Transcript:

Brent Harding:

Welcome to the Peer Support podcast, where we're going over all sorts of topics to increase our overall wellness. Today, I'm here with Tyler Scriver. We're going to be going over brain burn, some fitness things, talking about primitive brain versus executive brain. So Tyler, why don't you start off, tell us a little bit about brain burn, what it is, and how we can recognize it?

Tyler Scriver:

Yeah, so first, to understand brain burn, you've got to understand that we have two different brains. We have our primitive brain and our executive brain. The way that I like to look at it is, our primitive brain is in charge of our survival. Its job is to keep us alive. Our executive brain, it helps us in more thoughtful exercises, more important life choices. It helps us with problem-solving, it helps us do the things besides the fight, flight, or freeze. That's where the primitive brain comes in.

Tyler Scriver:

So, what is brain burn? When we have a stress response, our brain automatically goes into primitive brain mode. We get that adrenaline dump and we start having these responses, whether or not it is, we're going to run from something, we're going to fight something or we're going to freeze. When that happens a lot, especially for first responders, we start to develop what's known as brain burn. Brain burn can manifest in a couple ways. So, you can have trouble sleeping, you can be super irritable, you can feel just completely detached from your world, from people that you normally love. You get these looped feelings, negative thoughts, things like that. Brain burn is when our cognitive or our executive brain has become exhausted and we're just living in that primitive brain mindset.

Brent Harding:

Yeah, and I think brain burn, the first time I heard it in one of the Mind Shield classes that we have, it was an important term for me to hear, is because I feel like a lot of the times, especially in this field, at least before that class, I didn't have a very good gauge of the spectrum. I was either like, "You're doing pretty good, you're pretty resilient or you have PTSD." I just didn't understand a lot of the in-between phases and so you'd have these moments of what they described as cognitive exhaustion.

Brent Harding:

I'd have moments like, "Man, is this PTSD? This can't be PTSD. People have had way worse stuff than me but this definitely doesn't feel normal" and so brain burn was a good thing for me to learn about, just to normalize some of the things that I was feeling. Then to also know that it wasn't as bad as I thought it could be but it also wasn't the best spot either. It was a good gray area medium and so... Because it's hard to work on something or to start resolving it until you know what it is. If you think you're working on PTSD, but it's really not, then you're probably not going to get very far.

Tyler Scriver:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think you're completely right. I don't necessarily notice my brain burn, but I'll tell you a hundred percent who does, and that's my wife and my children. Usually the day that I get off shift, they're super excited to see me, and Erin, she's the first to point out that I'm detached or that I'm extra irritable, those kind of things. A lot of that, I just thought was, "I'm tired because I have just been on a 48, or that I need to eat, or exercise a little bit, do something like that". It wasn't until she took the Peer Support classes with the spouses that she was actually starting to recognize that I need to have a minute, I'm in brain burn, that my primitive brain is active, and so we need to feed me, get me some rest, take care of those basic needs and then slowly work into getting that executive brain to start to function again.

Brent Harding:

If you're not recognizing brain burn yourself, to be humble enough to allow somebody else to point it out, and that can be a hard thing to do, but super helpful. Okay, so how do we fix it? How do we get out of brain burn? The wife, or your kids, or whoever's pointed out, and you've acknowledged that, okay, fine, maybe you're right.

Brent Harding:

How do we start to turn the brain burn off? There's a few things you can do, and I mentioned earlier, it starts by understanding your brain works in two ways, primitive brain and executive brain. And again, referring back to that course the results and actions part is your primitive brain functioning. But when you take a step back and are evaluating your actions and evaluating what you believe about different experiences you've had, and you're taking the time to analyze, then that's your executive brain functioning. Now the best time to activate your executive brain is probably not in the heat of the moment, so to get yourself out of the moment. And there's lots of breathing exercises or different things like that. But of course, I think an excellent way, which maybe it doesn't come right to mind for some, but we know it helps. Like, if somebody's stressed and they say, "You know what? I just like hitting the gym when I'm stressed". Why do they like hitting the gym? And I think this puts into context what's working there when you start exercising and hitting the gym.

Tyler Scriver:

And for your first point, is that humble pie. Also, being able to recognize that brain burn in other people, is super, super important. Like I said, it's done wonders for my relationship with my wife, because before, now earmuffs children, before she went through the course, that day one usually would end up with, at some point, her saying, "Why are you acting like such a dick right now?" And for me, I'm like, "I'm not being a dick".

Tyler Scriver:

I'm just surviving, I'm just here, I'm going through the motions. I might not be talking, I might not be laughing, I might not be doing any of those things, but I'm digging the hole in the backyard for the new trampoline to go in or I'm with my children, but I'm not really with my children. So something that's helped is now instead of, "Hey, you're acting like a jerk", and me instantly becoming defensive, we have this terminology that I know now. And she says, "Hey, you know what? You're being a little primitive. You're acting a little caveman now". And it doesn't hit me the same way as a personal attack.

Tyler Scriver:

And so that way I know, okay, I can start to use these strategies, like going to the gym. Usually what my first 24 hours looks like when I get off shift, is I get home and we have a good breakfast, we talk a little bit, but I tend not to want to talk a ton afterwards. You've spent 48 hours dealing with people, taking care of patients and that kind of thing. I just want to be almost just left alone, in a good way. I just need to be able to recharge my batteries.

Tyler Scriver:

So I'll take a nap and then we usually end up going to the gym. And I think about it as if my body is ready. I mean, you go on a call and you get that adrenaline dump and you're ready to fight that grizzly or do whatever, you got all that adrenaline, but what do you end up doing? You're putting an IV in somebody, you're administering medications. Really you're just talking and there's some physical aspects in there, but it's not that fight or flight situation. And so when you go to the gym, you're able to work out to get a lot of that physical tension, that built up baggage that you've been just accruing over the last 48 hours and you're able to get that out in a healthy way and you're helping your body process what you've just gone through.

Tyler Scriver:

Do I always feel like I want to go to the gym? No. Usually I'm tired, but once I get there and I practice some of these techniques that we're going to talk about, I feel better. Even if my lifts have suffered or even if it's pure survival mode when I'm there, I know when I'm done, I'm going to be a better father or a better husband or just a more active, emotionally prepared person.

Brent Harding:

Yeah. I think you bring up an awesome point, because to engage your executive brain doesn't have to be complicated. It's not this big 12, 14 step process to check off this list and it's like your brain's activated. Sometimes just time. You just need time to do nothing or to sleep or whatever, for your brain just to rest. There's that study that came out a little while ago in the movie with Will Smith about the NFL players and their concussions and the brain damage that, that would cause. What was interesting about the study though, which I think applies in the same way, is that out of all the NFL players that were suffering from CET, only 20% of them had large, massive hits to the brain, large concussive moments.

Brent Harding:

But what they found is in 80% of the guys suffering, it was all little repeated hits with no time to recover. It wasn't the big one time sack on the QB, it was the repeated hit to the head, no time to recover, next play. And if you think about how our 48 hour shifts can go, you're not going on crazy calls all the time, one after the other, but you are in that primitive mode. And it's sometimes just little calls, but it's one after the other, or you're dealing with all these survival type things with no time to rest.

Brent Harding:

And so sometimes it's just as simple as taking the time to rest. We've talked a lot about brain burn and primitive brain, executive brain on shift and with family, but applying that now purely to the fitness world, engaging your executive brain while working out, is actually super productive. I know when I'm at the gym, I'm just trying to survive. I don't want the bar to crush me. So I'm just surviving, just push it off.

Brent Harding:

But tell us a little bit more about and using your executive brain while you're moving weight.

Tyler Scriver:

Yeah, no, totally. So in the podcast that I reference on the newsletter, there's a doctor of kinesiology. I think he's from California State, Andy Galpin. He talks about being smart while you work out. Most people think that strength comes from muscle, but it's way more complex than that. You have your central nervous system, your peripheral nervous system. Sure, muscles are in there, but nerves are just as important as is muscle mass. This is how you get those people that are 165 pounds and they can deadlift 405 pounds versus the guy that's 200 pounds and he can't pull the same weight and they might have more muscle mass, they might have that thing, but they've trained just completely different.

Tyler Scriver:

So in that podcast, he talks about power and having a difference between strength and power. And so strength is about moving that weight, pushing that bar off of you so it doesn't crush you and kill you. And he said if that's what you're going for is just strictly strength, that's awesome, but you can hit it at a deeper level and go for power. And power is, not only are you utilizing that strength, but you're training for speed and the explosiveness of that particular exercise or body movement that you're using. So I think about... The primitive brain, is a strength based movement. You're there, you're bench pressing and your goal is to just pick the weight up...

Brent Harding:

And not die.

Tyler Scriver:

...and not die. Exactly. Your grizzly bear is not being crushed by a 200 pound bench press, versus when you're performing the movement, obviously having good form. But the moment you pull that you underact that weight, your goal is to push that weight away from you as fast as you can and it's pretty amazing. So example one, you pull that weight off, you push it off, and all you're trying to do is move the weight and you're just trying to survive, versus repeatedly pulling that weight off, pushing the bar in at least in your brain, pushing it as fast as you can. Now, the weight might not move faster in both situations, but over time, as you think about pushing that away from you faster and faster and faster, you're going to start developing more and more power versus just having that strength. And power again is strength and speed combined, two things that are super important in our job.

Tyler Scriver:

Having a more executive workout or engaging that executive brain can just make gains. You can make the most out of your workout and be more than just this one dimensional, two dimensional kind of a person. You can have the strength plus the power plus the conditioning and the muscle endurance, just by some of these things. For example, being more mindful when you lift, not only thinking about pushing that bar away from you as fast as you can with good form, thinking about the muscles that you're using while you're performing that specific exercise. And it could be anywhere from an isolated exercise like a bicep curl, and when I say isolation, I mean, using one muscle versus a whole muscle group for a compound. Compound Muscle groups would be like pull ups, squat, deadlifts those kind of things, jump squats, front squats. Anything where you're using more than just really one muscle, you get those compound muscle groups.

Tyler Scriver:

But thinking about the muscles that you're using, when you're supposed to be using them, you're going to get more nerve involvement. And the more nerves that are involved, the more muscle fibers that are going to fire, the better coordination that you get while you're performing the lift. And again, you're going to get more than just a strength game or an endurance game or conditioning. It's going to turn into this multifaceted overall executive better workout.

Brent Harding:

Yeah, no, I love that. Cause I think a lot of times people are always looking for the next little gimmick or whatever with fitness and some new gadget, and some people are a little more prone to buying gadgets for their gym or whatever.

Tyler Scriver:

Who are you talking about?

Brent Harding:

I don't know. It doesn't matter, but trying to get the next thing. But reality is, you can get so much more productivity, like you said, just by thinking about the workouts you're already doing. And I think you mentioned this in the newsletter too. But this isn't just for moving weights. We got the master of the stadium Rett [inaudible 00:17:29] retiring here soon. And you know, I'm sure everybody here on the departments had the experience of doing the stairs with Rett and how would you apply this executive brain in that situation, just running the stairs?

Tyler Scriver:

Yeah. so instead of just showing up and putting one foot in front of the other, a couple approaches that I like to do when I start off with the stairs. The first couple flights, I usually take them relatively slow and I think through the process. So first, starting on the one side of the stadium, I usually start the lower bowl and I skip every single step. And it's not so much about just getting up the steps, it's a slow cognitive thought of, "Okay, so I'm going to go up to this step and as I go up to this step, I'm going to bring my knee up to this point and I'm going to push off with my toe and I'm going to do this". That's going to turn into more of a lunge than just me stepping up and I'll do that on the bottom step.

Tyler Scriver:

And then once we get to the top set, I'll start hitting every single step. But instead of just one foot in front of another, this mindless pure survival trying to go up there, I think about where I'm going to put my feet or how I'm going to land on my toe or what my cadence is as I go up. How exactly am I going to go up these and where am I going to breathe? And the whole time, you can put music in and you can zone out and you can do the steps, you can do your workout, but you'll lose a lot of that muscle mind connection when you do that.

Tyler Scriver:

There have been studies that have shown that people will put music on and they'll think, man, they absolutely just crushed the workout. And then they'll do another workout where they don't use music and they're not distracted and they'll actually get a better workout. They'll get more muscle recruitment because they're thinking about what they're doing versus like, "Okay, here's a song. Sure, it makes me feel good". Europe's 'Final Countdown', that's always a good one or ACDC 'Back in Black' or something along those lines, 'Thunderstruck'. Oh yeah, another great one. Definitely good for distracting me. But those first little bit, you can call it that warmup, I usually don't have any music on, and I think about this and I like to feel my body. I like to see how my ankle feels or how my knee is feeling and that way, as I continue to go through the stairs, I can slowly ramp it up. I'm going to go for speed and I want to focus on more of a lunge.

Tyler Scriver:

Well, I'm going to skip every single step no matter whether I'm on the top of the bowl or the bottom of the bowl. If I'm looking for speed, you have speed skaters or you'll see them a lot in football drills where they do really, really quick steps and high knees. If that's what I'm going for during my stairs that day, well, I know I'm going to hit every single step and when I go up every single step, I'm going to bring my knee up a little bit higher than I normally would because now I've turned it into the speed coordination drill.

Brent Harding:

The other thing I like about that too, and just an example of the power of the executive brain and bringing it back to brain burn, if you're feeling the brain burn, engaging your executive brain gets you back to zero. If brain burn is bringing you down, executive brain gets you back to zero. But this example with the fitness and how you can just use a simple tactic by just thinking about what you're doing, takes you way above. So the executive brain isn't just for getting you back to zero and back to level, but when you engage it, it can actually push you way into the positive, which I think is pretty cool. And especially a super simple, accessible thing anybody can do, anybody who's already working out. It's an easy thing to implement or to try the next time you're on shift and you're hitting the gym or Rett's making you do the stairs or whatever it is. Just think about... Rather than thinking about hating Rett and what a jerk he is for making everybody run the stairs all the time.

Brent Harding:

You're thinking about those thoughts, exactly what causes brain burn. Instead you're thinking about that mind-body, mind-muscle connection, and you're actually pushing it way into the positive. So that's pretty awesome. There's lots of tactics from yoga and breathing and other things you can also do to put yourself in that executive brain mode, but it can be as simple or as comprehensive as you want it to be. And I think by reading the newsletter, just by wanting to engage your executive brain, you're already starting down that path and just the power that comes when that happens. I just want to end on a quick story from a recent call and brag on some guys that I was with, but I just think it's a good example of how primitive and executive brain work together, but then how ultimately the consequences of not using your executive brain can take you down some pretty rocky roads.

Brent Harding:

On shift with Luke, Brandon, Jason Cullinan and Steve Swanson. Were at station 70. We get a call for difficulty breathing. We show up, lady's in the recliner, changing color, lips are blue. So we know it's go time. And so immediately, me and Luke, primitive brain survival mode, we're jumping in, starting to go through all the motions. And of course that's a hundred percent right thing to do when you're in that situation. You don't have time to... And I think everybody would agree. You're not thinking, "Okay, how am I going to executive brain this?" Do we evaluate? No, you recognize there's the real emergency, training kicks in and you go to work. But then in walks, Jason and Steve and Jason jumps in with me and Luke to help us get to the next steps.

Brent Harding:

And I'll never forget, but Steve takes five seconds, maybe not even that long. Looks at the situation, walks over to the family, the husband of the lady in the chair and the daughter, and looks right at him and says, "Hey, does she have any other medical history?" "She has cancer". "Does she have a DNR?" "Yes, she does". He's looks right at the husband and he said, "Sir, your wife is dying. You need to make a decision right now on whether you'd like us to honor that paperwork". And I was just like, "Holy crap. How do you in this moment of literal life or death, have the ability to engage that executive brain, step back from the situation and help the family make the right call?" And ultimately the family decided fairly quickly too. And I think that's a large part of how direct Steve was, but decided we better honor her paperwork.

Brent Harding:

And so before we got super deep into cutting clothes off and the whole thing, we were able to pull back and let her go fairly peacefully. So anyway, I wanted to share that because I think that's a scenario everybody has probably experienced in one form or another, but after talking about the primitive and executive brain, so that's a perfect analogy for what we do every day on what the primitive brain started doing, what happened when the executive brain got involved and ultimately, when that executive brain was engaged, we had the best outcome that wasn't necessarily survival that the primitive brain was going for, but it was the best for what everybody in that room wanted. And so you apply that to just our daily life and how we think and just taking that simple time to engage your executive brain, comes pretty awesome results.

Tyler Scriver:

Yeah. I'll just take a second to talk about a recent call, super, super quick, where I was saved by Captain Cramer in a very similar situation. We're going in and I'm the lead on this call and we show up, it's like, "Yeah, we're going to save this person". The wife's yelling at me and she's saying, "Save him, don't save him, save him, don't save him". I was like, "Okay, I can't deal with you right now, go talk to Captain Cramer". And unfortunately in my more primitive brain moment, sorry Liz, I got to talk about it. I told her to cut a down coat and as soon as we did that, feathers exploded everywhere. So unfortunately we didn't quite get some good intervention before that, before the feather explosion. But after Captain Cramer talked to this gentleman's wife and he took that tactical pause and really looked at the whole situation, we again, ended up having to honor that DNR and it was pretty amazing.

Tyler Scriver:

One last thing, real quick thought is your body cannot differentiate between stress. All it knows is you have stress, whether that is emotional stress or physical stress, whether you're going to do a workout, or if you're running the two minute drill, all it knows is it needs some help. And there are certain things that it's going to do to fix that. And that's why we have our primitive brain, pretty awesome. You're talking about these simple things that you can do. So following your workout, following your call, following whatever it is when you engage that primitive brain, practice some mindful breathing. What's going to do is it's going to prevent the dreaded crash of whether it's the pre-workout that you took or whatever. You're at the gym, you're putting your body under all this stress.

Tyler Scriver:

You have all this adrenaline. You're running into perform CPR, or you had pick up an old person that fell at one of our lovely nursing homes or something like that. You're still getting that adrenaline up when those tones go off. After everything is said and done, or heck before, when you're going to the scene, practice some of that mindful breathing, take that tactical pause, engage that executive brain, and you're going to see, hopefully an increase in resilience and that brain burn decrease. You're going to be able to sleep better. You're going to have more patience for your children. You're going to all in all, hopefully feel more connected to yourself, physically, emotionally, hopefully spiritually, any of those things. So that'd be the one little challenge I have for everybody.

Brent Harding:

Yeah, love it. Can't help. But think of one of the greats [inaudible 00:29:05] talking about bottling and something up, shoving it in a jar, and then thinking and wondering, "Man, who in my life that I love is going to pay for this later". And we laugh because he says it in a funny way, but it is so true. When we ignore these feelings and we just stay in that primitive brain to survive and move on to the next thing, it's not just us we're affecting. Who in our life that we love are we making pay for that later versus like Steve and Captain Cramer? Be the OIC of your own brain for a second, pause, think about what you're doing, engage that executive brain, do it during your workouts, do it during brain burn, whatever you need to do to just pause for a second. And you can only get great results.

Tyler Scriver:

I love how you said OIC and not like actual captain or chief or anything like that. Cause we all know our spouses are the captains of our brains. So we can sometimes be in charge of it sometimes.

Brent Harding:
We think we are.

Brent Harding:

So appreciate everybody that's tuned in and checked out the podcast today. Hope that you got a few things out of it. Just know that anybody on the Peer Support team, if you have more questions about brain burn or just want to talk about stuff. You don't have to be in crisis to want to just talk more about brain burn or primitive or executive brain. Everybody's had some training on that and we'd love to talk about it. Sometimes it's a topic that's fun to dig into. So thanks guys. We'll see you on the next one.