Welcome to part four of the series on understanding stress. In the first three segments I talked about the various kinds of stress people in high risk jobs can experience. For seasoned veterans, the information shared likely served as a good review. For newer members, it may have alerted you to the stressors that may […]
Understanding Stress – Part 4: Hyper Vigilance Read More »
I field a lot of questions about stress during my programs. I think this is, in part, because of how pervasive stress is in the lives of anyone involved in an emergency situation and the role that stress plays in situational awareness and decision making. So I thought I’d write an article about stress. Well,
Understanding Stress – Part 1: The Physical, Chemical and Emotional Impact Read More »
The research I have conducted on the neuroscience of situational awareness and high-risk decision making has been fascinating and extremely enlightening to me. Over the past 12 years, it has been very rewarding to take the lessons of research and apply them for the benefit of first responders. For those who have attended one of
Five Best Practices for Managing the Mental Workload Read More »
The mission of Situational Awareness Matters is to help you see the bad things coming… in time to change bad outcomes. SA is a complex neurological process and I go to painstaking efforts to ensure that what I teach here, on the podcast and in classrooms is “first responder friendly.” I don’t ever want a
Fifteen Situational Awareness Barriers Read More »
I recently read an article that was talking about the process for sizing up a situation before making a decision. For clarification purposes, this was an article in a business journal, not a public safety journal. This got me thinking about size-up mistakes made on the fire ground. The author noted that the best decisions
3 Size-up Mistakes Read More »
When it comes to first responder radio traffic I am reminded of the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You may recall that in the story Goldilocks samples three bowls of porridge. One is too hot. One is too cold. And the third is just right. This lesson applies directly to first responder situational
Radio Traffic Can Improve or Destroy Situational Awareness Read More »
A frequent contributing factor in firefighter casualty incidents is too much radio traffic. This can have a significant impact on first responder situational awareness because it becomes near impossible to take in, process, comprehend and remember the volumes of information being transmitted over the radio when communication is not disciplined. This article explores some of
On this episode we discuss how to make decisions in dynamically changing environments and the importance of using situational awareness as the foundation for making good decisions under stress. It is the decisions that first responders make, while operating in high stress, high consequence, time compressed environments (using situational awareness) that drive successful or unsuccessful
Episode 60: Explaining the Dynamic Decision Making Process Read More »
This episode explores Tachypsychia, a neurological condition that results in the distortion of time. While there can be several causes, we’re going to focus on emergency scene stress as the trigger. Length: 40 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and
Episode 59: Understanding Time Distortion Read More »
Episode 408 The fire service is struggling with recruiting and retention. It’s also challenged by a mental health crisis and a growing apathy within the profession. The good news is, we have the power to fix it. Working in a team environment provides job satisfaction, psychological safety, and a feeling of community. Fire service leaders
