Best of Optimized Medic in 2020

Hello!

Thank you for being a subscriber to the Optimized Medic email list. I can't believe it's already been nearly a year since I published my first posts (and what a year!).

I've compiled the following list of some of the big ideas I wrote about in 2020. It also serves as the new Start Here page on the web site.

If you see anything in the list of articles below that might help a friend, please consider sending it their way.

• Brendan

Fitness

1. While the job has some physical demands, many emergency workers will find that the job is quite sedentary (as measured by steps). For those people, the implications include increased anxiety and depression as well as a phenomenon called “exercise resistance” (reduced effectiveness of subsequent workouts).
2. I think addressing the sedentary nature of the job (and our modern lives in general) is low-hanging fruit with many potential upsides. One such upside is increased resilience, something every emergency worker can never have quite enough of. You might choose to simply track your steps, or you might choose to, more organically, look for opportunities to move on shift.
3. In addition to just generally increasing movement, it is a good idea to continue building physical capacity and resilience via strength and conditioning. I wrote a series about the unique challenges to planning strength and conditioning workouts for prehospital care providers.
4. Grappling with Obstacles to Physical Fitness for EMTs, Paramedics and First Responders
5. Cardio for Paramedics
6. Strength Training for First Responders
7. 3 Strategies for Staying Consistent with Strength Training as a First Responder

Nutrition

1. I haven’t gone deep into the weeds on nutrition yet. But I did write this article: Food Rules for Paramedics to highlight some of the easiest and most powerful changes I’ve made to eat healthy on the job.

Sleep

1. I think most EMS scheduling systems unnecessarily burn the candle at both ends. Share that one with your peers, unions, and employers for discussion.
2. If you suffer insomnia, you may find ashwagandha to be helpful in improving your sleep.

Mindset

1. While the important of increasing awareness and acceptance of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is incredibly important, I think that we simultaneously need to be curious about why some people’s lives get better after exposure to trauma. This is called Post Traumatic Growth, and it is actually more common than PTSD.
2. Stoic philosophy has been an incredibly powerful framework for helping me move from struggling to coping to sometimes even thriving in my work as a paramedic.