Beth’s Quarterly Column in the Carolina Fire Rescue EMS Journal
Carolina Fire Rescue EMS Journal has just recently brought Beth on as a columnist.
This column will primarily focus on First Responder health. Upstream healthcare, environmental health, infection prevention and control, carcinogens and cancer, humor and history. She will discuss mitigating the spread of infections during disasters, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) issues, keeping your stations and vehicles as clean as possible without adding more toxic chemicals to the mix, and even The Great London Smog of 1952.
“You are a First Responder – emergencies are your life. How can you take time for yourself when you’re so short staffed and the public cry continues to get louder? Maybe we’re trying to have more balance in our lives – appropriate time for family and work. We multi-task, work harder, and try to be more efficient, but at the end of the day, we’re left more exhausted. The path to a healthy balance is not more productivity, doing more and waking up earlier. It’s more about enjoying the life that you’re living now – not being concerned about the past or worrying about the future. As long as there’s a gap between what you care about and what your life reflects, you’re going to feel anxious, exhausted and out of balance.
“In a recent EntreLeadership class, Ramsey Personality Christy Wright, author of ‘Take Back Your Time’, suggests we need to work smarter, not harder. She mentions, ‘Life balance is not doing everything for an equal amount of time, it’s about doing the right thing at the right time.’ You get to decide what is right for you at any given time, and that may change as situations evolve, but it must include time for your own health.”
She’ll review the 5 key areas to focus on:
Decide What Matters
Stop Doing What Doesn’t Matter
Create a Schedule that Reflects What Matters
Protect What Matters
Be Present for What Matters
Read the full article:
https://www.carolinafirejournal.com/grab-2022-by-the-throat-and-yell-not-this-year-you-dont/
This article also appears online at FireRescue1:
Next quarter, look for “Upstream Strategies, Barriers & Runaway Bulls”