Red Cross Blogs

How to deal with tea-mergencies

By Mark Cox
August 21, 2009 at 5:24 pm

I knew I was right. New scientific research claims that a cup of tea really can help reduce stress levels during times of crisis. As a life-long fan of the mighty tea leaf, I’m not in the least surprised.

As explained in an earlier blog, my only really meaningful encounter with alcohol occurred when I drank whisky as a newborn baby so drinking tea really is a big deal in the Cox social calendar (such as it is).

And, time and again, when I interview volunteers from our fire and emergency support service – and these people deal with crises on a daily basis, remember – guess which warm, soothing liquid is almost always name-checked? ‘We made them a cup of tea and helped calmed them down’ is a regular refrain – and seems to sum up the general flavour of it.

Our emergency volunteers are equipped with ambulances, sirens, defibrillators, first aid kits and all manner of impressive technological jiggery-pokery. But, when our chaps are sat there consoling someone who has suddenly lost their home – or even a loved one – one of the most useful weapons in their armoury is the humble teabag.

So,  if you’re an empathetic sort of person – and, more importantly,  can make a decent brew – why not become an emergency volunteer?

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Tags: alcohol, ambulance, DEC, emergency, fire, First aid, first aid kit, News, People, UK, UN, volunteer, volunteers, war

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Emergencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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