Brooke Edwards: The Stress Continuum for Outdoor Recreation
Mar 19, 2024
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Brooke Edwards, a mountain guide and avalanche educator, discusses stress continuum, stress injuries, and human factors influencing decision-making in hazardous outdoor environments. She highlights identifying stress levels, managing emotional vulnerability, and navigating fear in avalanche terrain. Personal experiences and resilience strategies for wilderness professionals are shared, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and mental well-being in outdoor activities.
Self-awareness is crucial for managing human factors in hazardous environments.
Using the stress continuum model helps individuals understand their emotional states.
Distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy fears is essential for risk mitigation in high-stress situations.
Deep dives
Brooke Edwards' Background and Journey as a Wilderness Guide
Brooke Edwards, with 30 years of wilderness guiding experience in Alaska, started as a horse packing guide in Wyoming. She emphasized the importance of knowing oneself in managing the human factor in high-risk environments, highlighting the critical nature of group dynamics and decision-making processes. After sustaining acute stress injuries and reflecting on her chronic stress, she emphasized the significance of self-awareness and self-care in dealing with the grueling demands of high-stakes expeditions.
Tools and Resources for Managing Stress and Mental Health
Brooke introduced tools from the Responder Alliance, emphasizing the importance of mental and emotional resilience for wilderness professionals. She shared insights on stress management techniques, including the stress continuum model that helps individuals understand their emotional states. Brooke encouraged building a 'battery recharge list' based on activities that energize or drain one's mental and emotional well-being, highlighting the significance of self-care strategies during high-stress situations.
Navigating Fear and Risk Assessment in High-Stress Environments
Brooke discussed the challenge of discerning between healthy and unhealthy fears, especially in avalanche terrain and high-risk expeditions. She shared her own struggle in determining the motivations behind fear responses and highlighted the importance of recognizing purposeful fears that serve risk mitigation. Brooke underscored the significance of maintaining self-awareness and discernment, even when time constraints limit the ability to regroup.
Strategies for Dealing with Chronic Stress Injuries and Overwhelm
Brooke reflected on her personal journey of coping with chronic stress injuries and losing joy in her work, attributing it to untreated trauma response. She highlighted the importance of seeking professional help and utilizing various therapeutic modalities for healing. Brooke emphasized the need to redefine mental health conversations, address stigma, and offer supportive resources to enable individuals to navigate high-stress environments effectively.
Embracing Vulnerability, Self-Care, and Building Emotional Resilience
Brooke shared insights on building emotional resilience and managing challenging situations across diverse environments. She discussed embracing vulnerability, self-compassion, and developing healthy coping mechanisms to navigate high-stress scenarios effectively. Brooke emphasized the value of self-awareness, self-care rituals, and fostering supportive connections to enhance personal and professional well-being, underscoring the transformative power of self-acceptance and emotional regulation.
Brooke Edwards is a mountain guide and avalanche educator with twenty years of experience in the ski industry. She is part of the Responder Alliance and talks about the stress continuum, stress injuries, and how human factors and self-awareness influence decision-making in hazardous environments. Brooke refers to a few slides in this episode, which can be viewed via the 'episode website' link.
This recording is from a guest presentation in the Start & End at Home course—wilderness risk management and trip planning.
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