FIFO Mental Health

Most FIFO workers who reach us do not arrive saying they are depressed. They arrive saying they are fine, the money is good, and their partner made them call.

We are Richard and Helena Boyd the owners on Energetics Institute, and for 21 years in Inglewood we have worked with a steady stream of people on swings out of Perth.

What we have learned is that fly in fly out work rarely creates mental health problems out of nothing.

It takes whatever was already there, removes every normal outlet, and can exacerbate mental health issues that were manageable at home. This is what drives poor mental health on site, and what helps.

Why FIFO Mental Health Is A Significant Issue

The numbers here are not opinion. Research funded by the WA Mental Health Commission surveyed more than three thousand FIFO workers and their partners, and found that 33 per cent reported high or very high levels of psychological distress.

The benchmark group came in at 17 per cent, and the norm group of Australian men aged 16 and over at 10 per cent. That is more than three times the rate of non FIFO workers in the general Australian population. Findings on suicide compared with the wider workforce are more mixed, and we would rather not overstate them. Not everyone working FIFO struggles, but these are significant mental health challenges, and calling it a significant issue understates it.

Loneliness And Social Isolation

Social isolation is the mechanism underneath most of the rest.

Extended periods at remote locations mean you can call loved ones every night and still be alone, because regular communication is not social interaction. On camp you are surrounded by people and known by almost none of them. What goes missing is the incidental contact that regulates a nervous system.

Then there are the events with family members. Birthdays, funerals and the ordinary Saturday you cannot get to. Many FIFO workers describe a drift where they stop being a participant in their own home life and become a visitor to it.

Financial Pressure

The pay is why most people take the job, and it becomes its own trap.

Higher income brings higher commitments, so the mortgage, the vehicles and the school fees grow to match. Two or three years in, the roster is no longer a choice. The money that was meant to buy freedom has bought an obligation.

That pressure goes some way to explaining why workers stay in a job whose demanding nature is grinding them down.

Stress And Long Hours

Twelve hour shifts in forty degree heat, two weeks straight, is a physical load before it is anything else.

Long hours at remote worksites strip out recovery time. There is no commute to decompress in and no separation between where you work and where you sleep. Stress management is difficult when the stressor and the accommodation share a fence line.

Sustained stress does not stay psychological. The negative impacts show up as gut problems, back pain, headaches and a short fuse, which is why physical and mental health cannot be separated in this workforce.

Fatigue And Broken Sleep

Fatigue is the symptom people mention last and the one that undoes them fastest.

Night shift, donga noise, heat and rotating rosters wreck sleep, and sleep loss alone worsens mental health outcomes, producing low mood, irritability and negative thoughts that feel like character rather than chemistry. Most workers we see have normalised exhaustion they would find alarming in someone else.

If you fix nothing else, protect sleep on your off shift days at home rather than trying to catch up in one weekend.

The Sense Of Helplessness

Helplessness is what turns a hard job into depression.

The roster is fixed, the flights are booked, and there is nothing you can do about the argument happening at home fourteen hundred kilometres away. High demand with no control is the reliable recipe for depression and anxiety in any workplace, and FIFO delivers it by design.

It is also where alcohol and other drug use starts to look like a solution, and where a hard job turns into mental illness rather than a bad month. On a dry camp with limited access to anything else, the swing home becomes the release valve.

Relationship Strain And Family Dynamics

The person at home is carrying a job too, and it is rarely acknowledged.

Family dynamics and support systems reorganise around your absence. Your partner runs the household solo, the kids adapt, then you land and everyone renegotiates for a week before you leave. Both of you can be doing everything right and still feel like strangers by Thursday.

Relationship strain is the most common reason FIFO workers finally book with us. Trying to maintain relationships across that gap takes deliberate effort from both sides, and most couples were never told so.

Why FIFO Workers Do Not Speak Up

The macho culture on site is real, and it is expensive.

Admitting to mental health concerns still carries a risk in a lot of crews, whether that is your standing, your shift or your next contract. So people run it silently, and mental health awareness posters do not touch that, because addressing mental health issues takes more than a noticeboard. What shifts it is a supervisor with real mental health training who has said something honest first.

If you recognise yourself here, speaking to someone outside your company involves no reporting to your employer at all.

Coping Strategies That Work On Site

The unique challenges of the roster mean you have to develop coping strategies that still work on day eleven, so small and repeatable beats ambitious.

Get outside your room. Recreational activities and gym time on off shift hours are less about fitness than about not lying in a donga with your phone. Keep regular communication with family and friends on a predictable rhythm rather than only when something is wrong, and try any peer support groups your camp runs.

Learn two grounding techniques you can run in ninety seconds and use them before the call home rather than after it goes badly. Book something in your first two days back that is not a chore, which is the closest to a healthy work life balance the roster allows.

What Employers Can Do

Individual coping strategies cannot fix a roster, and the responsibility is not only yours.

In Western Australia a WorkSafe code of practice covers mentally healthy workplaces for FIFO workers in the resources and construction sectors, requiring employers to manage psychosocial hazards the way they manage physical ones. That means implement policies on roster design, providing access to real counselling services and support services rather than a poster, and mental health training for supervisors.

Good operators do this already. If yours does not, the code is worth knowing.

How We Work With FIFO Workers

Our approach is Integrative Body Mind Psychotherapy, built on the principle that the body is the subconscious mind, and it suits this workforce for a specific reason.

Most FIFO workers we meet are excellent at overriding what they feel, because the job requires it. Ask how they are and you get a status report. Track what happens in their breathing and shoulders while they talk and you get the truth faster. Richard’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy training is the relevant piece where there is trauma underneath.

Practically, we work around the swing. Mental health support runs online while you are on site and in person at Inglewood when you are home, and nothing goes back to your employer.

What This Looks Like In Practice

These are composite examples drawn from our clinical work, with identifying details changed.

A man on a two and one roster came in for anger that only appeared at home. Mapping it against his swing showed the flashpoints landed in the first 48 hours back every single time. It was not anger. It was a nervous system dropping out of high alert with nowhere safe to do it.

A worker in his fifties in the Pilbara had been drinking heavily on every R and R for four years. The drinking was not the problem to solve first. Underneath it was grief for a father who died while he was on site.

A couple were fighting every Thursday of his week home. Once we named the pattern as re entry rather than a relationship failure, they built a two day handover routine. The Thursday fight stopped.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions FIFO workers ask us most often, and our honest answers.

Is FIFO Depression A Real Thing?

The research names no separate condition, but it shows FIFO workers reporting distress at around three times the rate of the general population. The depression is ordinary depression. The conditions producing it are not.

Will Your Employer Find Out?

No. Seeing us privately involves no report to your company, no diagnosis on your record and no referral. What you say stays between us, within the usual legal limits around risk of serious harm.

Can You Have Sessions While On Site?

Yes. Many of our FIFO clients work with us entirely online during their swing and switch to in person sessions when they are home. Consistency matters more than the format.

Does This Apply To DIDO Work As Well?

Largely yes. DIDO work involves the same separation, long hours and disrupted home life, and remote workers in remote areas on any rotational arrangement face the same pressures.

Getting Help

FIFO work does not have to cost you your mental well being, but pretending the roster has no effect is not a strategy. The workers who do well on it are the ones who treat their overall well being as part of the job rather than something to sort out later.

If any of this has landed, we offer FIFO counselling  and depression counselling for workers and their partners, in person in Perth and online wherever you are rostered. No referral and no mental health care plan needed. If you are in crisis right now, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 for immediate support and suicide prevention.