The trauma wreaked by bushfires can have a long-lasting effect. Shock, fear and devastation lead to anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, anger and a terrible feeling of grief.

Trauma might not surface until many weeks or months after the fires have been extinguished and people are trying to put their lives back together. It’s then that the emotional impact starts to surface.

If you are affected by bushfires and you find it difficult to cope, we can make a profound difference in your life.

Symptoms of stress and anxiety caused by bushfires

A stressful situation that continues for weeks triggers a cascade of hormones which can:

• make the heart pound
• our muscles tense
• interfere with sleep
• make us irritable
• make us forgetful, distracted and anxious
• make us cry frequently or for no reason

These hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, increase our fight, flight or freeze reaction. It’s our body’s way of preparing for dangerous or harmful situations.

Reducing stress and anxiety

If your stress levels are high and you’re feeling restless, distracted, numb, anxious and/or reactive, it’s important to settle down the sympathetic nervous system – your alert system. When stress continues over weeks, as it has, the alert system is switched on all the time.

We need to consciously make an effort to settle this chemistry of our emotions through deep relaxation practices, exercise or talking to someone who will deeply listen to you and help you find your strengths and pathway forward.

One of the most effective ways of settling your sympathetic nervous system and activating your parasympathetic nervous system – your rest, digest and relax system – is the practice of deep relaxation.

Immediate Help

• Call 000 if your life is in danger
• For crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14
• Beyondblue website contains many useful forums and resources

Online Courses

Our Self-Paced Online Courses – Befriending Anxiety; Beyond Burnout and Healing Sleep – provide practical, positive and easy-to-follow guidance and advice. They encourage and help you to identify and implement strategies to build your resilience, and to incorporate these into your own personal plan for each course.

Befriending Anxiety, Beyond Burnout and Healing Sleep courses cost $99 each (or $250 for all 3) and include:

• 4 self-paced Video Modules
• Integrated workbook with reflective questions
• Personal Plan template and guide
• Additional resources – research and links
• Downloadable meditation MP3s

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Connect with Quest

If you’re on Facebook, you can connect with Quest from the comfort of your own home in a variety of ways including through online group participation or by watching our weekly wellbeing livestreams.

Join the Petrea King Meditation Group to join and hear from Quest Founder and CEO Petrea King most Monday nights from 7.30pm-8pm.

@Home with Quest is our free wellbeing livestream each Wednesday at 11am on Facebook LIVE. Join the stream to hear from an experienced Quest facilitator who will explore techniques to manage anxiety and fear, strategies for self-care, deep relaxation, and the things we can all do to help ourselves and others.

Quest Connect is our monthly wellness livestream hosted on the first Sunday of each month on Facebook LIVE from 2-3pm. Join the stream to take a deep dive with a Quest facilitator into a topic around easing anxiety and restoring resilience.

Toolkit

Some of these practices can help you to calm your mind and improve your wellbeing and can be found on our toolkit page:

• Keys to help you sleep better
• Meditation practices

You may also find some of Petrea King’s Podcasts useful to listen to.

Wellbeing Resources

• Wellbeing books Including Your Life Matters by Petrea King – a guidebook for life
• Meditations including Be Calm, Sleep, Learning to Meditate

How Quest for Life can help

It takes strength and resilience to work through trauma, anxiety and other challenging emotions caused by bushfires. Quest for Life can help through our community workshops, residential programs, and online courses.

• Healing Your Life provides you with a wealth of practical skills and strategies for overcoming anxiety and other challenging emotions in a confidential and safe environment.
• Moving Beyond Trauma: If you are living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and want to heal the past and bring relief to the troubled body, mind and spirit in a confidential safe environment, we can help you.
• Our Befriending Anxiety, Beyond Burnout and Healing Sleep online courses provide practical, evidence-based tools and strategies to reduce your symptoms and live a more calm and peaceful life.
• Our Workplace Health & Wellbeing Program delivers research-based holistic health and wellbeing approaches that equip staff and managers with tools required to operate in today’s dynamic and stressful environment.

Our 5-day residential programs have helped thousands of people recover from their challenging emotions and trauma in all kinds of situations, such as natural disasters, death, disease, loss, divorce, depression, and anxiety. People badly affected by fires are welcome to attend at no cost due to a donation.

Quest for Life knows how to help: our internal research results show that participants feel better after attending a program and that this improvement increases over time. On our programs, you’ll be nourished, educated and supported to create an environment for profound healing.

Workplace Programs and Community Workshops

• Quest for Life provides culturally sensitive workplace workshops to support the physical, mental health and emotional wellbeing of employees.
• Through grant funding and donations, Quest delivers workshops to communities affected by natural disasters such as bushfires.
• Programs can be tailored to suit objectives and budget and delivered face-to-face and/or online

Related Articles

• Bushfire recovery: Practical ways to get back on your feet
• A woodworker’s story: Rising from the ashes of the Australian bushfires
• John’s story: Building a brighter future after the Black Summer fires
• Do you feel as good as you look?

If you are affected by bushfires, fill in the Contact Form below and one of our Program Advisors will be in touch to answer your questions or to ascertain the most appropriate program for your needs.

“It’s now 9 months since I did Healing Your Life, and daily meditation has transformed my life. I want to thank you all at Quest. With attention to self-care and keeping track of how I am going throughout the day, I’ve been able to live without anxiety for the first time in years.”

– Mary