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This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now and that is 511.

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Now my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

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And since then I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage which have literally been around the world with me.

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The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack.

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So for example Gainesville where I do jiu-jitsu has a beautiful 511 store.

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Now I've talked about the range of shoes they have and how important

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And then I want to highlight one new area, their CloudStrike packs.

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So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story,

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go to episode 338 of Behind the Shield podcast with their CEO, Francisco Morales.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing.

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And this week, it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show,

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former volunteer firefighter and EMT and current researcher Joel Billings.

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Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from volunteering as a young man,

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his journey into the research side, his study on the 4896 that is being cited around the country,

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reducing the firefighter workweek, alert systems, shift start times and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week,

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please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on,

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subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast,

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therefore making it easier for others to find.

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And this is a free library of almost 1000 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories

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so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Joel Billings.

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Enjoy.

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Well, Joel, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time

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and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Oh, you're welcome. No problem.

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So where on planet Earth will be finding you this afternoon?

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I reside in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

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Beautiful.

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But you're actually part of Emory Riddle, aren't you?

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Which is on the East Coast here where I am.

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Yeah, they have three campuses.

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The Daytona Beach campus that's in Florida, the Prescott Arizona,

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and then the Worldwide campus.

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So the Worldwide is all online and their faculty are also worldwide.

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How involved, if any, is the Prescott Arizona program when it comes to wildland

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having such a huge wildland tragedy in their town?

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I don't know much about any of their programs on that campus.

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And in regards to emergency services,

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that program is just on the Worldwide campus.

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And that's what I share.

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Okay, beautiful.

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All right. Well, let's start at the very beginning of your timeline then.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,

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what your parents did, how many siblings.

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Okay.

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So I am now reside in the South.

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So I was very opposite of where I was born.

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I was in Michigan, Waterford, Michigan, which is about 40 minutes north of Detroit.

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So I like the snow, but we don't get snow here in Oklahoma.

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Anytime that there is a threat of snow or ice, it shuts down the entire state, basically.

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So I very much miss the snow, but we do visit quite often during the holidays.

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So I grew up in Waterford.

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I have three other brothers.

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I'm number three out of four.

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And I started, I guess, my background in the fire service as a volunteer firefighter

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and EMT for Waterford Township Fire Department,

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which is now Waterford Regional Fire Department.

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They handle a couple other cities.

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So back in high school, I enrolled in a cadet program there at the local fire department.

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Basically, as a senior high school student,

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you got to have last two hours to go to the fire department.

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And then they taught basically first responder, got you used to items on the trucks,

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and just basically to get those that are interested or might be interested in the

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fire service as a gateway.

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Those that graduated from that program,

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they helped to get connected with the local community college for Fire 1 and 2.

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And so I did that.

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And then shortly thereafter, I did EMT basic.

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Wasn't much long after that where I decided I wanted to help in a little bit different way.

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I loved being a volunteer and EMT basic for that department.

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It was a combination department.

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So most of it was career full time.

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And then the volunteers were mainly a lot of younger people that sort of a feeder

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program into the department.

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I believe they got more points back then during the application and hiring process.

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But so I shortly thereafter wanted to pursue a four year degree.

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So went up to Lake Superior State University.

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That's in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Sault Ste.

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Marie, the last exit before Canada, essentially.

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So there you'd get we would get three feet of snow.

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And as long as they kept open or kept up with the bridges,

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the International Bridge and the Mackinac Bridge classes were on.

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So you were hiking to classes very different than here in Oklahoma.

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But did that.

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I was a fire science degree.

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And for my senior research paper, that's where I got into research and started

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loving this idea of sleep.

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So I read the 2007 sleep deprivation report from International Association of Fire Chiefs.

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That report is still online.

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So anybody can Google that.

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Just type in sleep deprivation IFC and you'll come up.

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I think it's going to be the first link.

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And we'll probably talk a little bit more about that here in a little bit.

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But after that report, I ended it with more questions than I had started.

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And so I kind of fell in love with with research.

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That led to me applying to graduate school.

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And that's where I moved to Oklahoma for their fire and emergency management program.

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Their masters and PhD program.

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So I continued on with that topic of looking at different shift schedules and sleep.

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And then for my dissertation, I did a experiment with a fire department

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that converted to the 4896 from the 2448.

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So I looked at sleep before and after that transition.

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So that's a little bit about me.

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All right. Going all the way back.

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What about your parents? What did they do?

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My dad was always in construction and various roles in construction.

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And my mom was a cafeteria lunch lady.

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Totally random question.

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But I've talked about this recently, especially after the pandemic.

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Did she see a devolution of what they served in schools?

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Because if you go far enough back, our lunch ladies made lunch.

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Men and women, they would actually cook real food.

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And then somewhere along the line, it became Cisco and frozen and microwave.

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And it contributed to a lot of the ill health we have now.

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Have you ever had that conversation with her by chance?

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Not not too much.

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My mom would always have interesting stories of different types of food

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and or the requirements to meet the nutritional value.

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So if I remember correctly, there was one time that, you know,

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I was making grilled cheese sandwiches and to meet that nutritional value,

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they had to put six slices of cheese to to meet that requirement.

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And so I always just thought that was

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interesting of the requirements that they have to to make.

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But but I'm sure there are various

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methods and procedures throughout the years that they had to go through.

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What about sports and exercise?

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What were you doing in the school age?

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Sports? I was always very athletic.

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I in high school, it was cross country track and wrestling.

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Wrestling was my number one sport.

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And I basically did track and cross country to stay in condition for for wrestling.

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Talk to me about the cadet program.

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I think one of the many solutions to the

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recruitment crisis is obviously educating young people on what we do.

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And then more importantly, I would argue because there's mentorship program here.

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One of my friends started, which is phenomenal.

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So reaching into maybe underserved populations, obviously that can be done

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through high school programs and then giving these young people the free training,

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which will either A, lead them into that profession or B equally as valuable.

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Make them realize that they don't want to

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do that before they commit to fire academies and getting hired.

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Yeah. So the cadet program, I was very fortunate.

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I didn't hear about it through any major

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like marketing campaign through the high school or fire department.

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It was mainly just word of mouth.

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And so that led to meeting with a couple of other people.

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And so then I got more information.

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It wasn't I think I had to apply when I was a senior, but I did also apply when I

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was a junior and that was, I think, too young or not the class to apply.

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So I didn't get in my junior year.

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But in regards to the cadet program,

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I think it's a great way to help with recruitment issues.

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So again, it can show people just a very brief snapshot of what goes on.

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Of course, you could do ride alongs and just give the day to day operations

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of the fire and emergency services to maybe prospective firefighters.

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What about career aspirations when you're in the school?

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Were you already thinking of becoming a

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career firefighter or was there something else on your mind?

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No, I had I had my heart set on that.

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Actually, I'll take a big jump back to when I was describing my childhood.

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My father and parents collected fire trucks.

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I think he got his first one when he was 18.

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And so he collected I think the earliest is in 1941.

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American LaFrance or Ward LaFrance, I get that one confused.

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And so we were kind of always around sort of antique fire trucks, which was nice

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because it gave us mechanical skills of maintenance and so forth, but also

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naming parts and getting used to concepts of fire trucks and and apparatus.

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We have a we have a bucket truck,

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a tanker is what we call them in Michigan, but it'd be a tender if you're in a

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different part of the US and a few other pumpers.

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So they're they're really neat.

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And that's how we got into or how I got really interested in the fire service.

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We take them to fire truck shows,

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believe it or not, those exist and parades as well and go to the local lake

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and draft and pump and pump and spray water.

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So it's a lot of fun, memorable moments as a as a child.

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And that I'm sure had led

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a significant part of my journey so far.

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That must have been some people's minds blown if you kind of walk in as a young,

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young recruit and are able to be a wizard on the panel already.

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Yeah, well, just a little bit.

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It's more, you know, naming things that are on the trucks or capacities and so forth.

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But not any anything really in regards to

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a fire response or emergency response and of course, medical response at all.

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Well, speaking of that, then what capacity did you volunteer?

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Like, what would that look like as far as the frequency of calls?

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And then how did that lead you into the EMT side as well?

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It was well, leading into the EMT was sort of the next progression.

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I think it was after we graduated in fall

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in the fire academy and then I think January is when the EMT course started.

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So we were in a cohort and so we just all transitioned into into the EMT program.

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But serving as a volunteer firefighter, we would mainly go on anything like public

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assists, so picking someone up that fell off the floor,

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small, small items of fire alarms, those kind of things.

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And then to help on scene for any actual fire and so forth.

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So what about experiencing yourself,

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the station life, the alert tones, the sleep deprivation?

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What kind of depth did you find yourself in the roles that you played?

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So I actually never had the privilege and I think that's maybe a strong word.

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It's a very strong word.

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To actually to sleep overnight in a station to experience the calls.

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But our station or this department didn't have mechanical bells.

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And I know those exist quite a bit local fire department here has mechanical bells.

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We had electronic tones.

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And so that was a little bit more peaceful.

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But I just remember at that time when I was 18, that was just excited for the next one.

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I hated waiting around for for a call to come in.

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I would have been the one that was out in the bay.

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You know, like, let's let's let's just sit here waiting for one to come in.

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Absolutely.

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Well, you found yourself not just in firefighter health, but obviously focusing

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on the sleep and sleep deprivation conversation, which is where I think this

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is going to be a great conversation and you and I are going to be in a conference

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in Orlando next month as well together.

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Talk to me about the front door when you walk in and you decide to do the research.

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What which studies were actually available

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on the impact of sleep deprivation on firefighters at that point when you entered?

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You mean back in senior or graduate school when I was starting my thesis?

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Yeah, whenever the sleep deprivation specifically became your focus.

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OK, well, I'd say it really became, I guess,

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the interest back in senior research, but that was what we say more about research

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paper, a literature review, just reporting what you found on the topic.

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It wasn't until grad school where I

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conducted my first study and I was able to publish those results.

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But the the information on sleep deprivation was was limited.

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And if it existed, it focused on just sleep overall, whether or not

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how much in general firefighters slept.

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And we know now that, you know, it of course varies amongst departments

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and within departments and so forth and but also comparing maybe shift schedules.

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And so there wasn't much of a comparison

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between or among shift schedules until my my first first study.

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And I looked at those three most popular US shift schedules.

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When you're kind of pulling this apart,

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obviously there's a lot of research when it comes to firefighter cancer,

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although they seem to disregard the sleep deprivation part.

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There's a lot of research when it comes

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to the firefighter mental health, although they seem to disregard the sleep

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deprivation part, so there is research in firefighter health.

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But more often than not, it's just these

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certain topics that I think most of the money and research has been focused in.

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What was your assessment of why that is

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the case, knowing that we work these insane work weeks, why research wasn't done,

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why it wasn't prevalent at this point?

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I'd say in general with like behavioral health, mental health, cancer,

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suicide, physical activity, nutrition, those critical areas,

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and most of which would be called pillars of health.

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Those those four areas with sleep have,

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I would say, just been neglected in the fire service as a research topic.

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In other fields, you know, just for example, on on work hours, there are

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regulations for pilots and long haul truck drivers and so forth.

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But, you know, nothing really exists in the fire emergency services or really at

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a guidance level for individual departments to maybe even make their own

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their own policies. In fact, I just got an email the other

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last week about, you know, is there any information on

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mandatory rest time after working so many hours?

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And, you know, unfortunately, there's not there's not any research on that in the

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fire service outside of the fire service, though there there's lots of research.

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And so for a while and in the 2007 sleep

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deprivation report, you'll see that a lot of that literature presented in there is

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from outside the the fire service and not necessarily a weakness, but you have to.

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Be aware and question whether or not that can be generalized into the fire service.

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So, for example, nursing medical residents like first year

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graduate medical residents are there's a lot of research in those two two groups,

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but they're not firefighters.

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And so work duration, work function is very different between these two populations.

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And a lot of people maybe mistakenly correlate those two together.

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So in terms of direct evidence, we're behind in a lot of areas.

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00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:27,400
But, yes, there there is connection with sleep amongst those other four four areas.

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And I think we're starting to see sleep

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become more of a consideration in in those areas of research.

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00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:39,720
See, this is what's been maddening for me for eight years now talking about this.

287
00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:40,880
And again, I'm not the expert.

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I'm just the conduit between the experts and the people that need to hear it.

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00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:49,320
But I've had people on from the army, the Navy, the Navy SEALs, the Air Force,

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00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:53,160
the sporting community, neuroscientists, I mean, you name it.

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00:19:53,360 --> 00:19:55,400
And the message is exactly the same.

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But I have the fire service tell me, oh, well, I need to see the data.

293
00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:01,480
Show me the data on and we'll get to obviously the shift schedules.

294
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:03,520
And I said there isn't any.

295
00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:05,000
How can you call for something?

296
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,640
And the reason you're asking me is because you've Googled it and you can't find it

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00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:11,120
either. So we'll get into some of the some of the studies that you've done.

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00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:14,560
But up to that point, this is the issue is the biggest,

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arguably the biggest issue that we really have.

300
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:19,120
This related to so many of the other problems,

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00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:22,920
including recruitment, is the one thing that we haven't studied.

302
00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:27,680
And if your response is I need to see the data, then you to me, you're you're turning

303
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:29,640
your back on actually addressing the problem.

304
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,840
And like you said, every department can because now in Florida, there's beginning

305
00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:37,040
this revolution where departments are going to 24 72 because they're understanding

306
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:38,680
the whole picture, which is beautiful.

307
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,480
So they do get to choose their own hours.

308
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:44,200
That's that's that's neat.

309
00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:48,840
Yeah, the the 24 72.

310
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Very limited data on that one,

311
00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:57,440
but just speculation from what I've been able to see that would kind of

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offer the benefits of multiple multiple of the schedule, especially the 24 48.

313
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:04,440
And then the 48 96, combining those two

314
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:10,920
benefits of working 24 hours and then having a sufficient time off to to recover.

315
00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:13,040
Absolutely. We'll stay with that for a second.

316
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:16,760
I was reading some of the the kind of articles that you had on the website.

317
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:23,720
You mentioned this about some of the, again, external studies, how the the

318
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:28,320
the greater the demand on the individual, the more sleep deprivation, the greater

319
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:32,440
the need there is between these shifts to recover.

320
00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:36,400
Yeah, well, basically it comes down to

321
00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:42,640
call volume at at night and the individual firefighters call volume at night.

322
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,280
And so that can, of course, be tied to unit specific.

323
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:51,640
But generally you have to or a department probably should.

324
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:57,360
Target or select a policy for the most at risk individual.

325
00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:02,840
Right. So if we have a 24 48 and station one has 20 calls during the night,

326
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:09,160
that's going to be very unhealthy and an increased risk of injury and accident.

327
00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:15,960
So the question of having a sufficient time off compared to

328
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:20,320
working, working hours and then not having sleep.

329
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:24,480
That's what we need to factor in is how many or how

330
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:27,920
how many hours you're not sleeping during during work.

331
00:22:28,120 --> 00:22:32,360
And then we could talk about, you know, OK, is it is it

332
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:36,320
a shift on shift duration or is it also workload?

333
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:41,320
Is it I mean, in terms of a number of units at us at a station.

334
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,600
So if workload is too high, then maybe that's this is a labor question to

335
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:50,200
increase the number of units within a station to disperse that workload among

336
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:54,400
different units so that now you're lowering that workload per personnel.

337
00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:58,800
So there's lots of ways to tackle that particular

338
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,600
problem of call volume.

339
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,360
See, it's interesting as well because you just kind of hit the nail on the head.

340
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,040
And I agree with this philosophy completely.

341
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:12,240
Every department or a lot of departments have mostly busy stations and then they'll

342
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,560
have what they refer to as a retirement stations.

343
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:18,000
There might be some in areas that they're going to develop, but it's not happened

344
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,200
yet on the on the kind of out of fringe.

345
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:22,160
And so that's always the pushback.

346
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:23,840
Well, you know, we don't want to change

347
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:29,560
the work week because Steve in Station 10 only runs two calls a week.

348
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,400
And the argument is, well, that's completely backwards.

349
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:35,080
What about Stephanie in Station one who's

350
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,000
getting murdered for 24 hours every third day?

351
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,200
You're not going to fix it for her because you're worried that a guy who's

352
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:48,400
been a firefighter for 25 years won't be working around the clock without stopping.

353
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:50,800
So I think it's the same as a shore site.

354
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:55,680
It kind of rhetoric you get on food stamps or government housing.

355
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:57,040
And they always point to the people that

356
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:01,880
abuse it rather than the massive majority that are able to get back on their feet

357
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:06,000
and then and then get back into society or get back into the workforce.

358
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,480
So I don't know what it is about our mentality, but we always focus on the few

359
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:12,920
at the detriment of the many.

360
00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:18,360
Yeah. And and you can like I said, there's there's a few different ways to handle it.

361
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,360
And, you know, I'll say these and they it's easier said than done, of course.

362
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:25,960
But there are flexible scheduling where

363
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:31,320
some stations can be on one schedule and other stations can be on other schedule.

364
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:36,160
That's a little bit more accommodating to workload there.

365
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:39,240
You can decrease the workload or

366
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,880
the individual workload by adding additional units.

367
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:48,480
But you can also subtract the workload by maybe systems such as community based

368
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:55,920
EMS or something that we talked about before on our phone call of other units or.

369
00:24:56,120 --> 00:25:01,960
Other systems like telehealth in being involved to help decrease the the workload

370
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,800
on fire and emergency responders.

371
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:08,720
So another question that I struggle with now

372
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,080
and this is a totally different conversation eight years ago, but in twenty

373
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:19,600
twenty four is why it's such a hard sell to ask the question, why do firefighters

374
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:24,400
work 56 hours a week when the average population works 40, including the people

375
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,040
that refuse to change the firefighter schedule.

376
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:30,840
So did that kind of strike you as just simply the question, why are the people

377
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:37,600
that we call on a very worst day required to work 16 hours a week more than the average civilian?

378
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:39,880
I mean, it's an interesting question.

379
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:44,200
I don't know what the solution would be.

380
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:50,160
Some people could throw out, oh, let's go with the non twenty four hour schedules.

381
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,320
Right. But you're replacing one problem

382
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,240
with another because someone always has to work night.

383
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,480
Right. I mean, the calls are going to be.

384
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,560
That's the random variable here when a call comes in.

385
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:06,320
So if someone always has to be ready to respond, then someone's

386
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:12,200
has to be there at the station or if it's a career department.

387
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:15,160
That's tricky if you go to like a non

388
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:20,320
24 hour schedule, because there's like five factors for those types of schedules.

389
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:21,480
The work duration.

390
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:27,480
So it could be three eights, a 10, 14 or 12, 12 or some other type of combination.

391
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,280
So the work duration and then you have the non work duration.

392
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:33,200
So that's your recovery time, essentially.

393
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:37,960
Then you have to decide if it's going to be a permanent schedule or rotating.

394
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,440
So is someone always going to work nine hours?

395
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:46,480
So maybe you could find those that have like the night owl chronotype that maybe

396
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:51,840
their circadian rhythm is more apt for night work or you're going to rotate.

397
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,920
And so if you do rotate, which direction do you rotate forward or backwards?

398
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:58,760
So is it night shift working in the morning

399
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:00,680
or is the night shift then going to work the afternoon?

400
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:02,120
And so there's some science on that.

401
00:27:02,120 --> 00:27:06,520
And then the last one is how fast is that rotation?

402
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,360
So is it every week or is every two weeks or et cetera?

403
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,120
So there's a lot of factors that go into the non 24 hour side.

404
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:19,480
And so the 24 hour side was probably just easier maybe to have someone there all

405
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:24,280
the time and when they're not busy, they can rest and sleep and still be on call.

406
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:26,240
Yeah, I agree completely with everything

407
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,320
you said, but I'm talking about 56 hours a week.

408
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:30,440
Civilian works 40 hours a week.

409
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:32,240
Firefighters work 56.

410
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:38,800
To me, the insanity of that in itself, like I tell people, we go around telling

411
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,720
everyone that we work one day on two days off and we don't.

412
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,280
We work three, eight hour days crammed together.

413
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,960
So it's three days on one day off is actually what it looks like.

414
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:48,160
So it's not 10 days a month.

415
00:27:48,360 --> 00:27:49,480
It's 30 days a month.

416
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,400
So we've been telling ourselves this fairy tale that we have this amazing

417
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,640
schedule and then we shoot ourselves on the foot because we go around telling

418
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,600
our neighbors, I only work so many days a month.

419
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:01,600
I'm off all the time.

420
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,600
And you look at actually on paper, we work way more than most people.

421
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,000
And that's not even mentioning the mandatory overtime.

422
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:09,880
It turns out into an 80 hour week now.

423
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:15,600
So this is the conversation, not the 12s or 24s, but the people in the office

424
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:20,280
buildings, the chiefs, the administrators, they tap out 40 hours.

425
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,640
The firefighters that are up,

426
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,040
arguably a lot of them through the night are working 56.

427
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:31,000
It's that concept alone that people struggle to get their head around.

428
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,800
And I haven't obviously no one can give me a good answer because there isn't.

429
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:38,400
It's pure insanity that the people that you call on your worst day are working

430
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:44,240
almost 50 percent more in that week than the person bagging your groceries.

431
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,120
Yeah, so that's a tricky one.

432
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:48,840
And I haven't

433
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:53,720
explored that too much because then you could also ask

434
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,920
the same question about a 40 hour work week.

435
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:57,200
Right.

436
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:02,880
And if that's the right number of hours for the general population or with

437
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,880
technology and us being able to be more efficient at our jobs, are we getting more

438
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:14,000
out of employees for that 40 hours than what we used to during that same 40 hours?

439
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,600
So that could even I mean, it's always going to be a question of that work hours.

440
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:23,280
So that's that's a difficult area to explore.

441
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,480
Well, I mean, I think just to take your example, you look at the corporate world,

442
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,040
they're realizing that a four day work week is actually equally as productive.

443
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:34,800
All the Googles and all the Virgin and all these mega companies that are known

444
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:39,840
for excelling in the business space are actually creating flexible work hours

445
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,880
and a shorter work week because they're realizing that extra time off creates

446
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:48,200
happy, healthy workforces. So in the fire service, we've gone the other way.

447
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,560
You know, with the mandatory overtime now is making people work more, not less.

448
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:58,160
So I think we can't have a firefighter health conversation if we can't even

449
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,640
answer why firefighters are working 56.

450
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,280
You see what I'm saying, which is why I think the 24 72 is a beautiful solution.

451
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,800
Still 24 hour shifts, but you just get it down to a 42 hour work week,

452
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:13,040
which in turn saves the department money and improves recruitment and all the other

453
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,880
things. But most importantly, you're just giving these poor men and women time to

454
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:18,800
actually be with their families.

455
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:20,480
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

456
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,800
And you know, COVID

457
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:30,280
with sort of the general workforce, maybe like day shift occupations.

458
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:36,480
Which flexible scheduling and four day work weeks has really started

459
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:41,000
to ask and open up those questions for even the general population.

460
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,600
I was at a

461
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,400
conference, I think it was in Arizona.

462
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:52,400
And one of the fire chiefs there asked or was asked by a firefighter if they could

463
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,600
do work from home as a firefighter.

464
00:30:55,800 --> 00:31:01,600
So obviously that was I hope it was a joke, at least from that firefighter.

465
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:07,080
But nonetheless, these questions on work hours and work durations,

466
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:14,120
a lot more departments that I see now are asking that question compared to before.

467
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:19,600
So and then in the 24 72 at that same conference.

468
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:25,320
Now, this is not going to apply to all departments, but that chief had said

469
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,720
they were able to go to that schedule with just two additional hires due to the amount

470
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:36,280
of overtime that they saved from having required or mandatory overtime.

471
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:38,200
Yeah, that's what we're seeing.

472
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,200
And I want to obviously make this conversation about you, not me yapping

473
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,600
about 24 72, but the departments that I know that have gone to it now,

474
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:51,840
that was basically their entire budget was the overtime and or the amount of money

475
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:55,080
they were wasting on recruits that then turned around and left their department

476
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,080
a year, two years later.

477
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,960
I heard Orange County, where I used to work,

478
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,600
someone was telling me they've lost, I think they said 200 recruits,

479
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:11,120
200 recruits over I forget how many a year or a couple of years, whatever it was.

480
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:15,000
But if each recruit is roughly about 20 grand to train,

481
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,040
you know, you do the math, there's millions of dollars between overtime and that.

482
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:23,720
So this whole we can't afford a whole shift is like you already are.

483
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,000
You just are not paying attention where the money is.

484
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:31,760
It's downstream being wasted because of the refusal to acknowledge this change.

485
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:32,600
Oh, yeah.

486
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,920
I mean, very easily could be.

487
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,120
And in

488
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,280
the south, like Texas, for example,

489
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:45,720
there were a lot of departments that were going to the 48 96 from the 24 48.

490
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,120
And they would be trained in other other departments.

491
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:51,400
And then once that

492
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:58,000
opening was posted and a lot of departments there would post what schedule

493
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:01,120
they were they were working on in the actual flyer.

494
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:05,440
And so that really attracted a lot of people to jump ships.

495
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,800
And then as well as the salary difference as well.

496
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:10,680
I think I mean, there is misinformation.

497
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:14,640
I'm going to put the 24 72 aside because that's the 42 hour work.

498
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,320
We obviously that's far better than 24 48 or 48 96.

499
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:20,520
So moving that over for a moment,

500
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:25,080
when people have this one or the other conversation, though, having always worked

501
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:30,160
in extremely busy departments myself and then now having all these incredible

502
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,840
people from the sleep research world, including Professor Russell Foster,

503
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,840
who's the one that actually discovered the Kroner receptors in the eye.

504
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,480
So a real grandfather of sleep medicine

505
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:42,120
over and over again.

506
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,080
I'm told just how

507
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,000
how dangerous it is even for the 24.

508
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:48,440
But at 24, like you said, I agree.

509
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:49,600
That's what we have to do.

510
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:51,320
But when you're getting into 48, you're

511
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,120
getting to multiple days how they were like, it's irresponsible.

512
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,280
It's dangerous. It's just downright.

513
00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:58,680
You shouldn't happen.

514
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,160
So I get obviously the four days.

515
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:02,680
That's what everyone focuses on.

516
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:08,360
But when you dive into the science, talk to me about the 48 because 48 hours

517
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:15,000
in the stations that I worked at is 48 pretty much sleepless hours back to back.

518
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:19,280
Yeah. And in that case, that's probably a pretty dangerous schedule.

519
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,960
The fact that you're if it's true that you're not sleeping for 48 hours.

520
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:31,520
I mean, it's just it's a matter of time when not if there's going to be a serious injury or accident.

521
00:34:31,720 --> 00:34:37,480
Now, I'll say that with not with a caveat on that discussion is that there are

522
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:43,760
stations that an individual units or firefighters that don't have that type

523
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:46,000
of workload during that 48 hours.

524
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,280
So in that case,

525
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:54,520
that may be just a fine schedule for for them and may work out well for their

526
00:34:54,720 --> 00:35:00,800
their work, but also their their home life as well, family and social obligations as well.

527
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:07,600
The as an example, the published work that I had here is a department that had less

528
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,800
than one call a night during the 48 96.

529
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,600
So you could see that, OK, maybe sleep is a little bit better in that case.

530
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:20,640
But that's under those circumstances and situations where workload is very

531
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:28,440
manageable, where it's less, you know, less than one time or less than one call a night on average.

532
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,280
So, you know, maybe two calls during your entire tour.

533
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,760
And so that's probably reasonable if if you're able to still get some sleep and

534
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,880
pretty good sleep, some some get light sleep even when they're not,

535
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:42,400
you know,

536
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,760
even when they're maybe when they're trying to expect a call at the station.

537
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:48,480
I hear that quite a bit.

538
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:53,360
But I also hear that some firefighters go to work to sleep compared to home.

539
00:35:53,560 --> 00:36:00,320
So it's it's it's very personal topic of work duration in that in that schedule to

540
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:05,280
an individual firefighter. I think this is where research is dangerous.

541
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,720
And obviously not the study itself, but the interpretation of research,

542
00:36:08,720 --> 00:36:14,880
because I've had literally people say they reject the 24 72 because they want a 48 96.

543
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,640
And I'm like, you are literally saying I voluntarily want to be away from my family

544
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:22,320
for two more days because it's a completely different work week.

545
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,920
And then, like you said, you know, the apples to apples, you've got these

546
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:29,560
departments and if they're suburban or urban, they are going to be running

547
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:32,440
multiple calls through the day, through the night.

548
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:34,440
And again, there's this kind of misnomer.

549
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,160
Oh, you weren't actually awake.

550
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,320
It's like, as you said, though, it's disrupted sleep.

551
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,480
You do not get into deep restorative sleep

552
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:43,640
when you've got one eye open waiting to get a call.

553
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:45,080
It's physically impossible.

554
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:49,600
So, you know, when you have a shift or two shifts back to back of that,

555
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:54,600
that's a completely different conversation than the department that maybe runs

556
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:59,120
what possibly one call a night for two nights in a row,

557
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:03,960
because that's not most of our departments, not at least in the urban and suburban setting.

558
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,560
Yeah. And so there are probably departments

559
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:12,040
that are that busy that just, you know, the chief would probably never even

560
00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:17,360
entertain that idea of going to, you know, a 4896 because they see how busy

561
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:22,000
majority of their stations are throughout the day and then also night.

562
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,000
Because, I mean, I know we've been focused mainly on sleep,

563
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:32,160
but there are also day concerns, too, of being exhausted, fatigue as well.

564
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:37,640
And that can lead into sleep disruption and issues during sleep.

565
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:39,040
Well, let's talk about that.

566
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:40,920
I want to get to the chronic impact as well.

567
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:44,480
But the acute elements, when I look back now,

568
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,000
you know, 20 years after being a firefighter myself, towards Stine,

569
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:52,520
and I think about all the line of duty deaths, all the horrendous wrecks at

570
00:37:52,720 --> 00:37:55,160
intersections, all the people that got lost in fires.

571
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:59,160
And this is arguably as well, you know, the law enforcement,

572
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:01,760
you know, gray area shootings and all these things.

573
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,440
How much does sleep deprivation impact that?

574
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:10,240
The wrong meds pushed, you know, the angry cop against the citizens.

575
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,880
So not from a chronic, but an acuity point of view.

576
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:20,080
What impact have you seen as far as sleep deprivation on our performance and then

577
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,080
things like accidents as well?

578
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:24,880
So that's a really good question.

579
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:30,320
And our data is, I'd say, maybe preliminary on direct evidence.

580
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,320
So what I was able to do with the

581
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:38,000
the last study that we published is look at sleep duration.

582
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,880
So nightly sleep duration and next day performance.

583
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:47,720
And so we so each each day, you know, asked or through actigraphy.

584
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,360
So that's our objective way to measure sleep duration

585
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,680
versus pen and paper or asking how how many hours did you sleep last night?

586
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:57,800
So we looked at the objective

587
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,920
total sleep time and then compared it with a survey data that was taken in the

588
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,160
afternoon and it was sleep propensity, basically of how likely you are to fall

589
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:09,640
asleep at at one o'clock each day.

590
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:14,400
And so that was that was consistent to control for any differences, you know,

591
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:17,520
because if you take it at like six o'clock, you're going to be or nine o'clock,

592
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,080
you're going to be sleepier at nine o'clock than you would maybe at at at

593
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,200
lunchtime or in your peak performance time.

594
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,400
So keeping time was was important.

595
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,040
What we were able to see is that

596
00:39:29,240 --> 00:39:33,040
basically what you would expect when you didn't get sleep, you had lower performance.

597
00:39:33,240 --> 00:39:36,480
So you were more sleepier, sleepier during the afternoon.

598
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:42,560
And what was neat about that particular study is to chart it each day within these

599
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:46,280
two shift schedules, so the 24, 48 and 48, 96.

600
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:51,040
So day by day, not only were we able to track your nightly sleep time,

601
00:39:51,240 --> 00:39:55,600
but then we were able to correlate it with your afternoon performance level

602
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,800
and see, OK, when you were on shift, what was that?

603
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:00,160
How many hours did you get sleep?

604
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:06,760
And then through the the recovery days or the non-work days at home.

605
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:09,040
That all led

606
00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:12,320
to suggesting maybe shift start time.

607
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,360
And I know we could circle back to that in a little bit.

608
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:21,960
But to your question on acute performance or effects of sleep deprivation,

609
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:26,760
those are very real and we don't need necessarily direct evidence in the fire

610
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:31,440
service. That stuff has been been published in sleep medicine and circadian science

611
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:33,440
literature for quite a bit.

612
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:40,040
And the two classic studies that I like to always always discuss is the correlation

613
00:40:40,240 --> 00:40:42,760
or not the correlation, but the

614
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:48,120
the researchers did an experiment where they gave basically alcohol to

615
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:52,920
participants at an interval and then measured their reaction time on

616
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,560
computer and cognitive reaction time.

617
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:59,640
So they were able to basically see after and then compare it to someone that just

618
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,760
stayed awake for that entire equal duration.

619
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:07,160
At 17 hours, it was basically point zero five blood alcohol concentration.

620
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:12,720
And then at 24 hours, 20 to 24 hours, it was point one zero, which is legally

621
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,960
intoxicated in each state.

622
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:20,400
So you could see the direct effect of being awake and what that effect is

623
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,440
on performance and the equivalent of being intoxicated.

624
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,840
So those that maybe are awake for 48 hours,

625
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:34,280
that's a big concern that we would have is if you're not sleeping at all,

626
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:40,640
what what accident is going to happen that you're going to cause?

627
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:45,080
Of course, a big question is what does the effect of adrenaline

628
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,960
adrenaline do to counteract that in the moment?

629
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:54,440
So if you had like an all tone, for example, in a department and you were

630
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,840
sleep deprived or if you woke up in deep stages of sleep,

631
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,680
what would that do on the body to force you to wake up?

632
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:03,520
That that is an open question.

633
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,720
And we don't know that that answer just yet.

634
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:09,640
But I suspect there's going to be something that at least momentarily

635
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,640
reverses some of that that effect.

636
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:14,840
What's interesting, I've said this on a few

637
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:19,240
of conversations with people in the human performance world.

638
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:23,200
When you think about how most studies are done, a lot of times it's the college

639
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:27,560
students of the school where the professor is or the PhD student.

640
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:33,600
And so arguably they probably didn't spend 10 or 15 years not sleeping every third day.

641
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:38,920
So I would hypothesize that actually, if you're doing the cognitive parallel

642
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:43,600
of a blood alcohol with a firefighter that's been on for a certain amount of time,

643
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:48,800
their baseline is probably going to put that number much higher than point one.

644
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:55,480
It's possible we would just need a, you know, a study to show that.

645
00:42:55,680 --> 00:43:00,640
But I'd also be curious to look at, like I said, what the effect is at,

646
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:05,040
say, after that 17 hours, then.

647
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:10,960
Then they get a call and see what their performance would be at that time.

648
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:12,640
And that's very difficult to do in the field

649
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:16,360
because you can't just say, hey, stop and take this computer test real quick while

650
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:20,040
you're on a call. And that's the problem with, you know,

651
00:43:20,240 --> 00:43:27,160
simulations or lab experiments versus, you know, actual field data in the field.

652
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,280
Yeah. And also that adrenaline spike when you're a six month

653
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,600
broby, the mattress fire gets your heart racing.

654
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:36,680
You know, when you've been on 15 years,

655
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:39,680
if it's not fully involved, you barely even get your heart rate up.

656
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:44,080
So that would be the other variable, too, is the time on of the person.

657
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:46,120
Yep. Yeah, very true.

658
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:50,960
But I will say that in a study of heart rates,

659
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:57,120
because we were looking at heart rates and alerting systems, we see that

660
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,400
it didn't really matter of age or the data is looking.

661
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:03,280
We're just exploring the data right now.

662
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,240
But in terms of age or years of service,

663
00:44:06,240 --> 00:44:11,240
people still get that spike and most people go or most of the firefighters in this

664
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:16,960
sample went to tachycardia very quickly within a minute of getting that alarm.

665
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,720
Let's unpack that because I worked.

666
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,400
I don't think anyone had a Claxton,

667
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:27,880
but I had the ones where it was the obnoxious alarm.

668
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:29,840
All the lights came on.

669
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:35,880
The best one I worked outside of individual dorm rooms was Anaheim had the

670
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,920
personal alerting system in each of the cubicles within an open dorm.

671
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,320
And it's amazing how well how acclimatized you get to that.

672
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,440
And you would sleep through everyone else's and you get much better sleep.

673
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:48,760
I tried to actually help my previous

674
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:52,640
department, just the last one I was with, get that they were all on board.

675
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:57,800
They fired the communications chief and did a one A and put obnoxious LED lights

676
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,880
in the bunk room instead, so they couldn't have been further from it.

677
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,720
But so talk to me about that spectrum.

678
00:45:03,720 --> 00:45:05,040
You know, what is the worst?

679
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:09,360
And then what are some of the best solutions that you've seen in your research so far?

680
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:16,080
Yeah, so we we we have a SBIR phase one grant,

681
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,520
and that's for a small business research grant with with Easler.

682
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:25,040
Easler is the company that developed this wearable device that

683
00:45:25,240 --> 00:45:27,920
like an Apple watch, when you get a text message, it will vibrate.

684
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:35,680
And so the idea was the idea is that this will vibrate instead of the alarm activating.

685
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:38,360
So dispatch will still come on the speaker like normal.

686
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:45,400
It just no bell, just just a vibration to to alert you of an incoming call.

687
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,040
So we haven't analyzed all the data yet.

688
00:45:48,240 --> 00:45:53,560
We're still doing some some data cleaning, but we looked at some of the pre pre data.

689
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:59,720
So what the heart rate response was just from the the clock, done well.

690
00:45:59,920 --> 00:46:04,840
I mean, it was it was the mechanical bell, what what this particular department used.

691
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:11,080
And in each of the stations that that the system was put in, we see, you know,

692
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:17,680
steady right before the bell came in and especially at night at night, we're sleeping.

693
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:19,320
It was kind of basically a flat line.

694
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:23,080
And then Bell came in and you can instantly see when that when that occurred.

695
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,800
And like I said, the majority of people went into tachycardia within within

696
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:28,520
the minute, because that's what we were looking at before.

697
00:46:28,720 --> 00:46:32,840
A minute before average heart rate and then a minute afterwards average heart rate.

698
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,560
But visually, I mean, it just just a huge spike.

699
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:42,760
So the question is, and that whole focus was on maybe reducing line of duty deaths

700
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:45,920
due to cardiac incidences.

701
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:52,680
So the question is, does that spike, you know, for every call that you get over time,

702
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:58,000
add up to something in the cardiovascular system to cause a line of duty death?

703
00:46:58,200 --> 00:46:59,880
And so that was

704
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:07,000
their solution to help combat that or reduce the likelihood of a death.

705
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,120
So what about other systems, though?

706
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:14,840
I mean, for example, the the most insane thing I've seen is and this was the last

707
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:21,800
place was a bunk room that had an engine and two rescue crews and the lights would

708
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:25,640
come on, so you're waking up eight people for, for example, a rescue call.

709
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:27,920
So for two people going to call, you wake up eight.

710
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,200
And then you've got these chiefs that monitor the radios all night,

711
00:47:31,240 --> 00:47:33,480
which I would argue probably is more of an ego thing.

712
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:37,880
If you don't trust your grown up men and women to just let you know if they need you.

713
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:39,200
So you've got this.

714
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:40,440
To me, that's the worst.

715
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,760
And then, like I said, you've got, you know, well run department.

716
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:45,080
They trust their people.

717
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:46,640
You have the individual, whether it's

718
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:52,200
each individual dorms or or compartments in in bunk rooms, and you just wake up

719
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,040
the crews that actually need to go on the call.

720
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:55,840
So those are my my career.

721
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:56,760
My observations.

722
00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:00,040
Obviously, the worst is the big bell and the lights come on and wake everyone up.

723
00:48:00,240 --> 00:48:06,880
So what have you seen as far as some other interesting solutions to not cranking

724
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:09,560
that from zero to 100 every time you get a call?

725
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:12,160
Yeah, that's that's

726
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:16,520
my my experience is very similar.

727
00:48:16,720 --> 00:48:23,960
However, the the worst that I've experienced is during my

728
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:28,400
first study, a department had a guy that slept through the call.

729
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:34,160
And so as a consequence, the chief did open system 24 hours.

730
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:39,200
So in the entire department now, this was a department maybe of 150.

731
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:43,920
So so not like it, I don't want to minimize it, not a large department,

732
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:45,840
but a medium department in Oklahoma.

733
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,320
But nonetheless, you're waking up 150

734
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:53,040
personnel for every call that came in 24 7.

735
00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:58,640
So that was probably what I'd say is a poor decision and not the right way to go

736
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,520
about the corrective behavior for for that.

737
00:49:02,720 --> 00:49:05,760
What I'd say is an accident of sleeping through.

738
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,200
And if anything, it's a it's a symptom that probably needs to be

739
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:10,680
addressed in a different means.

740
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:15,040
But, yeah, so you have that probably the worst.

741
00:49:15,240 --> 00:49:17,640
The best is like what you said, where you

742
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:22,920
have individual sleeping quarters and that particular personnel can select

743
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:29,240
which unit they're on and only they are alerted or that particular unit is alerted

744
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:34,440
for a call. So it's a sleep efficiency for everybody else and sleep disturbances

745
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,360
or interruptions during the night would be minimized for those that are not

746
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:42,840
responsible for for responding to that particular incident.

747
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:44,480
That's what I'd say is best.

748
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:47,840
You also have departments that still have just open bunk rooms.

749
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:53,880
And so the if a station or if a call for any unit within the station goes out,

750
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:55,800
it's activated for everyone.

751
00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:01,440
That's that's probably most probably typical throughout the US

752
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,200
for those that don't have individual sleeping quarters.

753
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:09,040
But that that's probably what I would say would be the best one for anybody that are

754
00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,960
is re

755
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:17,120
like creating designing and developing a new station or renovating an existing station.

756
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:18,000
Absolutely.

757
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,560
You see Anaheim, they had some stations with individual rooms, but then they had

758
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,520
communal open bunk rooms, one big room.

759
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:26,800
But they put those office partitions in,

760
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,120
which you would have anyway in most places, because you need some privacy to get

761
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,760
changed and do all the things that we do.

762
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,440
So just putting those individual tones there, you've got the LED strip.

763
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:40,040
You've got the tones that you can make as loud or quiet as you want.

764
00:50:40,240 --> 00:50:42,640
Once you get used to it, you trust it.

765
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,600
Basically, after a few weeks, you don't hear everyone else.

766
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,120
I mean, I remember feeling bad because I'd wake up going, oh, that was that was

767
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:51,560
a pretty good night. And then one of the other crews would be like, you mother.

768
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:53,320
We had a terrible night.

769
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:54,200
Four times.

770
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:55,880
So, yeah, yeah.

771
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,240
But then, you know, next shift, if you if that department wrote,

772
00:50:59,240 --> 00:51:02,160
you know, rotates trucks, truck assignments, then, you know, you'd you'd get

773
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:03,320
a little bit heavier.

774
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,760
But that's the idea is, is if you're not responsible for responding,

775
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,400
then why, why, you know, disrupt your sleep?

776
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,960
Your sleep is already terrible, disrupted anyway.

777
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,640
So try to mitigate that as much as possible.

778
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,880
And that's one solution to do that pretty effectively.

779
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:20,240
Yeah, absolutely.

780
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:22,320
Well, you touched on it before.

781
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:24,560
Sarah Jenke was talking about this, too.

782
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:28,240
Again, for me, the gold national standard, I think, should be 2472.

783
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:30,960
But in addition to that conversation,

784
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,920
I love the concept of changing the start time.

785
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,720
If I look back again at the insanity of what I used to do for 14 years,

786
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:41,800
because I always lived about an hour and a quarter from the station,

787
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:46,280
I would be waking up at five in the morning, you know, and then getting all my stuff

788
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:49,800
and then driving 70 miles, get to the station early so I can make sure

789
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:52,200
that whoever I'm relieving doesn't get hit again.

790
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:56,400
And now they're missing their kids going to school.

791
00:51:56,400 --> 00:52:00,960
And when I heard her talk about it first, I was like, that is genius.

792
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:05,880
If we started, for example, just throwing a time out there, not the evening.

793
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:07,840
I hear that conversation, too, because that's, again,

794
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:10,200
not normally coupled with a better work week.

795
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:15,640
But if we went in at midday, that would mean that that responder

796
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:19,680
before their shift wakes up next to their wife or husband or partner,

797
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,520
they can have breakfast with their kids, send them off to school.

798
00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:24,000
Then they get in their car.

799
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:25,680
They're not fighting morning traffic.

800
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:27,280
They get to the station.

801
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:31,080
Now, simultaneously, the person they're waiting to relieve,

802
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,720
they just got three, four calls after midnight.

803
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:39,080
So rather than the all call waking them up at seven saying, hey, get up.

804
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:40,960
We've got shift change. Get out of your bed.

805
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,680
Now, if you want your rigs all checked out,

806
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:47,640
if you need to get an extra couple hours sleep, you can.

807
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:49,760
Now, finally, your relief comes at 12.

808
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,040
You go home and now you've got the rest of the day with your family.

809
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:56,840
So talk to me about your observations at the start time, because I think

810
00:52:57,040 --> 00:53:01,240
coupled with a better work week, those two things together would be a force

811
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:03,280
multiplier. Yeah.

812
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:08,720
So first, before we get that, you mentioned the all call or the wake up tone

813
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:15,080
that I don't know necessarily maybe that the history exactly behind that or why

814
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,120
it's still being used in some departments.

815
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:24,200
But that's probably one thing that I would recommend to be eliminated,

816
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:30,120
because if you have especially if it's just to swap

817
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:35,040
or relieve the next group from coming in, let them sleep if they need to sleep.

818
00:53:35,240 --> 00:53:37,240
What's a couple more hours?

819
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:41,440
And that way you're driving home or commuting home and maybe your risk

820
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:46,200
of accident decreases a little bit because you've got a couple extra hours of sleep.

821
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:52,520
OK, so that aside, the shift start time that came from the research that we

822
00:53:52,720 --> 00:53:57,880
published of looking day by day or night by night within those two shift schedules.

823
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,080
So the 24, 48 and the 48, 96.

824
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:02,600
And basically what we found was the least amount of sleep.

825
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:09,240
And this is in this small population that we looked at or sample that we looked at.

826
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,160
The least amount of sleep occurred not at work, but at home.

827
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:15,080
And it was the night before starting a new tour.

828
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:17,840
So factor in their calls and whatnot.

829
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:22,480
Their least amount of sleep was at home that Sunday night, essentially.

830
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:26,560
That was a little bit shocking because what I had originally thought is that that

831
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:31,280
would be just a fine night, maybe a little bit of rumination or pre-work anxiety,

832
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:35,280
something like that, but not surely not the least amount of sleep.

833
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:43,480
So what we then looked at is on shift sleep and then the commute home, basically.

834
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:47,320
And each commute day was associated with truncated sleep.

835
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:49,200
So short and short and sleep.

836
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:53,720
And that was due to this particular department starting at 7 a.m.

837
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:57,880
the shift start start time and end time at 7 a.m.

838
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,320
So that got a question of if.

839
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:06,080
If or before I get there, looking at their home sleep,

840
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:10,760
I saw a pretty regular wake up time at about 7.30,

841
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:14,560
and on one of the publications it shows exactly.

842
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,960
So pretty consistent day one, two and three at home.

843
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:22,200
And then the fourth day was like 5.30 or something like that.

844
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:27,280
So the question is, what if there was a schedule that allowed or shift start time

845
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:33,320
that allowed for you to wake up or these guys to wake up at 7.30 or 7.30, for example,

846
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:38,680
every day, what would that look like in terms of sleep duration of how much sleep

847
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:43,320
they would they would receive and maybe sleep quality, interruption, sleep efficiency?

848
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:46,000
Because in general, sleep medicine and

849
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:51,360
circadian science suggests your sleep pattern, your sleep, sleep wake cycle

850
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,120
should be consistent throughout throughout any day.

851
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,360
So the weekends, weekdays, etc.

852
00:55:56,560 --> 00:56:00,720
should be as close as consistent as possible.

853
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:05,720
If that were to happen, then we suspect that sleep would improve greatly.

854
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:07,240
Right now, you got to, of course,

855
00:56:07,240 --> 00:56:10,360
minus the calls that they get on at work.

856
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:15,480
But if they were able to go to bed and wake up at the same time, basically each day,

857
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:20,760
that we hypothesize would lead to better, better outcome, better sleep and then

858
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:25,440
acute and then also chronic health and performance.

859
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:30,160
So we're in a department right now that that is

860
00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:35,120
well, that they transition shift schedules as well.

861
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:39,920
And the shift start time from from I think it was eight, eight a.m. to eleven a.m.

862
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:42,720
And so basically factoring in the commute.

863
00:56:42,720 --> 00:56:44,880
So if you ask me, like, what is the perfect time?

864
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:48,840
That's going to be, you know, it depends on the department because you the idea is

865
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:53,640
not to spend two hours in in rush hour traffic

866
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:57,160
commuting. And so now you're just you're you're you're spending more time in traffic

867
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,080
versus just waking up early.

868
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:03,000
That's that's you want to try to work around those those particular numbers.

869
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:07,320
But it's whatever time will allow you to get to work and then also wake up

870
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,000
that consistent across the day.

871
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:13,280
So we haven't got the results yet on the follow up.

872
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:17,040
We're we're about to start the follow up process here.

873
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:18,720
But

874
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:23,880
yes, shift start time, I would suspect that that may be equal or greater

875
00:57:24,080 --> 00:57:26,400
importance than the actual shift schedule.

876
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:30,320
Now, that's just speculation based on what I've kind of thought about it.

877
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:36,280
But I'm really eager to see this compared to an early morning shift start time,

878
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,320
especially those that don't live in the same city or have to commute a great

879
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:43,240
distance to to the fire department.

880
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:48,440
It would also probably help greatly like those that are on the Kelly schedule.

881
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:54,160
I call the Kelly's the three fours, the on off on off on and in for four days off

882
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:58,480
that nine day tour where they basically go through five days of commuting

883
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:02,280
and commuting before they have some time at home.

884
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:05,320
So those five days got to be just just

885
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:11,640
terrible in terms of sleep duration and then waking up early to to commute back

886
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:15,120
and forth those those those days.

887
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:22,520
Next question is whether or not a AM or PM start time is maybe a little bit better.

888
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:26,440
That still needs to be kind of teased out in research.

889
00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:31,640
And but what I would question is whether or not like that

890
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:33,640
historically.

891
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:37,720
We get a lot more calls during the evening or early evening hours.

892
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:42,920
So if we're starting an ending and more so that the ending part ending at our

893
00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:47,160
busiest time in the day, does that lead to a little bit more of

894
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:53,960
increased accident injury on on the fire ground or in in the response to to

895
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:58,400
emergencies that that that remains a very important question.

896
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:00,560
And so we don't have data yet on that.

897
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:05,160
Well, I think what's interesting is that when I'm new to this conversation and I

898
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,800
love the fact that this is yet another innovation and it's it's free, like you

899
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,800
could do it tomorrow in your department for zero dollars.

900
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,080
But yeah, but if you think about it again,

901
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:17,800
the evening, because I see some people are we're doing seven p.m.

902
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:18,960
now instead of seven a.m.

903
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:21,760
So you have you're now putting yourself in traffic.

904
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:23,560
You're now driving home in the dark,

905
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:27,080
especially in winter, you know, these are, as you said, a safety factors.

906
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:29,400
And I remember Alison Brager has been on a couple of times.

907
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:30,760
She come on again.

908
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:34,880
And I remember telling me a story and it was the the guys running special forces

909
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:40,200
selection in the North Carolina mountains and it was the cadre, not not the the

910
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:41,680
people trying to get in.

911
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:43,800
They would run this selection course.

912
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:46,960
They would be seat deprived and they would drive off the side of a mountain on

913
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:52,040
the way home after running the cadre and get killed or horrendously injured.

914
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:57,440
So, like you said, the the safety of the person getting to work and then getting

915
00:59:57,640 --> 01:00:01,880
home from work is all part of this equation as well, which is why you mentioned 11.

916
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:04,760
I think that's that's the perfect like 1112 ish.

917
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:07,040
Most places, even if you're a bit in L.A.

918
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,960
I used to live in California for a few years.

919
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:15,000
And, you know, once you try and navigate traffic at 10 a.m.,

920
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:18,920
it's going to be a much different experience than, you know, 7 a.m.

921
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:23,360
So I think that is the sweet spot to me because you leave in the daylight,

922
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:26,560
you drive home in the daylight, you're missing both of the rush hours.

923
01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:30,520
You've got enough time to sleep if you've been at the station or stay with your

924
01:00:30,720 --> 01:00:34,920
family until it's time to go. So that to me and again, this is just

925
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:40,680
my perspective, that seems to be the happy medium, the middle part that seems to

926
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:42,720
satisfy all the requirements.

927
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:45,440
Yep. Yeah, I think it's going to come down

928
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,520
to the department and the jurisdiction that they're around.

929
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:55,280
So the the idea, I think that so far that I've kind of come up with is not to have

930
01:00:55,480 --> 01:00:59,560
too far where they're just kind of not not going to say, you know, someone's just

931
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:01,640
going to be sitting around waiting to go to work.

932
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:04,760
But you don't want to create

933
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:09,040
a place where maybe now they go out and do a bunch of other stuff before before

934
01:01:09,040 --> 01:01:12,240
their work, right, essentially wasting time because no one wants to do that.

935
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:17,200
So if you can have it where it's an ideal, where you wake up with your normal time,

936
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:21,040
have your have your morning, drop off your drop off the kids at work,

937
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:24,760
because basically that's what you're doing on the nights of one through three.

938
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:29,160
So whatever you do during those nights or mornings,

939
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:34,200
you know, you could do that on your your your your workday in the in the morning

940
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:35,840
and then go go to work.

941
01:01:36,040 --> 01:01:38,920
So that will probably be more of a, you know,

942
01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:42,800
specific department question and they can run their own study to look at where a

943
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:48,960
person I live, the traffic patterns and so forth, be a pretty easy question to to to

944
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:52,400
answer and what you said at the very beginning, it's it's free.

945
01:01:52,600 --> 01:01:55,640
That's that's one that can have a direct,

946
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:59,520
like immediate effect on sleep for the better.

947
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:01,120
And it's and it's free.

948
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:03,600
So even if a department wanted to

949
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:07,880
pilot that for a week or even with one station, they could do it, you know,

950
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:12,880
have a have a survey go out and see some satisfaction stuff and family satisfaction

951
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:15,720
as well and then implement it at a larger scale.

952
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:20,120
It'd be it'd be a very easy, direct evidence for that

953
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,640
department to make an evidence based decision.

954
01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:24,280
Absolutely. All right.

955
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:25,440
I want to hit one more area.

956
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:27,280
Then we'll go to some closing questions.

957
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:31,160
We've talked about start times and shift patterns and some other things.

958
01:02:31,360 --> 01:02:34,800
Naps talk to me about the firefighter,

959
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:40,280
the importance of Naps and then the the culture of allowing for Naps.

960
01:02:40,280 --> 01:02:43,160
Because, again, I've worked for departments that were totally fine with it.

961
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:47,720
And I've worked for departments where the safety captain would come in with a tick

962
01:02:47,920 --> 01:02:50,200
and see if anyone had been watching the television.

963
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:52,600
You know what I mean? So the whole gamut.

964
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:54,880
So talk to me about your perspective on that.

965
01:02:55,080 --> 01:03:02,400
Yeah. And I have seen or been in departments for research that have like no

966
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:08,240
policies whatsoever. You can even be in bed any time that you're not on a call or training.

967
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:15,080
And there's departments that have very formal, rigid sleep and napping policies.

968
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:16,400
Naps in general.

969
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,200
Well, in general, firefighters don't get good sleep.

970
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:25,240
So I don't think it would be beneficial to withhold Naps.

971
01:03:25,440 --> 01:03:28,400
What I would say is use Naps responsibly and appropriately.

972
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:31,920
And so timing is important because if you

973
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:37,280
take it basically a big nap at say seven o'clock in the night,

974
01:03:37,480 --> 01:03:42,520
that's likely going to disrupt your sleep during your main sleep at night.

975
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,880
It probably lead to a greater

976
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:47,040
sleep latency.

977
01:03:47,040 --> 01:03:48,560
So the time it takes you to fall asleep.

978
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:51,520
And so you basically be tossing and turning into bed.

979
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:53,280
If you do that

980
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:56,960
quite often, that's probably going to lead into some bad habits that's going to

981
01:03:57,160 --> 01:03:58,960
disrupt your sleep chronically.

982
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:00,320
So timing is important.

983
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,000
And then also timing in regards to nap duration.

984
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:09,760
So something that is a very quick, like a catnap or sufficient enough where you

985
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:14,440
pass through the stages of sleep and you're not going to wake up in the deep, deep stage of sleep.

986
01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:18,040
That's a little bit more tricky because you don't know when calls are going to come in.

987
01:04:18,240 --> 01:04:21,280
But say if you had that guaranteed 90 minutes,

988
01:04:21,280 --> 01:04:25,360
that's typically the time it takes someone to progress through all the cycles of sleep.

989
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:28,480
You can have one cycle of sleep and have

990
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:32,400
the benefits of that restorative nap.

991
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,840
But if you need a nap, that means there are symptoms and you're sleepy.

992
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:40,920
And so if you're sleepy, you're at increased risk for injury or accident.

993
01:04:41,120 --> 01:04:45,400
So that should probably be acknowledged and maybe breaking that stigma that if

994
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:50,760
you're tired or you need a nap, that means you're tired and you're under the influence

995
01:04:50,960 --> 01:04:54,760
of a little bit of sleep deprivation.

996
01:04:54,760 --> 01:04:59,440
So and that's understandable based on calls and shift start times.

997
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:03,680
And so the solution or the bandaid would be a nap.

998
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:06,520
The more permanent solution is kind of what we talked about, maybe shift schedules

999
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:11,600
and shift start time for a department.

1000
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:14,480
I can't remember if I talked about this when we were chatting on the phone,

1001
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:19,040
but I had a guy on recently, Jim Poole, who is the CEO of Newcom.

1002
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:24,400
And you see ALM, an amazing technology used

1003
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:28,520
to be, I've said the story many times on here, but very long story, very short,

1004
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:32,560
an incredible neuroscientist, one of the most brilliant people we've had

1005
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:36,400
in the States in modern times, spent years trying to figure out

1006
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:40,280
the frequency the brain was at during different emotional states.

1007
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:42,760
He figured it out and then figured after

1008
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:47,480
another 10 years how to actually get the brain to go into those states.

1009
01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:51,160
And he created this machine and you put the headphones on and the eye mask

1010
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:56,240
and you listen to music, but underneath are these neuro acoustic beats.

1011
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:58,240
And it's incredible.

1012
01:05:58,440 --> 01:06:02,600
But it was only ever in like the Navy SEALs team room and NFL locker rooms

1013
01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:05,560
and high performers that could afford this machine.

1014
01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:09,640
Well, smartphones got so incredibly advanced that now it's an app.

1015
01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:11,680
Any of us can use it.

1016
01:06:11,880 --> 01:06:14,960
And I'm I know if you can see, I don't wear wearables.

1017
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:18,480
I'm not a big kind of easy button kind of a guy.

1018
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:21,760
So I didn't go into this thinking, oh, this is going to be amazing.

1019
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:25,320
And hand on my heart is one of the most incredible things.

1020
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:28,480
And they have one called Powernap, which is only 20 minutes.

1021
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:32,480
And when you put yourself through that and you'll feel yourself

1022
01:06:32,680 --> 01:06:35,000
almost sink into the ground, it's the bizarre feeling.

1023
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:36,200
Time just flies by.

1024
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:40,040
But it gives you the equivalent of a couple of hours sleep.

1025
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:43,520
And what I think is beautiful about it, obviously, you could do that in a station

1026
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:47,920
in the middle of a shift, but to punctuate the shift before that drive home,

1027
01:06:47,920 --> 01:06:52,440
having done maybe something horrific during the night with some minivan full

1028
01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:56,360
of kids or something to be able to say, all right, shift is over.

1029
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:59,880
I'm going back into father, husband, whatever mode.

1030
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:01,800
That is another incredible tour.

1031
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:04,880
A lot of people haven't heard about it, but it's amazing.

1032
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:07,920
And it does give this kind of restorative sleep element as well.

1033
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:08,960
And there's longer programs.

1034
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:12,080
So when you get home, you can't actually get to sleep.

1035
01:07:12,280 --> 01:07:16,560
You can set that for an hour and it will take you on a

1036
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:19,800
basically an involuntary version of a kind of sleep.

1037
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:23,040
So even if your mind is spinning, it's still you don't have a choice.

1038
01:07:23,040 --> 01:07:24,560
You're going for that ride anyway.

1039
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:26,400
And then an hour later, you're like, well,

1040
01:07:26,600 --> 01:07:30,200
I felt like that was five minutes and now you've had this effect.

1041
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:34,200
So that's an amazing technology that people need to know about.

1042
01:07:34,400 --> 01:07:39,600
Interesting. Yeah, I am not familiar with that, but I will definitely look at it.

1043
01:07:39,600 --> 01:07:43,120
Because, like you said, especially if it helps you unwind.

1044
01:07:43,120 --> 01:07:49,440
Because I mean, I have data that shows when they get back from a call or

1045
01:07:49,640 --> 01:07:55,480
it probably depends on the type of call that one particular participant had two

1046
01:07:55,480 --> 01:07:59,000
hours sleep latency, they were tossed and turning for two hours to try to get back

1047
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:01,000
to sleep, and that was just after one call.

1048
01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,720
And so if you have two of those, I mean, that could just be further.

1049
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:08,920
And so when during this typical eight hour period, now half of it is just tossing

1050
01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:13,640
and turning, and so that could definitely lead into some serious issues.

1051
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:19,800
So anything that helps wind down and relax and go into a quick sleep versus

1052
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:23,880
either a nap or actual sleep could be a huge benefit.

1053
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:25,960
I'll have to check it out.

1054
01:08:26,160 --> 01:08:29,120
But I was just going to also mention for

1055
01:08:29,320 --> 01:08:34,240
that sleep, the FEMA sleep deprivation report, part of the early career grant

1056
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:38,840
that I have right now, we will be having a lot of.

1057
01:08:39,040 --> 01:08:41,440
Guidance for for departments and they'll

1058
01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:46,320
have various levels from fire administration to health and safety officer,

1059
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:50,120
station officer, and the of course, the individual firefighter.

1060
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:55,040
So concepts of such as the maps and having a little bit more formal guidance

1061
01:08:55,240 --> 01:09:00,880
on that with with backed by research and hopefully data will see or it'll be kind

1062
01:09:00,880 --> 01:09:08,200
of a first guidance report for firefighters in terms of optimizing and improving sleep health.

1063
01:09:08,400 --> 01:09:09,360
Beautiful.

1064
01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:12,960
Well, before I go to the closing questions, you and I are going to be in Orlando and

1065
01:09:12,960 --> 01:09:16,200
I'm going to get this right, the Florida Fire Chiefs Conference.

1066
01:09:16,400 --> 01:09:21,720
And we're there with the safety and the Florida Safety and Wellness Collaborative.

1067
01:09:21,920 --> 01:09:23,560
I think I've got that right.

1068
01:09:23,760 --> 01:09:28,200
So we're going to be doing a panel on 24 72 with three of my guests that are all

1069
01:09:28,200 --> 01:09:33,120
here have either gone to it or about to go to it in Pasco County's case.

1070
01:09:33,320 --> 01:09:37,600
So talk to me about that conference and let people know what we'll be doing.

1071
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:44,120
Yeah, so I will have a presentation based on all my research that I've done so far

1072
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:49,840
on sleep, it kind of give you a or the audience a state of science sleep update.

1073
01:09:50,040 --> 01:09:53,920
And so everything that we've done from here and then maybe some highlights of

1074
01:09:53,920 --> 01:09:58,960
the current projects that we have ongoing as well as some preliminary data

1075
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:04,880
for for those projects, then shortly after there, I believe we will get

1076
01:10:05,080 --> 01:10:06,440
into our panel discussion.

1077
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:12,080
And so as James mentioned, we'll have a panel of some excellent individuals

1078
01:10:12,280 --> 01:10:14,280
and be moderated by you.

1079
01:10:14,280 --> 01:10:18,680
So I'm looking forward to those questions and participating to a lively conversation.

1080
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:20,680
Absolutely. And that will be recorded.

1081
01:10:20,680 --> 01:10:24,480
I made sure that it was going to be video so that we can share it with everyone.

1082
01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:26,920
It's not there. Excellent. Brilliant.

1083
01:10:26,920 --> 01:10:28,960
All right. Well, the first of the closing questions,

1084
01:10:29,160 --> 01:10:32,360
is there a book or other books that you love to recommend?

1085
01:10:32,560 --> 01:10:37,440
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.

1086
01:10:37,640 --> 01:10:45,320
Any particular books for maybe the curious firefighter, whoever, any books?

1087
01:10:45,520 --> 01:10:46,680
OK,

1088
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:51,720
I generally don't read like

1089
01:10:51,920 --> 01:10:55,840
like fiction, nonfiction, like, like, you know, fun books.

1090
01:10:56,040 --> 01:10:58,400
I may be more of the on the nerd side.

1091
01:10:58,600 --> 01:10:59,920
I read textbooks.

1092
01:11:00,120 --> 01:11:02,280
So that's that's my

1093
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:08,360
area. But if those that are interested in like sleep and heavy sleep,

1094
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:14,600
the centrals of sleep practices and sleep medicine textbooks are are they're they're

1095
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:17,680
thick, they're dense, they're heavy, but they have a lot of information.

1096
01:11:17,880 --> 01:11:20,080
If you want something a little bit more lighthearted fun.

1097
01:11:20,080 --> 01:11:23,440
And I think you've recommended this book before, but it's by, you know,

1098
01:11:23,640 --> 01:11:26,120
Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep.

1099
01:11:26,320 --> 01:11:27,560
That's a that's a great book.

1100
01:11:27,760 --> 01:11:32,000
It's it's it's funny and it kind of mixes the serious with the jokes and drives

1101
01:11:32,200 --> 01:11:34,480
that point point across. Beautiful.

1102
01:11:34,680 --> 01:11:37,720
What about films and documentaries?

1103
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:44,720
Films right now, I'm into scary movies or horror movies with the the upcoming,

1104
01:11:44,920 --> 01:11:49,440
you know, Halloween holiday, always big into Halloween and horror movies.

1105
01:11:49,640 --> 01:11:52,720
I don't have any particular favorites.

1106
01:11:52,920 --> 01:11:54,800
I really just

1107
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:59,120
like a lot and various types of horror movies.

1108
01:11:59,320 --> 01:12:03,560
So I don't I don't think I have any any particular one to

1109
01:12:03,560 --> 01:12:08,440
recommend, though I though I am curious about the new Beetlejuice coming out.

1110
01:12:08,440 --> 01:12:09,960
So I went to see it the other day.

1111
01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:11,440
It was good. Oh, did you? Yeah.

1112
01:12:11,640 --> 01:12:14,160
Good. That's a good throwback.

1113
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:17,680
What about do you like the the kind of

1114
01:12:17,880 --> 01:12:22,400
ghosty ones like the Japanese ones or are you more of a slasher person?

1115
01:12:22,600 --> 01:12:28,440
I do like the slasher jump scares are are

1116
01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:30,440
I think X good.

1117
01:12:30,440 --> 01:12:34,320
I mean, more of the you know, the kind of probably the corny,

1118
01:12:34,520 --> 01:12:36,600
scary movies, I guess. Gotcha.

1119
01:12:36,800 --> 01:12:38,520
All right. Well, then the next question,

1120
01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:43,200
is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak

1121
01:12:43,200 --> 01:12:47,720
to the first responders, military and associated professionals of the world?

1122
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:50,320
Hmm.

1123
01:12:50,520 --> 01:12:56,920
Actually, I think it'd be kind of cool maybe to do a duo with Sarah and I going

1124
01:12:56,920 --> 01:12:58,400
back and forth, that'd be a question.

1125
01:12:58,400 --> 01:13:02,400
If not, I think you've had Sarah Jenke on your on your show before.

1126
01:13:02,400 --> 01:13:03,240
Right. Yeah.

1127
01:13:03,240 --> 01:13:04,200
No, but I'm doing that now.

1128
01:13:04,200 --> 01:13:05,600
Actually, I'm getting Alison Brager and

1129
01:13:05,600 --> 01:13:09,960
Rachel Markwell done such as Alison's the army sleep expert and Rachel's the Navy's.

1130
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:11,200
So they're coming on together.

1131
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:14,640
So that's a new thing that I've started doing now is bringing two guests on

1132
01:13:14,640 --> 01:13:17,000
together. So we'll definitely do that down the road.

1133
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:18,080
Oh, neat. Yeah.

1134
01:13:18,280 --> 01:13:20,640
Or do a whole panel on sleep.

1135
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:22,360
That'd be that'd be kind of interesting as well.

1136
01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:24,080
Absolutely. Brilliant.

1137
01:13:24,080 --> 01:13:25,440
All right. Well, then the very last question,

1138
01:13:25,440 --> 01:13:28,040
before we make sure where people can find you and the studies,

1139
01:13:28,040 --> 01:13:31,320
what do you do to decompress?

1140
01:13:33,960 --> 01:13:36,760
I like so I have a dog.

1141
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:38,840
He's a

1142
01:13:39,040 --> 01:13:41,080
he's a Siberian Husky German Shepherd.

1143
01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:42,920
So we like to walk.

1144
01:13:43,120 --> 01:13:45,320
I roll a blade with them, bike ride with them.

1145
01:13:45,520 --> 01:13:47,080
A lot of stuff outdoors.

1146
01:13:47,280 --> 01:13:49,560
And right now is.

1147
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:53,080
I'd say probably that if there's a perfect time in Oklahoma to be outdoors,

1148
01:13:53,280 --> 01:13:56,480
like now is the is the time our fall last probably two weeks.

1149
01:13:56,480 --> 01:13:58,440
And so I think we're right in the middle of it.

1150
01:13:58,640 --> 01:14:04,080
So anything outdoors I like to do to help decompress and get out of house,

1151
01:14:04,280 --> 01:14:06,840
especially as a remote employee,

1152
01:14:07,040 --> 01:14:12,680
it getting out and experiencing the outdoors is important.

1153
01:14:12,880 --> 01:14:15,120
How far are you from Tulsa?

1154
01:14:15,320 --> 01:14:18,200
About an hour and 15 minutes and same with the city.

1155
01:14:18,400 --> 01:14:20,640
So we're right in basically right in the middle.

1156
01:14:20,840 --> 01:14:23,360
Brilliant, because I'm actually running a marathon.

1157
01:14:23,560 --> 01:14:25,400
I forget what it's called now.

1158
01:14:25,400 --> 01:14:27,040
Route 66 marathon.

1159
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:30,920
There's a previous guest of mine who was a paramedic and her EMT partner tried to

1160
01:14:31,120 --> 01:14:33,760
murder her, which is terrifying.

1161
01:14:33,960 --> 01:14:35,840
And she survived the murder attempt.

1162
01:14:36,040 --> 01:14:38,200
He shot her and he beat her and it was horrendous.

1163
01:14:38,400 --> 01:14:41,640
But she does five K's and she's done some marathons.

1164
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:43,200
And a lot of it will be in the chair.

1165
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:45,240
But I've never run a marathon before.

1166
01:14:45,240 --> 01:14:46,680
And she asked me if I'd run with her.

1167
01:14:46,680 --> 01:14:48,160
So I'm going to be there in November.

1168
01:14:48,160 --> 01:14:49,600
So I'm curious about the weather.

1169
01:14:49,800 --> 01:14:51,880
I'm going to be experiencing taking Bonnie.

1170
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:56,760
Oh, well, if it blows from the south, it's going to be warm.

1171
01:14:56,960 --> 01:14:59,560
If it comes from Kansas, it's going to be cold.

1172
01:14:59,760 --> 01:15:04,400
That's the best advice I can give you.

1173
01:15:04,600 --> 01:15:05,960
But you mentioned Tulsa.

1174
01:15:06,160 --> 01:15:10,800
Tulsa is where that's the department for my early career study,

1175
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:14,280
which will be starting probably in January.

1176
01:15:14,480 --> 01:15:16,040
OK, excellent.

1177
01:15:16,240 --> 01:15:17,720
All right. Well, then for people listening,

1178
01:15:17,720 --> 01:15:20,760
if they want to reach out to you or if they want to read some of the studies or

1179
01:15:20,760 --> 01:15:24,240
go to the website that you created, where are the best places online?

1180
01:15:24,440 --> 01:15:26,560
Yeah. So if you want any of the research

1181
01:15:26,560 --> 01:15:28,680
studies, you could probably find them online.

1182
01:15:28,680 --> 01:15:30,320
But if you can't, you just just email me.

1183
01:15:30,520 --> 01:15:32,560
I'm pretty quick at getting back.

1184
01:15:32,760 --> 01:15:37,280
So it's Joel Billings at ERAU.edu.

1185
01:15:37,480 --> 01:15:41,440
I do have a website called FDSleep.com.

1186
01:15:41,640 --> 01:15:43,440
So firedepartment.sleep.com.

1187
01:15:43,640 --> 01:15:48,200
And that has an offer just a bunch of research and literature that I've been

1188
01:15:48,200 --> 01:15:52,760
unable to find some updates on studies because I get

1189
01:15:52,960 --> 01:15:55,480
quite a few interests and inquiries from people.

1190
01:15:55,680 --> 01:15:58,520
So I try to put it all together for people

1191
01:15:58,520 --> 01:16:03,960
that want to learn a little bit more about sleep and what you can do to improve sleep.

1192
01:16:04,160 --> 01:16:06,360
Brilliant. Well, I want to thank you so much.

1193
01:16:06,360 --> 01:16:09,480
It's been such an interesting conversation, a very different perspective.

1194
01:16:09,480 --> 01:16:11,960
I mean, Sarah obviously was in a firefighter family.

1195
01:16:12,160 --> 01:16:14,560
You actually wore the uniform for a while

1196
01:16:14,560 --> 01:16:16,640
and now you both find yourself in the research space.

1197
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:18,920
So I want to thank you so much for being so

1198
01:16:18,920 --> 01:16:22,120
generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

1199
01:16:22,320 --> 01:16:24,080
Oh, not a problem. Glad to be here.

1200
01:16:24,280 --> 01:16:27,000
And this is my first podcast ever.

1201
01:16:27,000 --> 01:16:47,400
So I hope I delivered.