Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in our newest series, “Ask Tung,” featuring Commander Eric Tung. With 17 years of experience as a police officer in Washington State, Tung currently oversees patrol operations and his department’s wellness and peer support programs.
In this series, Tung will share his expertise on fitness, wellness and leadership, providing valuable insights to help officers thrive on and off the job. From workout recommendations to wellness strategies and leadership guidance, “Ask Tung” is your go-to resource.
Have a question you’d like answered next? Send yours to Tung on Instagram @bluegritwellness or bluegritwellness@gmail.com.
Congrats, rookie! You’ve endured the long hiring process. You’ve jumped through the hoops, went through the gauntlet of field training and now you’re solo status!
You feel like you can breathe again. You can miss a turn and not have to look over at your training officer scribbling notes about you. The world is your crime-fighting oyster!
Chances are you jumped full bore into this career. Many of you have made this more than a full-time pursuit. Some of you wanted this job, this life, for as long as you can remember. For some of you, it was studying, practicing in your limited time off while juggling your prior career and a family. It’s likely you’ve gotten to this level of basic proficiency and success because you committed yourself to deeply learning this craft.
When I was posed with the question on how to focus efforts on time off, I was torn on how to respond. We must always be a perpetual student and master of our crafts. In policing, there are multitudes. Literally every hard and soft skill is pertinent, from picking up angles in tactical awareness to biting your tongue for a second to actively listen and de-escalate a very irate reporting party.
However, in my reflections on my own life and career, those around me, and those who share their experiences and anecdotes from a policing career from across the nation, the need to focus on things outside of the job is undeniable.
Live outside the blue world
When I attended the Washington State Police Academy in 2007, there was a topic that emphasized the importance of “living outside the blue world.” This meant engaging in activities and building relationships beyond just police work and fellow officers. At the time, it felt like a newer discussion and many officers have since told me they never received such guidance. The core message was this:
You won’t always be a cop, so it’s important to identify with other aspects of life. Additionally, surrounding yourself only with other cops can lead to a jaded worldview, which is not healthy.
I think about how, even though we glossed over this concept, it stood out to me then and still resonates with me now. Back then, I heard the words and considered them, but it was hard to truly grasp. How could I change that much? I am who I am, right? Would my spirit fade and corrupt? My instructors were my new heroes, embodying everything I aspired to be. Were they asking me to be less like them? If I toned it down, would I be less successful in achieving my goals?
At the same time, the academy offered a sort of “diet version” of trauma bonding with my classmates. We studied together. We trained together. We stumbled through scenarios together. We memorized statutes and the serial numbers on our handcuffs together. The more I focused, the more confident and proficient I became. I wasn’t trying to downshift any of it.
We were all so hungry for this career, this mindset. Something as fundamental as learning how to be vigilant felt like peeling a layer of film off the world, revealing it for what it truly was. We saw the dangers lurking in the shadows — things that average people gloss over or don’t want to see. We were seeing the world in a clearer, more honest way, and seeing it daily. Why would I want to turn that dial down? Why would I want to remain naive?
Feeling lost after that first solo shift? It’s easy to dive headfirst into “police life,” but here’s a tip: make time for things outside the badge. Whether it’s fitness, hobbies or spending time with non-LEO friends, finding balance is key to staying sharp both on and off duty. In this short clip, Police1 columnist and LE veteran Eric Tung answers this “Ask Tung” question, explaining why excelling outside of work actually makes you a better officer.
The abyss gazes back
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster ... when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
This quote is integral to introductory police training. When you work in a busy agency or district, you get a volume of experience. When it’s a violent city, you get even more. Quickly.
In my first few patrol assignments, I hit the ground running — literally. Foot pursuits, scuffles, and big melees where we’d swoop in to disperse the crowd and arrest the worst offenders. There were violent domestic disputes where we tracked down the terrorizers, finally overcoming and overpowering the oppressors, the predators, the bullies.
Your first few exposures to extreme physical trauma may leave you slack-jawed and wide-eyed. A few more, and it starts to become routine— your new “normal.” A few more, and you cope with dark humor. A few more after that, and the humor fades, leaving only the “dark.” You forget there are normal people out there, and suddenly, you’re the ***hole.
Everyone’s fighting. Everyone’s fleeing. Everyone’s lying. Everyone’s watching you. Everyone has a weapon. Everyone’s trying to hurt or kill you. You’re not the ***hole — they are, until proven otherwise. It didn’t help that my first training officer taught me this lesson on day one: “Everyone’s lying and everyone’s stupid. So even if they aren’t lying, they’re too dumb to know the truth. Trust no one.”
This mindset seeps into your psyche. When I was off-duty, I might have changed my clothes, but I couldn’t take off the figurative “hat” or the role I was playing. I would’ve loved to have that clear-cut Superman-to-Clark Kent transition. Instead, mine was more like Robert Pattinson’s brooding Bruce Wayne in “The Batman” — where it was obvious to everyone around him that he was still Batman. There was no brightness in my eyes, no forced smile. Even if I had tried to fake it, I wouldn’t have fooled anyone.
Beyond the imagery, it started to show and I didn’t realize it until people pointed it out. First, it was family. Then my girlfriend. But they didn’t get it. Sure, I was changing, and I had to. That was the goal. It would keep me safe ... keep others safe. They didn’t see what I was seeing, didn’t understand what we had to deal with or the terrible things people do to each other. Ultimately, it wasn’t just one or two comments. It was one of my best friends and roommates calling me out.
I was the ***hole. Really? Yeah. He doubled down, and I had to sit with it, listen defensively and process it. It took that confrontation to make me realize how impatient I had become — how callous I was at every turn. My attitude, speech and energy had turned toxic. I was short-tempered, quick to flare up and argue, always looking for a fight and just as quick to retreat.
I feel fortunate to have had that harsh reckoning and lesson early in my career — with just a couple of years on the job. It came before I was married, before I became a father. I realized I needed guardrails. So I asked my friends to be those guardrails and welcomed any future call-outs. I made a promise to myself and shared it with others for accountability: “If I get this way again … if this is who I become, and I can’t get out of it with help, then I need to leave this career.”
Resilience built through routines
In hindsight, I wasn’t very resilient at that time, but that was the beginning of building healthy habits and routines. It marked the start of my commitment to keeping my “non-blue” friends close. My blue friends are top-notch. I had a crew of them at my wedding, and many will be lifelong brothers and friends. But they didn’t call me out and weren’t in a position to notice the need for it. We were frogs in boiling water, slowly heating up. I needed friends on the outside to be the thermometers.
My classmates and I were all given copies of Dr. Kevin Gilmartin’s book, “Emotional survival for law enforcement: A guide for officers and their families.” I knew the signs, the tendencies, the statistics. But that knowledge wasn’t enough. You can know all the right things, but you need people who care about you to have the hard conversations, to create the conflict and to hold you accountable — not just a book collecting dust on a shelf. That’s why I became a strong advocate for peer support, as well as the core principles of personal health and wellness, from daily exercise to a sense of purpose — or what some might call faith. I’ve leaned more and more into these concepts throughout my career and still do today.
It wasn’t easy, especially early on, but I made it a habit to lean into things that made me uncomfortable. That’s how I approached the job. Find your weakness and dive into that task, skill or assignment. In my personal life, when I felt myself avoiding social events, I would ask myself why. When I said those guys weren’t my buddies anymore and questioned whether they cared about or understood me, I forced myself to snap out of it. I’d make myself go, and usually, as soon as I arrived and saw friends and familiar faces, I’d be glad I did, silencing the negative thought patterns.
Shift work was tough. Sure, we all heard that going in, but as life and career progressed, the impact became more pronounced and draining. Working patrol and staying late was one thing. But working multiple dog tracks, getting literally beat up by sticker bushes and figuratively by not finding the suspects — that was something else. I’d stay up late pulling thorns out of my uniform and my skin, then wake up early to check on my testimony status for a jury trial. And this was before promotions and starting a family. Shift work became a different kind of hard as life evolved.
What made it easier? Routines. When other pillars of health were cracking, I leaned on the ones that were still sturdy. For most of my career, that was fitness and nutrition. Once I committed myself to discipline and development in those areas, they were enough to get me through the job’s stresses. When sleep failed, good nutrition powered me through the day. When I struggled to talk about my feelings, my dedication to gym time processed a lot of stress and kept me confident, mentally sharp and emotionally regulated.
Looking back on how I navigated critical incidents — from officer-involved shootings to child cases to losing a friend in the line of duty — I didn’t turn to substances or fall into self-destructive behaviors. I’ve thought a lot about why that was. In conversations with multiple counselors and therapists through my podcast, I’ve come to believe that people with healthy practices build more resilience and that resilience acts like storm windows and shutters when life’s storms hit. The house may shake, and there may be some damage, but healthy habits help repair things faster.
I recognize that without my then-girlfriend, now-wife, my incredible friendships in and outside the job, my commitment to fitness and my willingness to talk about my feelings, I wouldn’t have had the same outcomes. None of this made those experiences easy, but it helps me understand that as life moves faster and gets more complicated, we always have a choice.
The power of choice
We don’t always have a choice in what comes our way. We don’t get to pick the calls we respond to. We can’t control suspects’ actions or the decisions of lawmakers. We don’t get to decide whether the basement floods while we’re adjusting to new work challenges and a newborn at home. We can’t choose a family member’s medical diagnosis.
But we do have a say in a lot of things. We choose when we go to bed on our days off. We choose how we wind down — whether we binge cop shows or doom-scroll OIS videos on our phones. We can decide whether to prep easy meals for work or resign ourselves to fast food all week.
We decide if we hit the snooze button five times and barely make it to work on time, rushing out the door without saying goodbye to our families and staying in a defensive/reactive mode all day. Or we choose to do 20 pushups and 20 air squats while the coffee brews, because what else are we doing with that dead time … doom-scrolling OIS videos?
We have choices in so many areas. Recognizing these small decisions — like eating an apple instead of a bag of chips — can be a step toward living a more resilient, balanced life. Taking care of the basics allows us to lean into work life at work and home life at home. It’s less about having limited resources and more about building skills, routines and awareness that help us rebalance the inevitable imbalances of life.
Take inventory, take ownership
What am I doing? What is it getting me? Does it serve me?
For years, I recognized the importance of ground-fighting for patrol work and flirted with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). But I kept putting it off. Ironically, I finally committed to it when I was off the street, in support roles like recruiting, training and command staff. As much as I loved it, and as much as I saw its benefits for patrol cops, I found myself thinking about work more and letting my ego get in the way of enjoying it.
I started pushing my BJJ training alongside weightlifting, cutting into my sleep to get to early morning sessions so I wouldn’t miss dad time. I was trying to do it all — work, family, the gym. Eventually, my injuries caught up with me and rear-naked choked my ego — an all-too-common story that had me sidelined.
I realized that while I loved the sport, the community and the people I trained with, what I truly needed was a hobby that didn’t connect back to police work. I needed an outlet where I wasn’t constantly thinking about what to do if someone tried to disarm me. I took stock and recognized that my happy place was being outdoors. I committed to trail runs, bike rides, hikes and kettlebell workouts under the open sky.
It’s hard to reconcile how I believe all patrol cops should engage in combat sports, while I had to distance myself from it. But maybe that’s the point. At that stage of my life, it was harming me more than helping. I can honestly say that I’m more effective at work and at home when I’m committed to my outdoor activities. I own my actions, my decisions and the results. And truth be told, I often think about getting back on the mats … just not now.
When I advise those entering this profession, I always return to a few simple, critical things. Policing is a calling, not just a job for most. It’s not especially hard to be a cop, but it’s incredibly hard to be a great one. You may feel like, to be the best, you need to let other parts of your life —people, hobbies — wither because policing demands so much in terms of knowledge and skill acquisition.
But I suggest this: The better you are at things outside of work, the better cop you’ll be. The better partner, parent, coach or athlete you are. The better volunteer, college football fan, kayaker or comic book geek you are. All of that will help you decompress, stay patient and be your balanced, regulated self so that when you’re back on shift, you can bring your best cop self into the fray.
It’s nearly impossible to turn off a part of who you are and that’s not the goal. As you establish more ideal routines, remember that change is gradual and can be challenging. One size doesn’t fit all, so give yourself grace, stay patient, and keep exercising the muscle that identifies and recalibrates your balance and boundaries.
After all, whether it’s three years or 30, whether it’s your choice or not, this job — like everything in life — will eventually end. It will always be a part of you, but it will never be all of you.
