By Jason Shea and Sergeant Sean Peterson
Are you weighed down by the invisible load you carry every day? Imagine that “backpack” filled with psychological “rocks” you’ve been carrying around for years — the tough calls, trauma, hypervigilance, sleep deprivation, physical pain, daily challenges and emotional toll. It’s a heavy load to bear.
Over time, the weight burdens you mentally, physically and emotionally. Sometimes the weight feels like too much, especially when you carry it alone. But here’s the deal: What if there were ways to slowly take some rocks out and lighten the load? What if you could unpack, regroup and rebuild?
This brings to mind General George Patton’s famous quote: “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.” Let’s unload that backpack and start climbing.
Why does this backpack keep getting heavier?
You’ve been carrying this backpack for a long time, slowly accumulating rocks. The cumulative load in the backpack is referred to as an “allostatic load.”
According to recent research, “Allostatic load reflects the cumulative effect of experiences in daily life that involve ordinary events (subtle and long-standing life situations) as well as major challenges (life events), and also includes the physiological consequences of the resulting health-damaging behaviors, such as poor sleep and circadian disruption, lack of exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption and unhealthy diet. When environmental challenges exceed the individual ability to cope, then allostatic overload ensues as a transition to an extreme state where stress response systems are repeatedly activated and buffering factors are not adequate.” [1]
To borrow something from the brilliant neuroscientist and author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” Robert Sapolsky, let’s take you back to high school biology class. Do you remember the term “homeostasis,” or the equilibrium and stability of our internal environment? When our backpacks grow too heavy, it puts our homeostasis at risk.
A metaphor we learned from the chiropractic world is juggling. Your body is constantly juggling multiple systems. Each system is represented by a ball — your endocrine system, immune system, digestive system and so on. As major stressors occur and you start adding to your backpack, it’s like throwing another ball in the mix.
If you’ve only juggled 12 balls and now you add a 13th or 14th, you may start dropping balls. Your system may start to erode over time. You may develop hormonal, digestive and immune issues.
Police stress expert John Violanti’s 2013 study on officers’ average lifespan brilliantly summed up the impacts of stress: “Stress is believed to produce a neuroendocrine response which, through nervous and endocrine systems, affects all body organs.” [2] In other words, our “adaptive capabilities become overextended.” [3]
In surveys, policing usually ranks in the top five most stressful occupations, somewhere between airline pilot/air traffic controller and enlisted military personnel. Officers’ average resting heart rate on shift increases from 59 to 82 beats a minute. [4] That is a 23-beat-per-minute increase that includes sitting, standing, driving and all forms of activity. Think of how many extra beats that is per shift, week, month, year and 30-plus years of serving. What can this do to the internal plumbing, especially if the pipes are faulty?
The mental and physical effects of unmitigated chronic stress can create burnout. This can lead to emotional exhaustion, problems at home or work, maladaptive coping behaviors, excessive use of force, impaired critical decision-making under duress, administrative mistakes and cynicism and disengagement from work. [5-9]
What is resilience?
If you were to study a group in a controlled environment to determine what resilience is, who, what and where would you study?
Some researchers studied a group on a beach in Southern California. They looked at Navy SEAL BUD (Basic Underwater Demolition) candidates to evaluate who made it through and who didn’t.
For the mental side of things, the research team narrowed success down to “seven C’s” of resilience: “a combination of competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control, or an individual’s ability to maintain a ‘positive adaptation in the face of adversity.’” [10] On the physiology side, they correlated completion rates to BDNF (brain-derived neurotropic factor) and DHEA-to-cortisol ratios.
BDNF is a protein that’s been referred to as fertilizer for the brain, aiding in memory, mood and stress resilience. DHEA is a hormone and precursor to testosterone, and its ratio to cortisol provides insight into adrenal gland function and anabolic versus catabolic processes.
Aside from enlisting in the special forces pipeline as these subjects did, what else can you do to unload your backpack and improve stress resilience? Here are some strategies.
Eight ways to unload your backpack
1. Breath work
What is the quickest way you can impact your nervous system? Your breath.
Did you know your diaphragm is the only skeletal muscle in the human body that falls under both the autonomic and somatic nervous systems? That means it’s both automated and you can control it.
Learning how to breathe properly — circumferentially, using your diaphragm — can help you regulate your nervous system from chronic sympathetic dominance (allostatic load) to a more balanced state. This can also positively impact your posture, pelvic floor and core musculature.
In his book “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art,” journalist James Nestor discusses the benefits of not only proper diaphragmatic breathing but also nose breathing. Breathing through your nose is linked to nitric oxide release and vasodilation, immune health and vasopressin release while you sleep, which tells the cells to hold more water. (In other words, it may help to limit bathroom trips in the middle of the night.)
Another great benefit of breath work is its impact on carbon dioxide tolerance. We often think of CO2 as the villain and oxygen as the hero, but they work together. It is CO2 levels that signal your body when it needs to take in more oxygen, not vice versa. CO2 is needed to separate oxygen from hemoglobin so it can be used by your tissue. The more tolerant you become of CO2, the better your body becomes at using oxygen, and the fewer breaths you will need to take per minute. This can lead to improvements in endurance, lactic acid clearance and autonomic nervous system regulation.
Examples of breath work include box breathing, Wim Hof breathing, Buteyko breathing, tummo breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, pranayama, bellows breath, alternate nostril breathing, lengthened-exhale training and nose-only breathing. Ideally, find a practitioner to help you learn proper breath work.
Combining breath work with mindfulness practice can also be of significant benefit to unloading your backpack. Not only do those who practice mindfulness training have more gray matter in the frontal cortex area of the brain, [11] but officers who committed to it for just eight weeks saw improvements in heart rate and blood pressure, pain, immune health and gastrointestinal issues. [12]
2. HRV and biometric tracking
Heart rate variability (HRV) is the variation in intervals between individual heartbeats. HRV is a measure of sympathetic and parasympathetic balance. A high HRV is a good thing, associated with a better balance between the two nervous system branches and better overall health. A low HRV can signal nervous system imbalance and associated health issues.
When one part of the nervous system (e.g., sympathetic) is dominant, the other (e.g., parasympathetic) is suppressed. For example, when our sympathetic branch dominates, we are in fight-or-flight mode, causing increased heart rate, vasoconstriction, cortisol and adrenaline release, and a slowdown of our digestive system. When our parasympathetic branch dominates, we relax. Our heart rate slows down, vasodilation increases, and digestion ramps up again.
A few factors that can influence our HRV include:
- Genetics
- Age
- Chest breathing (sympathetic dominance) versus diaphragmatic breathing (balanced)
- Sleep quality
- Underrecovery from training
- Alcohol consumption
- Mindfulness/meditation practice
- Food (types, meal timing, macronutrient content)
- Magnesium status
- Indoor vs. outdoor exposure
- Cold water
- Sauna
A few wearable technologies that track HRV include the Oura Ring, Whoop, Apple Watch, Garmin and Fitbit.
HeartMath is another great tool that empowers people to self-regulate their attitudes, emotions and behaviors to transform stress, increase resilience and unlock their natural intuitive guidance for making more effective choices. According to certified HeartMath professional Eleni Barbieri, a lieutenant with the Springfield, Massachusetts Police Department, “HeartMath is a scientifically validated, heart-focused approach to building resilience and self-security. HeartMath’s data-backed techniques and state-of-the-art HRV-feedback technology help individuals align their heart, autonomic nervous system and brain into a state of physiological coherence. Individuals who increase their coherence typically experience a wide range of improved outcomes, both on the job and at home.
“The scientists at HeartMath have been studying how the heart processes information and how its intelligence affects our overall physiology for almost 30 years. Lab-validated results show practicing HeartMath tools results in better reaction time, sleep, revitalized energy, a stronger immune system and more. The practice of resilience-building skills has been shown to promote increased situational awareness, understanding and effective decision-making in even the most challenging situations.”
Barbieri continued, “The Springfield, Massachusetts Police Department is implementing HeartMath departmentwide, including recruits in the academy setting and veterans attending in-service. The goal is to provide officers with the ability to self-regulate emotions during high-stress situations that involve split-second decision-making under stress. Additionally, it improves officer wellness by allowing officers to identify aspects of their lives that weaken their ability to self-regulate. Once identified, officers can begin to take corrective actions through the use of HeartMath to increase their resilience in other areas.”
| RELATED: How a Del. police department is revolutionizing health and wellness with smartwatches
3. Nutrition
Did you know certain foods can impact your sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system activity? As far back as 1982, researchers figured out there was a link between insulin and “central sympathetic outflow.” They found that while cutting calories lowered blood pressure, giving subjects higher glycemic carbohydrates raised it. [13]
Nearly two decades later, researchers found that “consumption of a [carbohydrate]-rich meal causes greater cardiac SNS (sympathetic nervous system) activation in lean than in obese women, while fat ingestion does not result in any appreciable change in either group.” [14]
A 2009 study from Austria found the composition of carbohydrates in the diet had significant impacts on sympathetic nervous system activity. Lower-carb and lower-glycemic-load diets minimized sympathetic excitement, while high-carb and high-glycemic-load diets, with their higher insulin response, led to significant sympathetic activation. [15]
Conversely, foods high in omega-3 fatty acids and high-antioxidant fruits and leafy green vegetables have also been shown to improve HRV and nervous system balance. [16,17] Take, for example, the Mediterranean diet, with its high omega-3 fatty acid, olive oil, garlic and leafy green vegetable content. Studies have found improved executive functioning and lower risk of cognitive decline and decreased depression scores in subjects consuming these diets. [18,19]
Using high omega-3 fatty acid fish, nuts, avocados, grass-fed beef, free-range chicken and eggs, and leafy green vegetables as baseline nutrition, below is a quick snapshot of nearly a month of morning physical readiness readings on an Oura Ring with dietary manipulations only, including:
- Higher carbs (HC)
- Lower carbs (LC)
- Raspberries added to lower carbs (R)
- Raspberries and blueberries with lower carbs (RB)
- Raw local honey added to lower carbs (H)
- Sweet potato (SP)
- Popcorn (P)
4. Struggling well
Funded by AT&T FirstNet and grants from the Arther M. Blank and Gary Sinise foundations, Struggle Well is a first responder and military initiative that helps officers struggling with mental, physical and emotional problems. Through their post-traumatic growth approach, they are actively transforming department cultures across the country. According to the website, “Struggle Well training is guided by two objectives: normalizing the struggles that are a part of every service member’s and first responder’s life and democratizing their ability to struggle well.”
We have seen this initiative grow significantly throughout the law enforcement community, with several municipal, state and sheriffs’ departments picking up on the course.
Struggle Well for First Responders is offered as a one-, two- or five-day program. The one-day program is a great opportunity to create awareness within a department or community. The two- and five-day programs are aimed at leaders and personnel, providing a more immersive experience.
5. Therapeutic “Pennebaker” journaling
What if you could make a significant dent in unloading your backpack with just 15–20 minutes per day for the next four days? Thanks to the groundbreaking work of American psychologist James Pennebaker, that’s all you need.
Therapeutic journaling involves writing and unloading whatever thoughts are going through your head on a piece of paper for 15 straight minutes. Don’t stop writing for 15 minutes. Whatever you are struggling with, just “unload” it onto the piece of paper. After four straight days of this, notice if your thoughts have changed. Have they become more solution-based?
In his research, Pennebaker found journaling your emotions and challenges for just 20 minutes was linked to improved immune performance and long-term mood and health. [20,21]
6. Cold therapy
Mention the name Wim Hof to someone who’s heard of him, and immediately the conversation goes to how he climbed to base camp on Mount Everest in shorts and no shirt, or how he swam under a frozen lake, or how he stayed in an ice bath for nearly an hour and 45 minutes.
Researchers have even done studies on him and his students and found that through the practice of breath work, meditation and cold immersion, they were able to physiologically change the ways their bodies responded to stresses, including cold and endotoxin administration. [22,23]
More recently, a review of nine studies on the Wim Hof method (WHM) — a trademarked combination of breathing exercises, cold therapy and mindset training — found it may contribute to reduced inflammation in both healthy and nonhealthy participants. The researchers concluded “the combination of cold exposure and [WHM] appeared to most effectively reduce the inflammatory response.” [24]
Studies focused on cold immersion have found positive impacts on mood disorders, well-being, respiration, insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular health. [25]
| RELATED: Ice bath tips and tricks: How officers can get the most out of cold water therapy
7. Improving sleep
Did you know one week of sleep deprivation can lead to the alteration of over 700 genes in the human body? [26] Did you also know that police officers are four times more likely than others to sleep less than six hours a night? [27] This is important because changes in insulin can result with less than five hours of sleep. [28] Sleep deprivation can also impact immune health, decision-making, testosterone levels, thyroid hormone and waist size. [29-33]
A few tips that may help you sleep better include:
- Nose breathing.
- Try not to eat within three hours of going to bed to allow the glymphatic system to drain metabolites in your brain that have built up throughout the day.
- Take magnesium (i.e., magnesium L-threonate or magnesium glycinate).
- Tart cherry juice has been found to improve sleep through its positive impacts on natural melatonin production. [34]
- Fifteen minutes of gratitude journaling before bed has been shown to improve sleep quality and duration. [35]
8. Exercise
Research has also shown that “regular exercisers are more resistant to the emotional effects of acute stress, which in turn may protect them against diseases related to chronic stress burden.” [36]
With its positive effects on testosterone and cortisol, strength training is like therapy for your hormones. A seven-week study in which subjects worked out three times a week for a month saw nearly 40% increases in resting testosterone and significant drops in cortisol. [37]
High-intensity interval training is also effective, as it can increase BDNF, the brain biomarker associated with greater resilience. [38]
Lightening the load
Law enforcement is clearly a stressful occupation, and the backpacks officers carry may get quite heavy. The importance of unloading those backpacks and mitigating the negative effects of chronic stress cannot be overlooked.
No matter how heavy the backpack is, now is the best time to “lighten the load” and test out these strategies to effectively navigate the physical, mental and emotional impacts of unchecked chronic stress.
About the authors
Jason Shea is a subject matter expert who coordinates health and wellness training and certifications, including curriculum and course development.
Sean Peterson is a sergeant in Taunton, Massachusetts.
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