Emerging Infectious Diseases

Day 1

• Deployment Orientation with Chad Newland provides tips you’ll need while deployed.

Day 2

• Tips to Reduce Psychological Impact of Trauma Dr. Jaime Brower, Police & Public Safety Psychologist and owner of Brower Psychological, is our contracted mental health provider for deployed personnel. Her group is providing 24/7 support reachable via phone or website. She recorded this video at our request to deliver suggestions and techniques to minimize the psychological impact of trauma exposure. This is 5 minutes of incredibly relevant and useful advice.

Day 3

• Battlemind. Many of you may know Mike Taigman, a pioneer in EMS provider mental wellness. His webinar “First Responders, Stress Management and Coronavirus” explains Battlemind- how trauma and stress impact us and how we can protect ourselves. It’s worth watching!

Day 4

• Grief vs. Trauma (Length 0:3:30) Laura McGladrey is a Nurse Practitioner who does lot of work around stress injury with responders, park rangers, ski patrollers, SAR and humanitarian workers. This 3.5-minute segment talks about grief, loss, trauma, stress injury and growth (resiliency). This content can help you and your loved ones.

Day 5

• Stress Injury Formation (Length 0:6:00) Laura McGladrey is back again with a six-minute segment on stress injury formation. It may explain a lot of your reactions and responses to deployment work and to your EMS work at home. Knowledge is power.
• Breath Work: Veterans Yoga Project Focusing on and controlling our breath is an easy way to better manage our stress response. Learning a few techniques can help you better manage your stress anywhere, relax your body and mind, and improve your sleep. Check out this short session. Side note: we totally get that “mediation speak” can be weird. Just give it a chance and listen to the message behind the voice.

Day 6

• That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief is a brief article by Scott Berinato of the Harvard Business Review with interesting insights into recognizing grief and coping with it.

Day 7

• Sleep Tips for Deployed Personnel gives you powerful tools to help you prepare to sleep and encourage good sleep so you can get the critical rest you need.
• Qi Gong for Sleep (Length 0:10:00) Having trouble winding down to sleep or holding a lot of tension in your body? Finding it difficult to meditate or even sit still? Qi Gong, an ancient moving meditation practice has been used by warriors and others for ages to prepare the body and mind whether for action or for rest. Try this 10-minute practice to help you fall asleep.

Day 8

• Box Breathing Also called “tactical breathing,” this technique was made popular by the Navy Seals. Easy to learn and use anywhere, this practice can make a big difference in your sense of calm and control. Check out this short video to learn how.

Day 9

• How Stress Affects Your Brain (Length 0:4:00) Getting irritable, forgetful, agitated or overwhelmed? This four-minute clip explains why stress does this and how to combat it.

Day 10

• Post Traumatic Growth Heard of post traumatic growth? It's the positive mental shift experienced as a result of adversity. Estimates are that 90% of those impacted by trauma develop at least one aspect of it. This is a great short explanation of the phenomenon and ways to foster it.

Day 11

• Mindful Practices for Healthcare Workers (Length 0:10:00) This ten-minute clip outlines three daily mindfulness practices for healthcare workers from Dr. Mark Bertin. He shares some useful insights from his personal practices and how he recommends integrating them into personal stress management plans for health care providers.

Day 12

• Post Critical Incident Stress Reactions Our bodies respond to real or perceived dangers with chemical reactions. These stress reactions are designed to protect us from threat and can be helpful in the moment. Sometimes, however, these reactions can be sustained beyond the threat or can be delayed in onset. Normalizing these reactions is the first step in mitigating their impact on you.

Day 13

• Post Traumatic Growth and Mindset Dr. Sonia Lyubomirsky describes her findings on post traumatic growth. In illustration, she shares the story of two Holocaust survivors. One insisted it was insane to ever celebrate joy again. The other insisted it would be insane not to celebrate every joy afterward. We control our responses to major adversity. Check out this short clip.

Day 14

• Mindfulness is a Superpower Mindfulness is the ability to know what's happening in your head at any given moment without getting carried away by it. Practicing mindfulness is one of the single most powerful things you can do for your wellbeing. This three-minute animation makes it simple.
• Ten Percent Happier FREE App for EMS: In times like these, we need practical, actionable ways of dealing with fear, stress and anxiety. The Ten Percent Happier app wants to deeply thank and recognize healthcare workers all over the world who are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by offering free access to the app. It is a powerful and easy to learn tool!

Day 15

• Mindful Badge Guided Meditations Mindful Badge Initiative, created by Lt. Rich Goerling of Hillsboro Oregon PD, offers free guided meditation practices. Check these out if you're looking to relax and reap the health benefits of guided mindfulness practices tailored to responders.

Day 16

• Reintegration from Deployment Dr. Jaime Brower, Police & Public Safety Psychologist and owner of Brower Psychological, is our contracted mental health provider for deployed personnel. Her group is providing 24/7 support reachable via phone or website. She recorded this video at our request to deliver suggestions and techniques to aid reintegration to home life after deployment. At 18 minutes, it is a longer video but it explains a lot of what you may be feeling and is full of incredibly relevant and useful advice.

Day 17

• Support for Families A new GMR Facebook group has been created for personnel and their families! Check out the GMR Life and Family group for healthy connection, information sharing and networking.

Day 18

• 4-7-8 Breathing to Decrease Anxiety We all know breathing is one of the best methods to downregulate our nervous system and trigger the relaxation response. This easy technique is particularly useful in reducing anxiety.

Day 19

• CrewCare App Have you seen the CrewCare app? It’s an anonymous tool, free to all responders to help measure stress load, track daily life activities and mood, and allows you to compare your results to the aggregated results of others. Full of quick self-quizzes, information and resources, this tool can help you monitor your own wellbeing from your phone.

Day 20

• Demobilization Packet Preparing to return home? This guide helps with precautions, facts, resources and suggestions to ease the transition.

Day 21

• Tips for Dealing with Grief Chad Newland shares some tips for dealing with grief as we mourn the loss of our colleagues and process our feelings.

Day 22

• Mindset and Resilience - Maintaining grit or resilience requires vigilance. We can do all the self-care practices we want but if we allow our minds to stew in a toxic mentality, we've defeated all our efforts.