Is the Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty? A Different Perspective on Stress for First-Responders

By

Ryan Dedmon, MA, CMCP

911 Training Institute

When you see the picture of the glass in its captured state, the age-old question first comes to mind…

“Is the glass half-full or half-empty?”

Your answer supposedly reflects your perception and outlook on life. If the glass is half-full, you are an optimistic Piglet… happy-happy, joy-joy, sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies everywhere. If the glass is half-empty, you are a pessimistic Eeyore… sadly moping around under a raincloud that follows you no matter where you go. Instead, I propose first-responders start looking at the glass from a different perspective and we ask a different question…

“How heavy is this glass?”

I ask this question using a plastic water bottle in many of the training classes I teach. "How heavy is this?", as I hold the bottle out in front of me. I see the wheels in peoples’ brains start turning as they quickly try to crunch some numbers. 

They figure the average-sized plastic water bottle holds 16-18 fluid ounces of water when full, so half of that is 8-9 ounces of water. They add a couple more ounces to include the actual bottle and they conclude the answer is approximately 10 ounces. 

“10 ounces Ryan, that’s 10 ounces!” they shout with excitement.

Many of their eyes twinkle with pride as they pat themselves on the backs for their logic. And that really is brilliant deductive reasoning. However, I seem to steal all their joy when I tell them that does not answer the question I asked. A bewildered look of glazed confusion appears on all the faces in the room.   

I did not ask how much the bottle WEIGHS; I asked how HEAVY is it.

What if I told you to stand up and hold that plastic water bottle in your hand with your arm fully extended, elbow locked, straight out in front of you parallel to the ground at eye level? Can you do that? Sure, easy enough. How heavy is the bottle? Not very heavy at all. You can spin it around, twirl it around, and even toss it up in the air with ease. But what if I told you to hold it out there in that position for an hour. Now is that plastic bottle starting to feel heavy? You better believe it is. 

That is ironic because we all just agreed above that the bottle filled at half capacity only weighs about 10 ounces. And at no time did the actual weight of the bottle change as I was holding it. How did something that only weighs 10 ounces become so heavy?

Several factors come into play.

• Position of the bottle: I can hold it in my hand down at my side all day long, but it's much more challenging to hold in my hand with my arm extended out in front of me and elbow locked.

• Duration of time: I can hold in that position for three minutes, no problem; hold it in that position for 30 minutes and now that's a hard challenge.

• Stamina of the person: Maybe I can hold in that position longer than you can, or vice-versa.

• Contents in the bottle: The bottle might feel a lot different in my hand if it were half-full of lead instead of water.

Inevitably, at some point in time, your arm is going to get tired. You will feel the tingling sensation. The muscles, tendons, and ligaments laboring to hold that bottle will become exhausted and ultimately fail. Your arm will drop from fatigue, sending that bottle crashing to the ground.

Holding that bottle out in front of you in that position is what it feels like to work as a first-responder in fields of public-safety, except the bottle is not filled with water. It is filled with stress.

At first, it's not so bad, but the stress that comes with a job in public-safety accumulates with every shift. Six months, one year, five years, ten years working in public-safety… and you are still holding that bottle out in front of you. It is quite possible you could feel exhausted. It could be early in your career; it could be later in your career; it could be after you retire. You cannot fight the laws of physics in holding the bottle, but you can change the outcome. You do not have to let discomfort become fatigue, then become exhaustion, leading to failure and sending the bottle crashing to the ground. 

Stress is like alcohol: different amounts affect different people differently. I can go out and meet my youngest brother at a sports bar to catch a game. One beer for me is the same as three beers for him and we are at the same level of inebriation. How is that possible? Just like the water bottle, several factors come into play: metabolic rate, stamina, body-build, and tolerance are just a few variables to consider.

Stress for first-responders can work in similar ways. What one first-responder might feel is very stressful, another first-responder might not feel any stress response at all. We can take two first-responders who work the same job at the same agency and have them respond to the same incident. One might feel that incident to be very stressful, while the second does not feel any stress at all. Again, several factors come into play as variables to offer explanation.

My job as a public-safety trainer and speaker is to do two things: 1) I want to give first-responders the tools to recognize when the bottle feels heavy because of discomfort, fatigue, or exhaustion; 2) I want to help them set the bottle down to rest their weary arm and I want them to feel validated, free from judgement or stigma, when they do.

The power of asking "How heavy is the bottle?", instead of "Is it half-full or half-empty?", is that it validates the experience of the person holding it. First-responders are exposed to significant amounts of chronic stress, simply by doing their jobs of fulfilling their duties and responsibilities. Historically, we have told them that they can't feel any adverse effects after exposure to all that stress, and if they do, then something is wrong with them. And so, like good first-responders, they have reported for duty and stood at attention holding that water bottle out in front of them... some of them to the point of extreme distress, leading to psychological and emotional exhaustion.

We can help all first-responders understand it is okay to take a break and set the bottle down, instead of them feeling like they have to constantly hold it without any rest. We can help provide them with professional resources that are thoroughly vetted and trusted to deliver evidence-based treatment and support, aligned with industry standards of best practices. We can empower them to have a resilient mindset with healthy coping mechanisms and support systems in place. That rest and those resources will allow them to recover and recharge so they find the strength to come back tomorrow.  

It does not matter if you perceive the glass as half-full or half-empty. What is important is that you acknowledge sometimes that glass can feel heavy. And that is okay. Seeing and hearing what first-responders face every day can make that glass feel really heavy, regardless of its actual weight. Instead of deciding if your glass is half-full or half-empty, ask yourself…

Does the glass feel heavy?

About the Author:

Ryan Dedmon, MA, CMCP, is the Outreach Director at the 911 Training Institute, bringing decades of experience in public-safety to his work with first-responders. A former police officer and retired police dispatcher from Southern California, Ryan was honored as “Telecommunicator of the Year” in 2012 by the Southern California Chapter of APCO International in recognition of his service. Since retiring in 2013, Ryan has dedicated his career to equipping first-responders with high-quality training to help them perform at their highest levels. He has a unique blend of real-world experience, academic insight, and passion for supporting first-responders. Ryan holds a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology and is a Certified CIT Coordinator, as well as a California POST-Certified Academy Instructor at the Regional Criminal Justice Training Center at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, CA.