Four drills for coming down after the shift.
For the person whose job comes home with them. Usually the one who can handle pressure.
Check your email.
The guide is on its way. It usually lands inside a minute.
If nothing shows up in two minutes, check spam, then run The Brake once while you wait: in through the nose for four, out through the mouth for eight, six rounds.
You were trained to go up. Drilled on it, timed on it, until it was automatic. Nobody ever trained you to come down. This is that training. Twenty minutes to read. Sixty seconds to start.
Written by a Senior Chief who ran an operations center and spent years carrying the shift into the house.
Short on purpose.
The Brake
The foundation. Three of the other drills have this one inside them. Run it twice today, then take the Signal Check.
The Doorway
Hand on the door. One long breath out. The same words every time. The seam where the job leaks into the house, closed.
The Drive Home
The last ten minutes before the house, run as a procedure instead of a replay. Parked for the breathing, always.
The 0200 Reset
For the night you surface with the list already running. Do not check the time. Losing count is the drill working.
- The Signal Check. Ten questions, two minutes, a number out of forty. Score it on day one and again on day seven, and see where you stand.
- The Seven Day Start. Which drill on which day, so you never have to decide while tired.
- The Rep Log. One page. Because a drill that is not logged is a good intention.
- Reminder cards. One page to print and cut, for the mirror, the front door, your bag and the nightstand, plus three phone alarms worth setting.
- Who to call. A page of the people whose actual job this is, for the number that comes back higher than it should.
Fourteen years in the uniform so far.
My name is Adam Jacobs. I am a Senior Chief in the Coast Guard Reserve and I ran a joint operations center. I built Astral & Root for the people I work beside: military, law enforcement, corrections, fire, EMS, dispatch, and nurses.
For years I came home physically, but mentally still at work, and called it normal. The drills in this guide are the ones I wish somebody had handed me in year two. They are not clever. They are written down, put on a schedule, and run as reps, which is the only reason they work.
Read this before you download.
This is education and training. It is not medical or mental health treatment. It does not diagnose or treat anything and it does not replace a provider, an EAP, peer support, or a chaplain. If you are under care, keep doing exactly what they told you and run this alongside it.
Nothing is reported to anyone. You are downloading a PDF from a store. That is the whole record.
You read this far. Take the guide.
Four drills for coming down after the shift. Twenty minutes to read. Sixty seconds to start.
Check your email.
The guide is on its way. It usually lands inside a minute.
If nothing shows up in two minutes, check spam, then run The Brake once while you wait: in through the nose for four, out through the mouth for eight, six rounds.
The Stand Down Field Guide is a private venture of Astral & Root, LLC, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, any department of corrections, or any other government agency.