19: Dena Ali – Sleep, The Silent Healer

Dena Ali is a captain with the Raleigh (NC) Fire Department and, prior to becoming a firefighter, she served five years as a police officer in North Carolina. She has personally experienced the benefits of peer support and recognizes how critical it is to simply be heard and understood.  Dena is also a graduate student and has spent the last couple of years researching firefighter behavioral health and learning methods to prevent firefighter suicides. In this episode, Dena speaks about the link to sleep behavior and the overall mental and physical health that it controls.