Good afternoon! Just wanted to do a quick introduction. My name is Malachi. I am 20 years old and am a full-time firefighter in Tennessee. I started volunteering when I was 18 and got hired full time in February. My department just recently switched from 0800-1600 Mon-Fri to the 24/48 shift schedule. I am here to learn how to build a solid foundation for my career and to strive to avoid having to try to clean stuff up later when the damage has already been done. Outside of the fire service I love martial arts (Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, MMA), reading, hiking, spending time with my family and my soon to be (hopefully) fiancé, and music.

Ever find yourself waking up at 3am on your days off, unable to shut your mind off? That's not an accident. That's a skill you developed over time. It's useful on shift. But after a few years it starts working against us, and left unchecked it will lead to disease IF we don't take steps to mitigate it. Stay with me, because this changes how you see the whole thing. Think about how we got good at anything on the job. Nobody threw a ladder right the first time. Nobody masked up smooth on day one. We drilled it, badly at first, then better, until the skill lived in our hands and we could run it half asleep. That's how every skill a human being owns gets built. Reps. Now count the reps the job gave us on staying alert. Every tone at 3am. Every size up. Every room we scanned before we sat down in it. Every night spent half listening for the next call. Year after year, that's tens of thousands of reps of one skill: staying ON. And the reps worked. We are elite at alert. It's part of what makes us good at this job. Now count the reps the job gave us on standing down. Coming back to baseline when the threat is over. Zero. Not one evolution. Nobody even mentioned it. That's why your mind runs at 3am in a quiet house. The alert skill doesn't know it's your day off. And a body that never gets the all clear pays for it: broken sleep, flat hormones, weight that won't move, a short fuse at home. Run that long enough and it becomes the stuff we keep going to funerals for. Heart disease is the number one killer in the fire service, and it doesn't start in the chest. It starts with a system that never stands down. Here's the part that should give you hope. A skill gap closes the same way every gap closes. Reps. So run your first one tonight. Five minutes before bed: in through the nose for 4 counts, out slow for 8. That long exhale is the one lever on your nervous system that works on demand, and every rep teaches your body the threat is over. It will feel like nothing. So did your first rep of everything you're now great at.