in the abdomen and chest. In short, breath is a way into a broader web of sensations.
In our experience, emergency responders who get more connected with their bodies tend to compound their own inherent resilience. They might eat more healthfully, drink more water, sleep more restfully, and pay more attention to interpersonal relationships, both on and off the job. They might also reduce habits ingrained in the work that can have negative impacts, such as alcohol and caffeine consumption, gossip, and cynicism. With time, basic breathing exercises can create a positive and self-reinforcing feedback loop.
What is interoception?
The fancy word for this is interoception. Neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Barrett Feldman defines this as “your brain’s ability to feel and make sense of sensations from your internal organs and tissues, the hormones in your blood, and your immune system.”4
Take a moment now. Notice what’s happening inside your body. Can you feel the beating of your heart or the rise and fall of your chest? Your heart and lungs are circulating blood and oxygen, making consciousness possible. Interoceptive brain regions are continually receiving these and other messages from your body to maintain homeostasis. This communication between body and brain happens without conscious awareness. Your prefrontal cortex will in turn respond to signals from the body that get your attention. For example, a rumbling in your abdomen alerts you that it might be a good time to eat. An unpleasant sensation in your lower back might warrant standing up from your desk and having a nice stretch.
These are relatively straightforward examples. It becomes more complex when we begin to deal with feelings that arise from traumatic experiences or chronic stressors. But the principle at play is essentially the same. Disconnecting from painful experiences, while an understandable short-term tactic, has long-term deleterious consequences. Over time we disconnect not just from pain and suffering, but also from positive feelings, social connections, and even our own sense of self. By building comfort with simply being, we become aware of, and increase, our own intrinsic resilience.
Emergency responders often live within binaries. An emergency is almost by definition a “life-or-death situation.” It imbues our language and outlook: life vs. death, good vs. bad. But the fabric of life is far richer than this binary. Life is full of things like check engine lights and checkout lines at the grocery store. There are also small pleasures, like morning coffee and lunchtime strolls with colleagues. Learning to pay attention to the world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations refines our ability to understand and care for ourselves, empowering emergency dispatchers to find reprieve within a busy, high-stakes 911 environment.
Agency: Bridging the gap
Once we have developed a relationship with our bodies, we can cultivate our own agency. By agency, we mean a sense of power in our lives: the ability to set and achieve goals and understand that we are capable of influencing our circumstance.
For the authors, this is personal. Before yoga and mindfulness practice, it was common for both of us to go through a workday with the abdomen sucked in tight, jaw clenched, and breathing constricted. A leaky faucet or a disagreement with a supervisor—the stuff of life—could elicit overreaction and an unfolding chain of negativity. But with instruction, we were able to find peace on a yoga mat and meditation cushion. And with time we were able to extend these practices to life beyond the mat or cushion. Not without missteps or challenges, of course. But the gifts of awareness and resilience allow us to better reflect on our feelings and, hopefully, self-correct as needed.
Tactics available to all
You don’t need a perfect teacher or serene tranquility. You don’t need expensive garb or even a yoga mat. A noisy firehouse, with the smell of diesel exhaust and bacon grease, has sufficed for the thousands of firefighters trained through FireFlex Yoga. A folded towel makes a fine mat to begin with. In fact, there is value to developing these habits and practices in the real world, where they have the greatest potential for impact and where they are most likely to be tested.
While we have talked a lot about self-care in this article, the benefits go beyond the individual. Each of you is a leader with influence. Your sense of calm and grounding, as well as your attention to your own needs, impacts everyone around you, including the public relying on you to be one call away in their worst moments.
Sources
1. Lilly MM, London MJ, Mercer MC. “Predictors of Obesity and Physical Health Complaints Among 911 Telecommunicators.” PubMed Central. Saf Health Work. 2015; Sept 12. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4792921/ (July 2024).
2. “Yoga: Effectiveness and Safety.” National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. National Institutes of Health. 2023; August. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/yoga-effectiveness-and-safety (July 2024).
3. Woodyard C. “Exploring the therapeutic effects of yoga and its ability to increase quality of life.” PubMed Central. Int J Yoga. 2011; Jul-Dec. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3193654/ (July 2024).
4. Barrett LF. How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Boston: Mariner Books. 2017.
