This Hack Will Keep Your Head Cool In An Emergency

Do you know how to stay calm during an emergency?

Too often, we buckle under the pressure and panic. Take it from an expert who has experienced literal life-or-death stakes. Ryan Fields-Spack is currently the first responder wellness lead at FirstNet, a nationwide communications network for first responders. But before that, he spent 25 years working as a firefighter and paramedic and leading teams in emergency services. He’s seen the difference between fire department chiefs who stayed calm in emergencies and those whose yelling and nerves led everyone else to panic.

When “the person that was in charge didn’t control the situation, everything else around them got worse,” Fields-Spack recalled to HuffPost. “I saw that moment when I was 18 years old [working as a firefighter], and I said, ‘You know what? I just need to find a way to get above this.’”

For Fields-Spack, this meant studying psychology and meditation to develop what he calls a “neutral moments theory” to tackle any moment that requires intense focus, clarity and decisive thinking. He’s used and taught it to first responders, but he’s also used it in everyday emergencies that crop up in parenting and with corporate jobs, too.

“If you can bring yourself into a neutral moment, into a present-moment state of mind, and not worry about what’s happening before, what’s happening after,” then you will “be able to survive and thrive in that situation,” he said.

You may not face the same stakes as a first responder, but you can learn how to stay calm and clear-headed like one, no matter what kind of personal or professional emergency you face. Here’s how:

Fields-Spack said getting to a neutral headspace requires both a mindset shift and some practical tools you can use before a big day or when you feel your heart start to race:

Worrying what other people think of us can prevent us from performing our best. Whether you’re giving a toast at a wedding or presenting your ideas to higher-ups at work, make the conscious choice to believe people feel neutral about the outcome of your performance.

“Think about the fact that the people that are there watching you … or interviewing you — at absolute worst — they’re truly neutral in how well you perform,” Fields-Spack said. “But most times, people really want the best for you, and they don’t have any ill will.“

Psychology backs up why aiming for neutral can be a simpler and more effective way to cope when our negative brains want to jump to the worst conclusion.

“It’s common for our brains to imagine the worst-case scenario in stressful situations, almost as a way to prepare ourselves for anything. This can lead to a cognitive distortion called ‘mind reading’ where we assume others are thinking poorly of us,” said Shannon Garcia, a psychotherapist at States of Wellness Counseling based in Illinois and Wisconsin.

“Instead, assuming that people are neutral about us can be really helpful. It creates space in our minds and alleviates some of the anxiety,” Garcia said.

Sometimes, you cannot ignore the stressful stakes — especially when everyone is counting on you to succeed or “save the day,” Fields-Spack said.

That’s when Fields-Spack turns to meditation to get back to his neutral. He does this in the morning before work, and he also does this during an active emergency when he starts to feel anxiety.

Meditation “trains your brain, just like you do reps in the gym to build your muscles,” Fields-Spack said. “It builds reps in your brain to notice when you are thinking about something else, or for me, when I’m at that cardiac arrest call, to notice when my mind is starting to wander to being scared, acknowledging that and coming back to what I’m trying to do.”

In a 2017 review of 45 studies on meditation, the mindful breathing practice was found to lower raised blood pressure and heart rates in a range of populations.

If you can, “do two minutes of meditation before you get out of bed in the morning,” Fields-Spack said. There are a variety of meditation exercises you can try, but it also doesn’t need to take too long.

A few seconds of mindful breathing can also help, Fields-Spack said. So the next time you are feeling the butterflies in your stomach, “relax your fist, drop your jaw [open], and then take one mindful, deliberate, focused, deep breath” in and out, he recommended.

Preparation is the key to feeling confident in your capabilities and staying cool-headed amid chaos. When Fields-Spack would get the call that he was acting lieutenant for a shift, he would immediately run through a best-case scenario of what he would say and do in certain emergencies.

“I literally speak out, either whispering to myself or speaking out loud, the radio calls that I’m going to make … and I make sure that it’s very specific and right in the way that it should be done all the way through that entire situation,” he said.

Rehearsing scenarios in “non-threatening environments” is important to the success of Fields-Spack’s technique, said Alicia Velez, a licensed clinical social worker based in Brooklyn, New York.

“Getting the muscle memory to perform on autopilot without the emotional overwhelm is [a] technique of performance psychology,” she said.

During an emergency, you can either start barking orders or you can adopt a neutral tone of voice, so you do not stress out everyone else. Choose the latter.

Fields-Spack gave an example of responding to a grandfather’s cardiac arrest. When he gets to that kind of scene, the family may be frantic and scared, so he purposely addresses them “calmly in a monotone voice.”

“If I were to come forward with a high octave, speedy cadence in my voice, and having everybody else kind of jump in, that could cause everybody else to elevate to my level,” he said.

Speaking with a neutral tone also “buys you time to now think and cohesively continue to make the plan in your head,” he said.

So the next time you encounter a minor emergency like a child falling and scraping their face, stay neutral in your demeanor. “One parent would be very scared, and the child latches on to that and raises up in that anxiety level,” Fields-Spack said of his experience in this situation. But if you speak confidently and calmly, “that immediately does the same for the kiddo.”

When we’re not preoccupied with what others might think of us and we can stay present and focused, we are more likely to be better leaders in a crisis.

“It’s going to be those people that can harness this neutral moments theory, that can harness the capability of guiding other people around them in a calm, confident, cohesive manner that are going to be the ones that drive us forward in society,” Fields-Spack said.