Page 41 - November 2018

Get more sleep to improve your job — and your health
Are you that officer who shows up to work thinking you are “Officer Friendly”? Ask your spouse or co-workers, and they might inform you that you are actually “Officer Tired and Cranky.” Working long hours, varying shifts and side jobs all while getting little or no sleep limits an of- ficer’s performance drastically. In our line
of work, officers need sleep.
I believe that many of us are, at times,
“Officer Tired and Cranky.” But we need to make time for sleep. Our ongoing schedules make it clear that effective sleeping and resting impact our physical and mental readiness.
criminal justice and criminology at Washington State Uni- versity. His research focuses on the impact of sleep-related fatigue, shift work and long hours on the safety, health and performance of police officers. Vila stated in a Ted Talk that “As you work officers harder, you wear them out, more offi-
cers get sick and more of them burnout. You then have fewer bodies to put out on the street.” Make sense to
you?
Vila served as a law enforcement officer for 17
BRIAN MCVEY
I know many officers who struggle in their daily tasks be- cause they do not get enough sleep. Sleep deprivation influ- ences not only mental but also physical health and perfor- mance. Lack of sleep is also associated with depression and mood disorders. If you have become that moody officer, get some sleep and people will like you more. Judging by sales of prescribed over-the-counter sleep medications, numerous people in our society (and on the job) rely on medications. Unfortunately, some medications are highly addictive, yet none of these drugs reproduce natural sleep.
I came across a few articles referencing how athletes have become masters of sleep. These athletes understand that they have to perform at high levels and cannot function properly under pressure. Sound familiar? Pro quarterback Tom Brady attributes much of his success on the field to his insistence on rest. Brady told ESPN The Magazine that “I have to do things differently” means going to bed well before people his age typically do. Brady understands that without proper rest, he would find it nearly impossible to have a win- ning mindset.
“The old-school approach of toughing it out is complete- ly bogus, not to mention counterproductive,” maintains Charles Czeisler, director of the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School. Czeisler, who is known around the National Basketball Association (NBA) as the “sleep doctor,” recommends a simple formula for maximizing elite athletic skills: more sleep.
The knowledge of sleep’s benefits doesn’t exist in the world of sports alone. Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most suc- cessful investors, is similarly greedy about his sleep. He fa- mously told investors, “Why don’t you go home and get a good night’s rest, and we’ll meet again tomorrow” after an important meeting in the 1990s.
An expert on this topic is Bryan Vila, Ph.D. VIla pioneered the study of police fatigue in his 2000 book, Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue. He is a professor of
Health and Wellness
years — including nine years as a street cop and supervisor with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, six years as a police chief helping the emerging nations of Micronesia develop stable and cul- turally appropriate law enforcement agencies, and two years
as a federal law enforcement officer in Washington, D.C.
In the long term, sleep disruption affects your immune system and suppresses its actions, which means officers are disproportionality at risk for cancer, cardiovascular deceas- es, metabolic disorders and psychological disorders. Forget bad guys and gunfire: several police studies done at the Cen- ter for Sleep Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York confirmed that shift work contributes to undiag-
nosed and untreated sleep problems and excessive fatigue. Maybe it’s time for you to seek medical help. Some 18 mil- lion Americans have sleep apnea, a disorder in which the airway becomes blocked, causing sufferers to snore loudly and stop breathing for short periods. Those who suffer from sleep apnea feel drowsy from poor sleep, which raises their
blood pressure to dangerously high levels.
A good night’s sleep, practiced regularly, will improve your
mental and physical state and help get you recharged. Sleep also helps to burn calories. While you sleep, you burn be- tween 50 and 100 calories an hour. Be consistent with your bedtime routines; try to get to bed at the same time each night to train your body for a consistent melatonin release. We never say, “This person is a great worker because he is drunk all the time,” yet we continue to celebrate people who sacrifice sleep for work. Few U.S. police departments have es- tablished comprehensive shift, work-hour and fatigue man- agement policies despite the well understood, long-stand- ing and profound influences that round-the-clock schedules have on worker health, safety, performance, job satisfaction and family life. So, work on getting more sleep. It just might be that simple. d
Brian McVey is a former Chicago Police Officer. He has a mas- ter’s degree in police psychology from Adler University in Chi- cago. He likes to talk, so e-mail Brian at btmcvey77@gmail. com.
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ NOVEMBER 2017 41