Anxiety Almost Took Him Out Of His Dream Position

In this episode, Andi interviewed a first responder from the 911 Elite Performance Program, who was at the point of wondering if he was going to lose his very specialized position that had been his dream since they were a little kid because of anxiety attacks.

What You'll Learn:

➡️How important it is to implement a protocol that gives you back a lot of power and you take back control of the situation.

➡️There's a place for therapy. 

➡️You're going to need every little bit of help in order to get through a career of this

➡️And a lot more! 

Are you ready to learn all the tools needed to live a 911 lifestyle that can help you stay strong throughout your entire career? Then Coach Yourself To Be 911 Shift Strong! Sign up for the FREE TRAINING HERE ➡️ https://911lifestyle.com/coachyourselftobe911shiftstrongjoin

If you want to learn more about the 911 Elite Performance Program before joining, Book A Call with Andi here! ➡️https://calendly.com/911lifestyle/25min?month=2022-06

Or connect with Andi Online! 

Learn more works of Andi at www.911lifestyle.com

Follow Andi on LinkedIn

Join the free Facebook Community - 911 Shift Ready Podcast

I'm Andy Clark, mom and wife of an officer I've been reversing and preventing

burnout and first responders since 2018.

Welcome to the 911 Shift Ready podcast where we will dive into sleep, anger,

energy, hypervigilance, anxiety, and other burnout symptoms in order

to arm you with the knowledge, understanding, and tools beyond exercise

and nutrition to be 911 shift ready.

So you can thrive not only for the remainder of your career but

also at home in your family life.

And then bring those tools back to your service.

So the compound effect can take place and together we can decrease burnout

in the 911 lifestyle community.

It's an unfortunate fact and a truth that many first responders if they are

to open up about their struggles, their anxiety, anger, short fuse, and things

that are going on with them that they are working on, that they could lose

their job, their position, their career.

So this podcast episode is a rare one because it is not often at all that

a conversation that we have in our 911 Elite performance program program

that I am able to air publicly.

That being said, I did have to take out a lot of pieces of this that

were any defining characteristics.

So there's one piece that may not makes sense because I did have to

take out a huge chunk on exercise because everything we were talking

about were pertaining to this individual specific role and position.

So without further ado, let's dive into the experience that one of

the first responders has had in our 911 Elite performance program.

What got them into this program?

What were they trying to work on?

And where are they now?

initially I came to the program because I was experiencing anxiety

like I've never experienced.

And I really didn't even know where it came from.

And I was really, really worried about if this was the big, scary,

PTSD that everybody talks about.

And I had significant worry that I was going to have to go off work but what

I found was I wasn't too proud to try to ask for help and to get psych help.

But what I found was that even through the psych help it

wasn't really dealing with it.

Once I found the program and I started looking at some of the things that

the program has helped people deal with that's what I realized that a

lot of what was going wrong was likely inside me as opposed to in my head.

Inside means physical like body?

Yeah.

I mean, most therapists will tell you if they're being honest, they'll tell

you that a lot of times anxiety and depression are the way you perceive a

physical experience within your body.

The biggest thing for me when I knew that I was going in the right direction

was once I added apple cider vinegar and I noticed almost an instant change.

Then I realized that I wasn't digesting food properly.

And so all this time, I had basically been starving myself for nutrients

and vitamins and all these things.

All my body was doing was screaming at me that it needs it.

And realistically, a lot of times that is your perception of anxiety.

Is your body screaming at you, your nervous system screaming

at you that you need change.

You need to implement whatever it may be.

Whether it's more sleep or better quality food.

Yeah.

The thing, you know, is that it is different, like for you, it was the

apple cider vinegar but for everybody

different

cause the stress system is so

oh, absolutely.

different and can we dive into a little bit of you were worried

that you were going to lose that position, which was your dream job?

Yeah, because at the end of the day the split second decisions you have to

make, sometimes the long hours on calls or the repeated calls, a lot of those

things are not conducive to have anxiety or depression and do all that stuff.

So I was definitely worried that like anxiousness was going to hurt me but

the second that I was able to actually supplement and get my body and nervous

system to pump the brakes a little bit and get some traction, it changed

my whole perception of everything.

Yeah.

Even with the changes since you started as well is how you look at workouts.

Yeah.

You train hard all the time.

Full tilt full in it and you have such an athletic background as well.

Then now though, with the amount of call outs you have with the way that you don't

get all of the sleep and everything,

Right.

You had to really adjust your training to understand

Of course.

What you need to do is basically you need to maintain a high level of fitness.

Right?

My training periods now look different, but they're still very, very effective.

Yeah.

And that's the thing is sometimes pulling off allows your body to recover

more to allow you to be more effective.

You can switch back and forth now.

And I wasn't able to necessarily before.

Like before, the only thing that gets me is when I know that I have

to be up for my alarm at 2:30 AM.

And then I'm antsy because I don't want to miss my alarm even

though I don't miss my alarm.

Absolutely.

My husband's the same

So that's the only thing that I find.

And then when I get up in the morning that early, I'll take my supplements.

I'm less stressed out about the minor details of things now.

Early in the morning , I do feel antsy " I look at it and I go,

"Well, what is my body telling me?"

And I go, "Oh, it's telling me that, Hey the fact that you're up at 2:00

AM is not okay because you've only slept four hours and that's not cool.

Don't do that again."

and that's kind of the way I look at it and I go, "Okay.

Yeah, that's okay.

I'll get to bed when I can get to bed once I'm done."

And that's kind of the push and pull that I find now that's working for me.

But I wouldn't have been where I am right now without my supplementation,

without some of that testing, without all those things because remember

even my testosterone was low.

It's rare that ever we do any of those tests and we have a normal

testosterone with you guys.

Quite often when we actually dive into those testings it's not even

the problem of the testosterone.

It's either being stolen by another hormone or

converted into another hormone which makes it low.

So that problem has to be fixed and your testosterone goes back up.

It's not even testosterone itself was low.

You're absolutely right.

I've noticed some significant differences.

It's unfortunate that my experience with traditional medicine has been

so poor through this process because it's almost like I'm asking for money

out of my doctor's pocket, when I say, "Hey, I'd like to get this

tested and that tested ." And almost created an awkwardness for me to ask.

So I haven't actually retested my testosterone since when I first did it.

And I would like to because I could feel a difference.

I do.

I feel a difference and I would imagine that my testosterone's if

I had to guess, I would say it's probably around like maybe 19 to 20.

Just based on how I feel right now.

But again, it's like asking for a favor to get the testing done.

Yeah.

And when you're talking about that you're talking about it like a blood test.

A blood test.

Yeah.

If it's showing low, why

? Yeah.

And I think your original one was a blood test.

They said it's low here let's pump you with testosterone.

But once we started looking at it, we're like, yeah, that's not it.

It's being converted

Yeah.

And we start bringing it back so that your testosterone stays testosterone and it's

not overflowing onto the other hormone.

Exactly.

That test was actually a life saver because even though I didn't

feel good afterwards right away.

It actually gave me a little bit of hope that I wasn't like suffering

from something catastrophic.

Yeah.

When people are feeling like that sometimes knowing that, "Hey, it's not all

in your head that it's 90% in your body."

Sometimes it can alleviate a lot of stress because I know like I've always been a

science guy, like that's my background.

That's what I did in school.

And I know that if there's a scientific reasoning, there's

likely a scientific answer.

And that scientific answer, once you implement protocol that gives

you back a lot of power and you take back control of the situation.

As opposed to hoping that the brain is able to re-sort all its

memories through conversation.

There's a place for therapy.

And I regularly speak to a therapist because I want to stay where I'm at

and I want to work through things and I want to discover new things and plus we

have the benefits and I want to spend.

So I regularly do that.

So I'm not knocking that side of the house.

It's important but for me, the single greatest factor in this whole

process had been the biological in my body side of the house.

That's what I noticed the biggest change.

Yeah and just to piggyback on what you're saying about therapies and treatments

so important, especially in your job.

I mean, the more that you can set yourself up that you have even a therapist that

already knows your history or story, who you have that rapport with then when

you do end up with one of those calls.

You don't have to start from the beginning with somebody

you can actually be like boom.

And deal with it.

Of course.

That being proactive as well, and making sure that you do have everything

in place in case that happens.

But as you're saying, stress is perceived stress, so you keep

stressing out your body, which keeps throwing off the physical side.

But I've worked with guys where they could not make headways in their

therapies, in their treatments, especially with EMDR, a lot of their PTSD treatments.

Yeah.

And a lot of studies show that when their stress system is so stressed

when their nervous system is so strong because you're working it

every day that they can't switch.

Like you were talking about being able to switch in and out, they

can't switch into that resting state.

And when they can't switch into that resting state that's the state that helps

them process things more in therapy.

So once we get those guys where they can switch that's switch again

then they go back to their therapies that's when they start making headway.

So it's not that one is better than the other, they work together.

I absolutely agree.

I think you can't have one without the other.

And I think it's super important for anyone that is involved kind in this

functional medicine, performance medicine side of the house.

They all welcome the use of therapy.

They all say, "Hey, it's important.

Do it go ahead."

It's super important to work through things and things of that nature.

But what I found is the other side of the house actually doesn't

really understand this functional medicine side of the house.

And, that's probably one of the greatest limitations.

Right now, currently in the Western model of whether it be medicine and therapy

is not understanding the other side of the house and knowing that if you

encouraged your client to seek testing, an assistance for gut health, for all

these other things you know that now your success rate in helping that client is

potentially going to go through the roof.

Yeah.

And there's, well, there are some studies with HRV which is a marker

in between your heartbeats that tells you how stressed your body is.

When we get your HRVs to start increasing, you can manage more stress

day to day of your job, but you can also manage to process things then in

therapies, especially those with PTSD.

They are struggling in their treatments.

Absolutely.

If you can look at people who are experiencing true PTSD there's so many

physical symptoms and if you can address those physical symptoms and start to

almost recalibrate all of a sudden, you've done a lot of recovering from PTSD.

I think a part of the issue with PTSD is it's this big taboo topic but we need

to start addressing it for what it is.

A lot of times it's still physical symptoms, it's physical symptomology.

And then your perception of what that those physical symptoms are.

And so without addressing nervous system, without addressing gut health, without

addressing nutrition, supplementation, all those things that are not being

addressed just through therapy.

A lot of people stay years upon years, upon years not really getting better, not

getting back to work, never able to really make it past what their entry point was.

Yeah.

And that's interesting because that's what I do.

You and I always keep up in the science part of it, but it's something to be able

to explain it because services spent so much time saying that it is the traumas

right.

And I have talked to some guys where their traumas that they

have experienced are unbelievable.

But when we are only focusing on the traumas, we're taking away from

like everything you're doing being called out in the middle of your

sleep, 2:00 AM wake ups or 7:00 AM like your body doesn't know.

Your circadian rhythms just have no idea which end is up.

Right.

At night, there's certain toxins can't detox.

So for fire, that's huge.

Even for guys on tactical units, if you're dealing a lot with firearms

there's the lead, the cadium, which can also increase your toxin levels

which cause a lot of anxiety as well.

Yeah.

Just looking through a scope, any on tactical units too, that are

solely looking through a scope.

As soon as you look through a scope, you are in that tunnel vision.

You get yourself into a stress state and your body just goes into that

state that learning to look away from the scope and look at the horizon.

Right.

There's so many things that are taught tactically that you

need to survive on the job.

Yeah.

And the hours, like you can't just leave in the middle of a call

and say, "Hey, my shift's over."

No.

And you have to do all the paperwork.

It's just a part of the job and those things aren't talked about and what those

do to your body and how all of those things keep training your stress system.

And we need to start training that resting system, so you can

switch in and out as you need.

So when you need to be in that hypervigilant state

to keep you safe, you are.

You switch out and I think that's the part that's missed and not talked

about because there's so much focus on "Oh, that's just because of traumas"

and it's not just because of traumas.

Right.

All of the other aspects of the job are very stressful as well.

And that's, when we start geeking out about all the hormones and

stuff, your cortisol is your stress, your energy hormone.

You're waking up absolutely exhausted and depleted.

But it's also when it's depleted, you decrease your ability to handle stressors.

And then you get that nervous system that's super strong and you're living

in your stress nerve that you can't even shut it off to get in your

resting . And if you are noticing at work, it's often worse at home.

They're usually pretty short with their kids, short with their spouse.

Not able to move off of the couch and do anything.

Not able to help around the house.

And it's just this whole pattern that by the time it starts being seen at work,

it's already been happening for a while.

I've actually had this conversation and where I talk to them a lot about

what it looks like around that four to five year mark, when you notice sleep

has changed and being short after night shifts and all those things and I've had

numerous people do the stomach acid test.

I've told numerous people about it because I said, if you are dealing

with anxiety, depression, whatever it may be and you're a shift worker

and you're working these long hours.

Do the stomach acid test and see where your stomach acid is because

it could be as little as adding the apple cider of vinegar for

me was literally a life changing.

Yeah.

Well we've been running the program since 2018.

And so we can't do the test on anybody who is on proton pump

inhibitors or taking long term antacids cause it's not good for them.

Right.

That's the thing when you're in that stress nerve all of the

time, it slows down your gut

fighting for your life.

Yeah.

Your body slows down your stomach acids, which are all

the same symptoms as high acids.

But you go to your doctor and they're like, "Oh, your acids are high."

They never test.

Exactly.

We ask them if they are on proton pump inhibitors.

Well, did your doctor test for high stomach acids?

Yeah.

And I've never had one say yes.

No, absolutely not.

And that's the conversation that I always have with people.

Cause I say if you've been at this for a little bit, like I tell them

like it's completely unnatural cause especially in this line of work, we look

at traumas as big T, as the homicides, the car accidents, all that stuff.

And I said, that's not, what's going to take you out of the game.

It likely isn't going to be.

It's the fact that we don't even attribute stress to working night shift.

Which the studies that are coming out now are basically saying that it is so

carcinogenic and inflammatory to work night shifts that you're basically dying.

The more night shifts that you work especially when you get to a certain age.

And so I, tell people, like, I always say, like, that's one of the most

stressful things that you could ever do to your body is work night

shift, and that's your baseline.

That's what we're starting with.

So test your stomach, you know what I mean?

And make sure that test your acid and make sure that you're able to

digest because you're going to need every little bit of help in order

to get through a career of this.

Absolutely.

And if you're not sleeping at night, your body's not detoxing and

that's just normal, like detoxing of normal stuff in your day.

Just normal things that's not including other toxins that you guys are exposed to.

If you guys are on scene of a fire, EMS, fire, you don't have the same

protection as the fire guys, but the fire guys are in fires all the time.

Right.

And if body's not able to detox even just the normal everyday toxins and

everything else starts piling up.

Anxiety and depression from toxins can be some of the top symptoms that we get.

Of course.

I mean, those that are working with guns all the time the lead

the cabmium that's anxiety.

Right?

Yeah.

So many things we need to look at.

That we have somebody that just recently started the program

and he wants the anxiety gone.

We need to check this and we need to check this.

There's so many things because it's not a one stop shop, right.

Yes.

Most people's antacids are low, but there's also other tools that we were

waiting for your tests to come back and getting you on the right supplements.

We're doing all these other aspects to be training your nervous system.

And getting you to be able to switch in and out of it cause we have to train

that nervous system, just like a muscle.

Of course.

There's so many pieces to it and that's where it's a beast trying to explain

what I do when there's so many different elements in order to make sure that

we're finding the right piece in you.

Absolutely.

I would say for anyone that's like that's coming in or starting the program and

they're kind of overwhelmed because the symptoms aren't gone and they're

wondering when the hell's going to happen.

It's like lifting the hood of a car where you know there's

an issue with your vehicle.

And starting to do all like the diagnostics.

It's going to take a little bit of time to get the diagnostics done to know, "Okay.

Hey, we need you to change the fuel pump.

We need to change this.

We need to change that.

And this is faulty."

It takes a little bit of time.

But if you focus on the process of learning what's going on

in your body and you treat it.

You almost have to remove yourself to get elevation . If

you are experiencing anxiety or depression, you are not anxiety.

You are not depression.

It's a symptom, it's things that are going on.

So if you're able to kind of get elevation looking down at yourself,

now you can kind of remove yourself from the first person experience and

start to look at it as a process.

And once you're able to do that then you start to get actually somewhat

intrigued by what's going on in your body.

Like there would be times where I'd wake up and I would be feeling those feelings

that before I attributed to like anxiety.

And I would get curious at a point where I go, , I wonder why I feel like this.

Oh yeah, I didn't really sleep last nightcause I was on call.

And I got a call in early and I didn't really drink enough

water and then I go, okay.

Then I implement some things and I sit back and I wonder what's going to change.

And then in a couple hours, all of a sudden I feel a little bit less stressed.

And removing yourself from that first person experience allows you to

look at it for what it is symptoms.

And if you can get almost excited, geek out about the process under

the hood, you become so intrigued by what's going on in your body.

But then also in like your friend's bodies and your spouse's body and

just your coworkers and it just becomes this big rolling ball of

positivity in the right direction.

And so that's what I would say trust the testing.

Like trust the testing.

Get excited about the testing because it's going to tell you a lot about yourself.

Absolutely.

And like every test that comes back is different for each individual.

Of course.

Not the same because you all have been in different units, in different cities,

different even where you grew up was different and all of those affect your

DNA, your genetics, everything affects.

Of course.

With all of that, it's funny what you say, like when you start

looking at this in other people.

I am bad when I am around any of my husband's colleagues.

I'm like watching how their breathing is, the skin.

I'm watching, like all kinds of things in them and my husband does the same.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now and he knows what to take out to help.

He's like, "Oh, I wish we could help this person , but we can't.

They have to be ready as well.

Well, it's tough.

It's tough because you start seeing people and you're like, I know that you're

struggling and it's almost like the way I look at it is I'm like, you're struggling

for no reason because there's help.

There's all kinds of things that you can do.

That's the part really that hits me hard right now with like with colleagues or

even people that I don't know that end up succumbing to, the feelings of depression.

Because I know it's not the same for everybody, but I know what

a $10 bottle apple cider vinegar did for me almost overnight.

And I go, if that's all somebody needed in order to get a little bit of traction

to then start to see that they can recover it makes me so frustrated and infuriated.

And I know it's probably even worse for you because you've been working

alongside of people, you know, for years and years and years now.

But that's the frustrating part cause I see people struggle and I'm like, I

know there's so many things that can help you, but I'm not going to thrust

myself into your life and tell you exactly everything that you need to do

or who to find there and where to go.

But I do open up for a lot of conversations at this point now

probably 50 or 60 conversations.

Just open ended conversations about this kind of stuff.

And people know I'm passionate about it.

They know I am and they know I enjoy it.

Yeah.

And that's the thing like apple cider vinegar for you and we had

this guy who have major PTSD.

He was having flashbacks, anxiety attacks every two to three minutes in his day.

But he couldn't make it through any of his treatments that for

him it was the coregeous ball.

So it's so interesting how for different people, it's a different tool.

Yeah.

It was that ball.

And we got him to work on it because it right away hits the nerves

that are most affected by PTSD.

Right.

And in a month of doing that, he got to two to three flashbacks and

anxiety attacks in a day, which is huge from every two to three minutes.

Right.

That I think six months later he was able to go to EMDR again

back to his PTSD treatments.

He made it all the way through and he says it's maybe once or twice a week

now without having any flashbacks.

It is amazing how complex our stress system is.

Yeah.

And not even accounting the mental side.

So we're talking the physical stress system.

Yeah.

And I mean, you are only going to figure it out once you start to check the

boxes off through diagnostic testing.

And unfortunately, it's not going to be things that you're going

to find in your doctor's office.

They don't have the ability.

They don't have the know-how or the knowledge.

And it's not a slight on them.

It's just a different world.

Yeah.

Our medical system, it took me a while to realize that our medical system is

built on reactive medicine, which we need,

of course

Those for every like 911 call, right?

Those are all reactive medical.

The side that we work on is the preventative side

and they're very different.

And it's not that one is better than the other.

They're different.

So on the proactive side, when we're looking at cortisol markers

or testosterone, we're looking at them from what is healthy.

Whereas they're looking at it, what is disease?

Right.

So I know for me, when I started my journey, which is what got me into

this is I was getting my cortisol tested and she said, you're 10%.

You're low but you're not yet in Addison's disease.

Addison's disease is 2.5.

She said you're showing signs of Addison's disease, but you're

not in Addison's disease yet.

So we'll keep an eye on you.

Yeah.

Interestingly after we started looking at that, I actually wasn't

even low in my cortisol at all.

After I did the testing that you did for your testosterone.

Mine was pulled in another path and the branch above was pulling it away

and using it for something else.

Which was sending me over the edge and making me Medusa.

And it wasn't getting to my cortisol.

So my energy and my stress management was tanked.

Once we adjusted that over for me, my cortisol went back up to normal levels.

So it really is getting the right testing too and figuring it out.

But it's so different.

But our medical system is that reactive which we need.

But the way that we are looking at all of this is from the preventative side.

Absolutely.

And that you could tell that is the largest scale difference between, the two

sides of that debate or that conversation.

Even for me, I think through the blood testing, clinically you

could be, I think it's lower than five is like low testosterone.

And that's an absurd number to say.

Well, if you're above this then you're okay there's nothing to do.

Like if you were at four or five or six, the way you would feel is not good.

And so you're just kinda left to feel not really that good, but not

bad enough that there's anything they're going to do about it.

And the thing though, too, when you show low testosterone it's like, "Why?"

Why?

Because if it's being pulled down another pathway and they're pumping you

with testosterone injections or creams initially what happens is it goes down

the right pathway and you're like, "Oh, I'm feeling a little better right now."

You actually might be jacked up a bit too much.

Yeah.

And you might have some, you know, testosterone stuff going on and

then it levels out for a bit as it starts being stolen again.

They start stealing the stuff you're injecting and then it

gets to the point where it even depletes that and you get low again.

So it becomes this cycle sometimes if the reason isn't low testosterone.

If you do have low testosterone and it is because your testosterone is actually

low then testosterone shots are for that.

But the thing is, is they only do a blood test and they don't

check out after it's low.

Why was it low?

Why?

Exactly.

And the thing too is quite often, we're able with some supplements to start just

shifting it down the right path and you don't need all these shots for life.

We're able to shift it away.

To shift it and manage it so that your body just starts doing what it does with

the simple supplement that you get at a like very reputable health food store.

And that was my big thing was because that was the realm that they were basically

pushing me and not my family doctor because he didn't believe in that either.

He just believed in just me being as I like living as I am.

Which I said, well, that's not going to work either.

But then when I started doing my own research, I found I was close

to going down that TRT path but I didn't want to be stuck on anything.

And I'm somebody who I never wanted to take things.

Supplements are different for me.

I like taking supplements.

I feel like I'm working towards something when I take my supplements.

But I didn't want to be someone that was injecting or somebody

that was having to take this or that in order to regulate myself.

And so, getting the testing done for me was huge because then there was

some answers and things that I could implement and things that I could do.

And once I started to do those things, I started to feel better.

And that's kind of how it worked for me.

Yeah.

And the thing with supplements as well is you've done the testing.

So you know why you're taking those supplements and what they

are doing for your body and how everthing's working together.

Of course.

Instead of being like, "Oh, you know, you have anxiety.

Let's give you this pill."

That's going to pump the synthetic hormone.

That is your happy feel good hormone in you because we're not talking

about why that hormone is low.

Which 90% of your serotonin is found in your gut.

So when the nervous system is kicking in and it's slowing down your gut,

slowing down your stomach acids, it slow downs your ability to get the

serotonin out through your body.

So serotonin decreases.

We find once we do work on a lot of gut as well, a lot of that

anxiety does start to improve.

But if we don't fix that nervous system, it's going to keep shutting down the gut.

So every time that you try to make progress with your gut,

you keep taking steps back.

So there's so many different moving parts to it to be considering

with all of that as well.

Absolutely.

It's not just one pill.

Yeah.

And that's kind of the realm that we are living in right now.

Where it's a quick fix.

You know, you skip a lot of the details as to why things are the way

they are and you focus more on you know, just the symptom and that's

not a proper diagnostic approach.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's a lot to this, but yeah.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Absolutely.

That is the thing that we don't often share in this world because in some places

still if anybody finds out that there is anything at all that you are slightly

struggling with, you lose your position or you lose your career altogether.

Yeah.

And we have worked with some guys that have completely lost their career,

three months of therapy and were told if that didn't work, they couldn't come back.

Right.

So, I understand the not sharing and not talking and not telling

other people, so thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

There is still a stigma around support and around all these things.

And the way that I look at everyone on the team, they know that like they

see my lunch box and they always joke and laugh at me that like, I'm the

pharmacy because of the supplements.

They laugh at me, but it's interesting the way people view it because they

see that that's how you stay optimal.

And so it's less about like, "Oh, you're struggling with everything

and you're struggling this, struggling with that and more of

you really care about being optimal.

They'll see what I'm doing in a gym.

There's almost this elite athletic performance side to

supplementation and all that as well.

You guys are tactical athletes.

And to be like that resilient tactical athlete, you need to treat your body

the way that a professional was.

And that's the thing.

What kind of a professional athlete do you want to be?

Do you want to be the one that is playing in the final playoff game first string?

Or do you want to be the one that is sitting on the bench

and got hardly any playing time?

Right.

What player do you want to be because that is what is going to make the difference.

If you are recovering, if you are hitting it in the gym when your body needs.

Even knowing when to hit it in the gym.

Right.

And getting personal best in the gym.

Getting the sleep when you can.

Right.

Get as solid of a sleep as you can and setting yourself up to be able to peak.

I mean for you guys, it's not a game day, right?

You don't know that it's every Sunday's game day, right?

Yeah, exactly.

You don't know when it's going to happen that you need to be on point

every single day and ready for it.

I know you're prepared so you heal and recover as fast as possible for

the next call, which could be in the next hour, or it could be next week.

Yeah.

You're absolutely right.

Well, thank you so much.

This has been absolutely helpful.

I hope you have found value in today's episode.

Don't forget to like, and share this episode so it's shown to more first

responders and subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss future episodes.

Go to our website, 911ShiftReady.com if you would like to work with us,

learn more about our 911 Lifestyle Program, gain access to our free

training, join our mailing list or find our social media channels.