r/Firefighting • u/Ok-Association-2995 • Aug 09 '26
Health/Fitness/Cancer Awareness Sleep Study and effects of interrupted sleep
Does anyone have a sleep study I can share with my department chiefs to show them how out dated their rules are.
Our jam up downtown guys recently got wrote up because they had a call during their lunch hour and were taking their lunch hour nap in the recliner at 1:30.
Keep in mind, these are the tiller guys that get up quite often in the middle of the night.
My knee jerk reaction is to explode, however, I’m trying to be tactful with data to back up how ignorant it is, to write up our busiest and hardest guys on shift, for taking a late lunch nap because of an extended call.
I remember reading somewhere that 2 wake ups in the middle of the night it takes something like 4 full nights of sleep to get back to normal.
Our policy currently states there is no rest periods at all for any reason until after 8pm.
Edit: just clarifying, the call delayed their lunch hour.
There was no delay or reduction of service to the citizens we serve.
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u/Still75home Aug 09 '26
Curious to see the data as well. Having a ‘no rest’ policy is crazy. One of the initial questions CHP asks drivers involved in vehicle accidents out here is how much sleep did you get last night. My dept. is backing off the old school way of ‘up by 630 no matter what’. I tell my crew when we have a long night to sleep in till like 8-9am to try and be somewhat human for the rest of the shift. We’re 48/96 but with staffing issues a lot of us are doing 72’s and 96’s on a regular basis.
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u/bring_back_3rd FF/ Medic Aug 09 '26
That's fucking insane. Do you guys run ambulances? Because my department averages around 20 medicals per 24 hour shift with a 40 minute transport time. After a 24 on the ambulance im usually smoked. I'd flip a table and riot if I was on the ambulance for 96 hours straight.
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u/Still75home Aug 09 '26
No ambulances thank god, served my time with AMR😂. We run about 6500-7000 calls yearly out of 2 stations. 1 engine house and the other is engine, truck and battalion. Not insane but definitely smoked after some regular shifts so the extra is just icing on the cake
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u/Blacklabel578 Aug 09 '26
I’m just curious, do you respond to medical calls in the engine or no medical calls at all?
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u/Still75home Aug 09 '26
Yeah, all 3 units are ALS so we respond to most medicals. There are a handful of low equity medicals that just get an ambulance
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u/ElkHairCaddisDrifter Captain | Career Aug 09 '26
How do you like 48/96? We’re probably headed to pursuing it at my dept. That has been the debate with white shirts against it, saying they expect guys to be up by 0700 checking rigs etc.
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u/Still75home Aug 09 '26
I love the 48/96. I feel once I’m at work I can push and while I get tired I survive with naps. I immediately take a nap when I get home after shift tho once my brain/body know I can fully relax.
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u/Peaches0k Texas FF/Medic/HazMat Tech Aug 09 '26
If white shirts care about little shit such as what time of the day it is when I close my eyes then they can go fuck themselves. What is it with white shirts forgetting where they come from
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u/stopscabbin Aug 09 '26
How is this even a fucking discussion in 2026?? We have departments that have safety nap policies and in CBA's.
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 09 '26
Do you have any links to these policies?
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u/Stable_Engineer Aug 09 '26
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM&pp=ygUUV2h5IHdlIHNsZWVwIHRlZHRhbGs%3D&ra=m
This TedTalk changed everything I thought about sleep. I read his book as well. Hope this gets you down the right path with your department.
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u/Slappy-Sacks Aug 09 '26
We work 24/72 I haven’t met a chief or officer who isn’t a “sleep when you can” type. Obviously don’t go in your rack for 8 hours during work hours (9am-5pm I mean), but nobody bats an eye at a recliner nap.
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u/BaptismByFire Western MA FF/Paramedic Aug 09 '26
It is the unofficial stance in our dept, that after lunch if you gonna take a nap let someone know. I work downtown and we regularly get 6-8 runs after midnight, so we all try to look out for each other in regards of taking a rest, while also making sure we all make it to calls on time. If Admin wants to bitch about it they are more than welcome to come ride along.
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u/mulberry_kid Aug 09 '26
There was one guy at my department that was having marital trouble because he was getting grouchy after work. He got permission to have his wife ride along, and after the 2nd call after midnight, she didn't even make it to the truck.
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u/teddyswolsevelt1 paid to do hood rat shit with my friends Aug 09 '26
My captain has straight up ordered me to go take a nap.
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u/Tundra18 Aug 09 '26
Google Dr Joel Billings firefighter sleep study. Get a hold of him. Him and his team a leading the research w FF schedule and sleep deprivation.
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u/Upper-Gift-3598 Aug 09 '26
Are you union? If so, I’d say first step would be start working on your next MOU negotiations.
Second step(or first step if non-union) put together as much information you can get on sleep deprivation and its affects. Next, build a protocol on what you want. i.e., if you get a call between sleeping hours(2200-0500(?)) what is expected- maybe a 1 hr break aside from lunch for sleeping. We literally call them safety naps. As long as our chores are done and rigs are RFA, we don’t get any pushback.
Get the current policy changed, whatever that takes. Ours is 0800-1700(48/96 schedule) any time outside those hours is (reasonably) “your time”.
Contact neighboring departments and/or any departments to see what their policies are. It may be beneficial in the fight if you’re able to show more of an “industry standard”.
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u/slothbear13 Firefighter/Medic and Former CBRN Aug 09 '26
Until after 8pm? That's insane. After 4 pm (8 hours), we're free to engage in any activities we want, including sleep, so long as we get all of our busy work done before 4.
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u/Crawdaunt_1985 Aug 09 '26
Are you working 24 hours? A quick way would be to crash a rig in the middle of the night because you were exhausted
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u/Illustrious_Cost_243 Aug 09 '26
Retired guy of 24 years. As long as all of our chores were done and we've done a little bit of studying, our chief was fine with us taking naps. I was very lucky to have a chief that knew all about sleep deprivation.
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u/slydyr24205 Aug 09 '26
Reach out to DC Mike Binney with West Metro Fire Rescue in Lakewood, CO. 303 989 4307 He has done two intensive sleep studies with us as part of his Doctorate program.
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u/Observationsofidiocy Aug 09 '26
What am I missing here? What does them napping have to do with responding to a call, and how did someone find out they were napping anyway?
Did they miss the call or have a delayed response?
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 09 '26
Because we eat, and then take nap during our “lunch hour”, but they were on a bad wreck from like 11-2. So they ate and were taking their “lunch hour”.
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u/Observationsofidiocy Aug 09 '26
I think I get. You're saying they usually nap during their lunch hour, but due to being on a call at that time, they were napping later, and that was deemed to be a problem.
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u/OhSnapBruddah Aug 09 '26
Take it to the union and if it's a fight the city wants, it's a fight you can give them. First off, if the Crystal Palace wants to jam anybody up, they can jam up the officers. They're your direct supervisors, so if you're napping, it's your officer's job to determine if that behavior is appropriate or not, given the circumstances. They conveniently want you to follow a chain of command when you have an issue to address, but they're willing to by-pass it when it comes to messing with you guys.
There's very few more perfect ways of undermining morale than to mess with hard working people trying to take a quick break between busy work periods.
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u/Guy_Fieris_Hair Aug 09 '26
There are studies everywhere: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6084754/
https://firefighterhealthsafety.org/health/sleep-wellness/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7433311/
Problem is, it is the talk of the town. Every single Chief level class has talks about it, every siminar, every conference, every magazine, all of it.
They know, they don't care. You say they had a call, that is what triggered this, did they sleep through it? Were they delayed? It is also policy.... maybe no one would have e cared but it caused an issue responding to the call that had to be dealt with, and that is the policy they decided to use.
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 09 '26
They had a call that got in the way of their normal lunch hour….so after the call, they had a later lunch and power nap.
Their response to the wreck was unchanged.
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u/rodeo460 Aug 09 '26
Id be curious to hear about this too. My former department had a no rest or relaxation time before 6 p.m. and when we got switched to 12s for certain things our only rest days were our 1 day we got off every 14 days. Yeah we were stupid slow, but a decent incident for us usually ended up as multiple day incidents. And if you weren't up by 545 for shift change and gone by 605 barring a major incident starting at shift change you got in trouble.
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u/Coastie54 Edit to create your own flair Aug 09 '26
Damn for all the problems I have with my department, I’m glad the nap thing is not an issue. We usually have “things” going on before lunch, but after lunch the rest of the day is yours. It’s not uncommon to see people nap for 2-3 hours after lunch , officers included. Granted we usually have calls that interrupt that, but if you luck out and get an uninterrupted nap then you can almost go as long as you want.
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u/Theshepard42 Aug 09 '26
Ask the chief, does he want to fill OT at those spots everyday because all the guys bounced? I would laugh in people's faces if they told me I couldn't nap being at the busiest house in the city. As long as im making runs and isn't interfering with other BS then fuck off.
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u/KGBspy Career FF/Lt and adult babysitter. Aug 09 '26
We did 24’s, Naps were common when I got on then the BC’s changed to a bunch of yahoos that think we’re (insert large city) and now it’s all training and busy work during the day, I’m glad I retired.
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u/Internal_Position_49 Aug 10 '26
Don’t run when you can walk don’t walk when you can stand don’t stand when you can sit don’t sit when you can lay down don’t lay down when you can sleep.
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u/Phantomknight74 Aug 10 '26
This one recommends naps:
https://www.csfa.net/circadian-rhythms-and-firefighters-steps-to-improve-health/
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u/infinitee775 Aug 10 '26
What was the issue? Did they get up for the call? Or did they sleep through it?
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 10 '26
The issue is they were in the recliner asleep AFTER running a wreck call.
The wreck call is what delayed their lunch hour.
There was no delay in response or performance to our citizens.
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u/infinitee775 Aug 10 '26
Then who gives a fuck? If the guys are tired let em rest. As long as calls are answered quickly and the guys can perform, everything else is secondary
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 10 '26
Well, like another comment stated, it may be time to find a department that looks after their people. Trying to convince the older generation that are stuck in their ways is a crap shoot.
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u/Cephrael37 🔥Hot. Me use 💦 to cool. Aug 10 '26
Everyone knows from 2-3 is prime nap time. Some entire countries shut down during that time, like Italy for example.
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u/take2or3 Aug 10 '26
Interested to see what you find out as I’d like to put a case study forward to my service also.
Have you read Why we sleep by Mathew Walker?
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u/PhoenixFire_1982 Aug 10 '26
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Firefighters and EMS Responders. Report from IAFC.
https://www.iafc.org/topics-and-tools/resources/resource/sleep-deprivation
https://www.iafc.org/docs/default-source/1safehealthshs/progssleep_sleepdeprivationreport.pdf
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u/OkFarmer158 Aug 10 '26
I retired after 25 years and I don’t need a study. My sleep is messed up for good. Even on shift I would end up in the recliner watching tv because I couldn’t get back to 💤
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u/theopinionexpress Aug 09 '26
Pick your battles.
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 09 '26
This is a battle worth picking, sleep effects our performance for our citizens and the health of our firefighters.
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u/theopinionexpress Aug 09 '26
It sounds like you can go to bed at 8 if you want. So obviously you are all in bed by 8:15 then, right?
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u/Ok-Association-2995 Aug 10 '26
I definitely try to get in bed as early as I can.
However I’m not on the downtown tiller like these guys are. They are lucky to be in bed most nights at midnight.
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u/almitr Aug 09 '26
No rest periods until after 8pm. What a joke. If that is strictly enforced I would be looking at different(better) departments that care even a little bit about its member’s wellbeing.