The Heart Beat

Officers are trained to know their beat inside out, whether it’s as a street cop or working an investigative unit. However, recent studies have shown another beat law enforcement should be focusing on—the one in their chest.

Heart disease is on the rise among law enforcement professionals and retirees, whether due to persistent stress on the job or a lack of time for self-care, a healthy diet and a physical fitness routine. According to statics provided by the Officer Down Memorial Page, heart attacks have been the fourth leading cause of law enforcement line-of-duty deaths for four of the past five years.

A Cautionary Rhythm

Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training Resiliency Section Supervisor Larry Conley. (Photo by Jim Robertson)

Many officers are told to be strong, to be the rescuer rather than the one in need. Many of those officers can fall into a trap of brushing symptoms aside or not seeing warning signs before a coronary event occurs.

Such was the case for Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training Resiliency Section Supervisor Larry Conley when, as a young man in Washington state, symptoms began.  

“I was working at our (law enforcement) academy as an instructor, and it felt like my heart was skipping a beat,” he said, noting that one night, it was so bad he was afraid to sleep.

The next day during a doctor’s appointment, things seemed fine, and the incidents were attributed to his high caffeine intake.

Fast forward to when Conley was two years into retirement, having served more than 30 years in law enforcement. He was settling in his living room to catch a football game when he suddenly felt like his heart rolled across his chest. Conley’s Sunday plans quickly changed from casually cheering for his team, to being rushed to the local emergency room by his wife.

“It felt like I was in a real intense workout,” Conley said. “My resting heartrate had jumped to 148 beats a minute for no reason.”

Conley was hooked up to monitors and IVs when the emergency room doctor began considering electro-cardio shock to reset his heart. A call into the cardiologist changed the plan. Conley recalled that medication was used to stop and start his heart to get it back into rhythm quickly.

“As soon as he gave me that second (vial of medication), it felt like somebody flipped a switch,” Conley said. “My heart rate immediately dropped.”

Following a battery of tests, including an echocardiogram, stress test and various scans, Conley was told that physicians didn’t know what had occurred.

Initially, he was told it must have been atrial fibrillation and started medication. However, after further consult with another cardiologist, he was diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT).

Seeking healing and coping measures, Conley began reading The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson, a Harvard physician, who studied practices by Buddhist monks and their ability to control their bodily functions through meditation. Benson posed the question that if he could teach his cardiac patients these techniques, how would they benefit?

To improve his blood pressure and heart rate, Conley took up the practice of focusing on something, be it a number, prayer or saying, and repeating it as he breathes in and out. This causes the brain to focus on two things at once and momentarily get rid of mind clutter or stressors. Seeing such a benefit, Conley has incorporated this de-stressing technique into his teaching of recruits and officers for stress management.

A Perfect Storm

During an episode of the U.S. Department of Justice’s podcast, The Beat, board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Jon Sheinberg noted that the factors affecting an officer’s heart are likely a perfect storm.

One factor is that officers experience a unique stress pattern where happiness, fear, anxiety, anger and other varied emotions can occur within minutes to seconds of each other.

“So, you have a situation in which the stress patterns are rapidly changing, and you add that to a population that experiences shift work, a population that is sedentary and a population that eats a diet of convenience,” Sheinberg, who has also served as a Texas police officer and as part of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Safety and Wellness Working Group, said.

Conley further elaborated that late shifts tend to find themselves eating fast food that is high in fat, high in cholesterol and lacking nutrition. Poor sleep, he said, is an additional factor.

Tuning up

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle on the beat can be difficult. Still, it isn’t impossible—it just requires dedication by the officer, and it is something the department can support.

“So, in the same way we make sure our officers wear body armor or make sure they wear reflective vests when they do traffic stops, we have the same obligation to make sure our officers don’t die of heart disease,” Sheinberg told The Beat host Gilbert Moore.

According to Conley, some departments have built gyms into their agencies while giving officers an hour on duty to work out. Still, others are obtaining agreements with local 24-hour gyms that provide fitness opportunities for officers, regardless of when they might find time to work out, which helps reduce the body’s primary stress hormone, cortisol. 

“The bottom line is that you (the officer) still have to do it,” Conley added. “Police officers should look at themselves as professional athletes. The reality is that you will spend most of your time sitting behind the wheel of a cruiser, driving from call to call or sitting in an office writing reports. But it’s that one time when you must jump into action that you have to be ready. And you can’t get ready right before it happens.”

To manage their health, law enforcement professionals should regularly maintain care by a physician, so illness doesn’t sneak up on them. Additionally, they should take care of their mental health and have avenues to de-stress, whether through yoga, time outdoors and/or meditation. Equally as important is making nourishing their bodies with healthy food a priority.

The Resiliency supervisor added that if any de-stressors or mental health endeavors they attempt on their own are failing, or if they are feeling overwhelmed, there are other avenues such as DOCJT’s Kentucky Post-Critical Incident Seminar (KYPCIS) or peer support to give them additional coping tools.

Conley said one of the most important things is to recognize symptoms and seek help as soon as they arrive, whether they are physical or mental.

For more information, visit the KYPCIS website.