Boost your mental health as a first responder or veteran with the Mind Pilot podcast, hosted by Dr. Jana Price-Sharps, a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and stress management. This essential podcast is designed for firefighters, police officers, EMS personnel, and veterans seeking practical strategies to enhance their mental well-being. Delve into topics like resilience, stress reduction, effective parenting, healthy relationships, coping with anxiety and depression, conquering nightmares, and setting achievable goals. Tune in to the Mind Pilot podcast and empower yourself with actionable tips and techniques tailored for first responders, ensuring greater overall well-being and a stronger mindset on the job.
When you work in a high-stress environment, adrenaline and cortisol can stay elevated long after your shift ends. In this episode of Mind Pilot, Dr. Jana Price-Sharps discusses why first responders and veterans have the right to be happy, and how to intentionally "cool down" your nervous system. Learn how to break the cycle of rumination, swap out negative mental loops for positive inputs, and fully reclaim your downtime.
Topics and Ideas Covered
The Right to Be Happy: Choosing happiness is an active, daily decision rather than a passive state of being.
De-escalating Your Physiology: Constant high stress floods your system with adrenaline and cortisol, keeping your brain on a continuous, exhausting search for threats.
Choosing Your Inputs: Intentionally shifting your mental diet to lighter, funny, or calming content helps cool down your nervous system after a difficult shift.
Good day. This is Dr. Dana Price Sharps from MinePilot. So you may have noticed at the end of every podcast, I say, you have the right to be happy. You have the right to take care of yourself. And some of my guys will come back and say, you know what? I hear you saying that. And it really has helped me. And then I have had other guys that go, why? Why do I have the right to be happy? I don't know. Does anybody have the right to be happy? And so let me talk about what do I mean when I say this and how to kind of work through that. You know, the reality is we get to choose whether we're happy or not. We truly do. We can wake up in the morning and go, life sucks, and then I die, you know, and what's the point? And I hate everybody I talk to, and people are stupid, and you can go on this whole long mantra of negativity. And you can choose that. That's a choice, but it is a choice. Or you can wake up and go, okay, I am going to have the best day that I can have. And I am going to look for the good. And if there is bad, then there is bad. But I am going to look for the good in today. I'm going to look for good in the people I care about. I am going to enjoy my connections with people I love. And I am going to focus my mind on what is good, not what is bad. Now, I know that's easier said than done when you're a first responder. I truly do get that because you go call to call to call to call with negativity. If you're in the military and you're deployed, you're seeing things that you don't ever want to see again. I get that. You can either sit and ruminate about this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong, or you can go back there and go, wow, okay, that day sucked. Those were some difficult calls. But you know what? Those calls are not my path. And that is not my life. And I hope that, you know, a divine power or a life or whatever you believe in helps that person be okay or takes care of the situation. And I'm letting it go because it's not mine to carry. But right now I'm going to go watch some comedy. Or right now I'm going to go listen to a motivational podcast. Or right now I'm going to put on a YouTube short that's funny. Or I'm going to do something that is going to bring some good into my brain so my brain can cool down and be okay. So if you do this over time, what happens is your system starts running cooler. And as your system starts running cooler, you don't have as much adrenaline in your system all the time. You don't have as much cortisol in your system all the time. So you're always not looking for the threat, right? The more adrenaline you have, the more you look for the threat. And you will find them. I can guarantee you, you know, and then people get on TikTok and they look for the threat, dear God. And then they go on Facebook and then they go on Instagram and then they watch, you know, some kind of TV with everything bad going on. Or you could watch some comedy de-escalate, let your system chill and enjoy that time. The more you cool your system off throughout your deployment, your shift, the more you're going to enjoy your downtime. Now, I understand when you're going to a crisis, you're not wanting your system to be cooled down. Obviously, you need that adrenaline, you need that cortisol. But again, you have a choice when you come back and you have a little bit of downtime. You can cool down. You can, but you've got to make a plan to do so. You've got to remind yourself, oh yeah, I need to go laugh for a few minutes. I need to do some, I don't know, calming visualizations, calm down all my muscles. I need to do some, you know, combat or yoga breathing or whatever you want to call it, right? You can do that, and you will have a better life. You will be able to focus on some things that are happy. You will be able to see the happy. I get that. But there's always something happy going on. Maybe you start looking for that. Because you can look for the bad and it's easy to find. But have you looked for some good lately? Have you looked for some happiness lately? Have you looked for that feel good podcast or that feel good YouTube video? Or do you just put the dark in your mind? It's not really rocket science, folks. You keep putting dark in your mind and you're going to feel bad. So lighten it up a little bit intentionally. And yes, you do have the right to be happy. You do have the right to have a good life, but you have to choose it. And you know what? I'm very grateful for all of you. I hope that you all choose it. God bless. Have a great day.
