Strategies to Improve Physiological and Psychological Components of Resiliency in Firefighters

Abstract

Firefighters are exposed to dangerous and often traumatic events due to the nature of their occupational demands. This repeated exposure to trauma combined with stressful work demands increases their risk for negative physiological and psychological health outcomes. The high prevalence of adverse health outcomes highlights the need for interventions to improve resiliency in firefighters. Resiliency is the ability to reduce the effect of crisis, rebound from adversity, and recover to pre-stimulus homeostasis. When traumatic exposures are unavoidable, as is the case with firefighters, it is important to buffer the resulting consequences on health. While resilience has a genetic component, interventions targeting physiological, psychological, and social components have been successful at improving resilience. These factors are of specific interest as increases in resilience have been linked to improved PTSD symptomology/severity, depression, anxiety, autonomic nervous system activation, hypothalamus–pituitary axis balance, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to identify physiological and psychological components associated with resiliency and discuss strategies that may improve those components to ultimately increase resiliency in firefighters. The strategies discussed include exercise, social support, and mindfulness.

Keywords

• resilience
• firefighters
• PTSD
• mindfulness
• exercise
• social support