Sleep Deprivation and Police Officers
Sleep deprivation is a serious problem in many professions none more then law enforcement. We have heard the stories of truckers falling asleep at the wheel because of long hauls.
Although this can lead to a disastrous out come, police officers have to be able to respond to an emergency at any time that could put not only their lives on the line but others as well.
Police may have a greater risk for sleep deprivation because lots of departments through out the country have their officers work a rotating shift.
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One week they work first shift the following second and then the third shift. This does not allow the body to fall into a natural sleep cycle.
Even if they have longer periods before rotation they would just be getting in to a normal sleep cycle when they have to change again.
Another problem is, some people have a much harder time trying to sleep in the day so when they are working the night shift they are getting very little real deep sleep.
The kind of recuperative sleep one needs to feel their best is to go through all 5 levels of sleep. This way you will get to REM sleep or (rapid eye movement).
A lot of people think that they are in this stage of sleep all night, but the truth is you are only in this level for maybe 90 minutes. Then you start to come up through the other levels. This goes on through the course of the night.
If you don’t reach REM sleep then you really haven’t had recuperative sleep.
Of course for a police officer, that could be put into a tense position at any moment this is no small issue. Their reaction time could be impaired which could lead to their own injury or worse by a criminal.
what usually happens when the officer is not getting a deep sleep, is he will seek seek help from their doctor, which will probably result in a prescription for a sleeping medication, or they just might try some over the counter medication from their local pharmacy.
And though is might get some sleep at first drugs won’t help for the long term. Because of the constant shift changes, they would have to use something all the time.
One of the problems with some of these medications, especially the over the counter types, is they tend to make you sluggish the next day.
This is a big problem for police officers that have to remain sharp and have quick reaction time. Especially when faced with a potentially violent situation.
So we still have the same problem whether the officer is loosing sleep or made sluggish by the medication. This could lead to them taking other medications during the day to keep them alert while taking sleeping medication at night.
This will lead to a vicious cycle with drugs, and too much use of any drug can lead to dangerous side effects or addiction, and the lack of sleep can lead to other health risks. One answer is to get rid of rotating shifts.
If this cannot be done then extending the time between rotations would be desirable to a least one month. Even though this is still not the ideal situation.
This can give a person time to adjust to their natural sleep cycle, of course the down side is this constant adjusting has to go on for years. So the need for finding natural sleep methods is essential.
Meditation, natural sleep remedies like herbal teas, and audio disks that work naturally with the mind are some of the methods used to get back to sleep in a natural way.
So even though we are talking about sleep deprivation and police officers, no matter who you are especially if you have a dangerous occupation. You need to get help and get back to a natural sleep cycle as soon as you can.