Performance Under Pressure: Proactive Stress Management for Firefighters
By Ryan Provencher
Firefighter stress is unavoidable—but how you handle it makes all the difference. Learn proven strategies to manage stress, stay sharp on the job, protect your health, and build a career that lasts.
👉 Read Part 1: A Firefighter’s Struggle - My Journey Through Burnout and Back
Stress in the Fire Service - Part 2
Stress comes with the job, and every season of your career brings a different kind of pressure. Sometimes it sharpens you, sometimes it wears you down. What matters most isn’t avoiding stress—it’s how you respond, recover, and use it to stay ready for whatever comes your way.
The first step in managing stress is understanding it. Stress shows up differently—in its quality and in its duration—and it takes a toll if left unchecked.
Whether you’ve felt the sting of burnout or just want to stay ahead of it, this guide gives you practical tools you can put to work right away.
The Two Faces of Stress: Eustress and Distress
Not all stress is harmful—in fact, the right amount is essential for peak performance.
Eustress is positive stress—it fuels growth, motivation, and resilience. Firefighters feel it in the adrenaline surge of arriving first on scene, the push of a tough workout, or the drive to prepare for promotion.
Distress is negative stress—it wears you down physically, mentally, and emotionally. It often shows up as anxiety, worry, or overwhelm, tied to relationship conflicts, chronic injuries, or repeated exposure to traumatic calls.
The key is recognizing the difference—and learning how to harness the positive while managing the negative before it takes control. I shared what that looked like in my own career in Part 1 of this series.
Acute vs. Chronic Stress
Stress doesn’t just differ in type—it also differs in duration.
Acute stress is short-term. It’s the surge when the tones drop, when you’re stretching a line into a working fire, treating a critical patient, or making a split-second decision.
Managed well, acute stress sharpens focus and helps you rise to the occasion. Left unchecked, those events add up and shift from eustress to distress.
Chronic stress builds more slowly. In operations, it comes from repeated acute exposure—sleepless nights, high-intensity calls, and the emotional weight of trauma.
In administrative roles, it often stems from the grind of budgets, politics, leadership pressure, or self-imposed expectations.
It is important to acknowledge acute stress before it turns into chronic stress—and to manage chronic stress before short-term pressure causes long-term damage.
👉 For a deeper dive into how career stress accumulates, Click Here: Balancing Stress and Performance
Stress Across the Fire Service Career
Stress is constant in the fire service, but it looks different at each stage of your career:
Recruits: Long days of drills, classroom study, and constant evaluation. You’re adapting to a regimented system and proving you belong—while carrying the physical toll of training, the mental strain of academics, and the emotional weight of high expectations.
Probationary Firefighters: Every call feels like a test. You’re driven to fit in, avoid mistakes, and earn trust—and the volume of knowledge you’re expected to absorb in that first year can feel overwhelming.
Operations Firefighters: Stress becomes cumulative. Shift work, disrupted sleep, repeated trauma, and the struggle to balance job and family stack up over time—subtle at first, but impossible to ignore as the years add up.
Administration: Stress shifts from physical to mental and emotional. Budgets, politics, personnel issues, leadership decisions, and self-imposed expectations bring constant pressure and overwhelm. There’s no finish line, and the problem-solving tools that work in Ops don’t always translate to the office. The weight of this can feel soul-crushing at times.
The form of stress may change, but the truth doesn’t: if you don’t manage it, it manages you.
How to Recognize Stress
Stress doesn’t always hit you head-on—it often sneaks up on you. Sometimes it’s obvious, like lying awake after a tough call or replaying work in your head when you’re off shift. Other times it’s subtle, creeping into your body, your mood, or your behavior. The earlier you recognize it, the sooner you can take action.
Physical: Headaches, tension, fatigue, or sleep that never feels deep enough—you might chalk it up to “just the job,” but your body is trying to tell you something.
Emotional: Feeling irritable, detached, anxious, or just flat. Calls that used to fire you up now barely move the needle—or hit harder than they used to.
Behavioral: A shorter fuse at home or at the station, grabbing junk food instead of real meals, leaning harder on caffeine, or using alcohol to self-medicate.
On the Job: Tunnel vision, slipping on routine tasks, or second-guessing decisions you’d normally make without hesitation. These small cracks can add up, and in our line of work, they matter.
Recognizing these signals—in yourself or in a brother or sister firefighter—isn’t weakness. It’s awareness. And awareness is the first step to making adjustments before stress snowballs into burnout or worse.
Practical Tools to Manage Stress
Once you know what stress looks like, the next step is doing something about it. The good news is, stress management doesn’t have to be complicated.
Here are a few small, intentional habits you can build into your day to stay sharp, resilient, and response-ready.
Physical: Prioritize movement and recovery. Regular workouts—even short ones—help burn off stress and build resilience. Pair that with quality sleep, hydration, and solid nutrition to keep your body from breaking down under the load.
Emotional: Don’t bottle it up. Talk with your crew, lean on a peer support team, or check in with someone you trust outside the firehouse. And when the weight feels heavier than those supports can carry, reach out to a qualified therapist—ideally one who understands the fire service and the unique stress of our job.
Mindfulness practices like deep breathing, journaling, or simply taking five quiet minutes can also help reset your headspace. I’ve found it helpful to learn how my nervous system reacts to chronic stress. Check out this overview of Polyvagal Theory to learn more.
Behavioral: Build better routines. Plan your meals, limit caffeine late in the day, and watch your alcohol intake. Create small rituals—like a walk after shift or time with family—that keep you grounded and balanced.
If you’re dealing with chronic stress or burnout, you’re not alone. Burnt Around the Edges by Arjuna George is a great resource written by a firefighter who’s been there—offering insight and practical tools for recovery.
On the Job: Control what you can. Preparation is your edge—it keeps you confident under pressure and capable when it matters most. Use checklists, follow established routines, and communicate clearly to minimize mistakes. After tough calls, take a few minutes with your crew to debrief and reset before moving on.
These tools work best when they become part of your routine. Small, consistent actions build the resilience you need to handle adversity—at work and at home.
The Bottom Line
Stress is part of this job—and always will be. But how you respond, recover, and manage it determines whether it sharpens you or wears you down.
By understanding the difference between helpful and harmful stress—and between short-term hits and long-term wear—you give yourself the power to act before stress takes control.
Managing stress seems simple, but it isn’t easy. It takes intentional choices and daily habits:
Caring for your body through movement, sleep, and recovery
Protecting your head and heart through connection and support
Building steady routines that keep you grounded
Showing up prepared and focused on the job
Stay consistent, and you don’t just survive—you thrive.
Acknowledging and managing stress isn’t weakness—it’s strength. It’s choosing to protect your health, serve your crew and community, and still have enough left to live fully beyond the job.