Getting Moody? What’s the Iceberg Profile Say?
In the late 1980’s a researcher came up with a tool to help assess and track the moods of athletes. This concept was developed to help assess the overtraining principle and was used to increase productivity and performance on the field of play. The more we assessed this tool and its inner-workings from a mental performance angle, it became apparent that the theme could easily be translated to emergency services and it had nothing to do with lifting weights or running hills.
Grab Your POMS and Get Focused!
The assessment is called the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and there have been a couple versions of it over the years. The assessment basically uses either 65 or 35 questions and centers around 6 different categories (Tension, Anxiety, Confusion, Fatigue, and Vigor). The test is typically administered at the start of a training program and high performing athletes typically score below an average participant in ⅚ categories but score extremely high in the Vigor category. It would be very interesting in our opinion to apply this same style of questionnaire to firefighters and other emergency responders at the beginning of their careers and then track how they progress as the years tick on. If I were to guess the chart would look identical to this and then probably have an inverse relationship especially once they had 20+ years of service under their belt.
The Iceberg Always Hides Important Information Below the Surface
Like any iceberg out in the ocean the danger lurks below the surface. This diagram shows all the factors that if not addressed could lead to some serious mental health and mental performance detriments when spanned across a 20-30 year career. Heck it might happen a whole lot faster and we unfortunately see examples of this from younger members of all of our organizations. When we couple the stress of the job with changes in life, calls, lack of proper sleep and nutrition, and no resources to help with tension, depression, anger, and fatigue we have a simple yet very potent recipe for disaster.
Fortunately There Are Plenty of Tools To Help!
Things like physical fitness training, mindfulness, breath training and proper sleep hygiene can go a LONG way to helping combat the effects of our chosen occupations. We’ll focus heavily on these tools in the next few months to provide simple yet tangible results for you both on and off the job. For now focus on what you can control and start to get a sense using a simple self analysis to see where you think you personally lie in the categories covered by POMS (Tension, Anxiety, Confusion, Fatigue, and Vigor). Reach out to a friend or family member to see how they’d rate you, talk to a peer support member, or schedule that appointment with a mental health coach that you’ve been putting off for who knows how long. All of these will help and remember the goal is to kick ass on the emergency scene, kick ass on the job, and kick ass at home.
Stay smart, happy, healthy and strong!