YOGA BY COP
When I clicked on the link titled, “5 Reasons First Responders Should Take Yoga Seriously,” I was less drawn to the words and more drawn to the photograph of Des Moines (Iowa) Police Academy recruits reclined in a modified corpse yoga pose, in a darkened indoor firing range, with paper targets – some with holes punched through the chest – hung in the background. The peacefulness and violence depicted in the scene seemed incongruent, yet familiar, to me.
On Tuesday, August 7th, I had read about the death of Baytown, Texas, police officer, Stewart Beasley. Beasley, a veteran officer of 23 years, had been reported missing by his wife. His death was ruled a suicide (self-inflicted gunshot) and the news reports and comments appeared to me to have two common themes:
- Day to day police work can have a cumulative, negative effect on officers
- Officers often struggle in silence due to stigma associated with mental health
One Twitter post by Houston, Texas, KHOU’s Marcelino Benito caught my attention. His tweet contained the quote, “the drip drip drip of what law enforcement officers see can take its toll, family is heartbroken” (Benito, 2018). If history is any indication, about 130 police officers will commit suicide this year – almost 11 a month (O’Hara, 2018).
As frightened as I was about the image of some of my colleagues in yoga pants, I dug deeper. More clicks took me further and further down the rabbit hole until I had 11 web pages open on my computer – Badge of Life, Men’s Health, Law Officer, Scientific American, Ruderman Family Foundation, National Institutes of Health, International Journal of Emergency Mental Health, Boston Globe, and more. Each one repeated the same two common themes, but a new theme emerged.
Resilience.
Bessel van der Kolk (2014, p. 163) described resilience very simply as “the capacity to bounce back from adversity.” When examining the psychological well-being of law enforcement officers, building resilience is essential because it is hard to foresee the nature of police work changing. Police work will always be fraught with any number of acute, chronic, complex, secondary, and/or vicarious traumas.
In “Routine Work Environment Stress and PTSD Symptoms in Police Officers,” Maguen et al concluded that “work environment is most strongly associated with PTSD symptoms, above and beyond critical incidents and negative life events” (2009, p. 9) and that “work environment mediated the relationship between critical incident exposure and PTSD symptoms as well as between negative life events and PTSD symptoms, demonstrating an even more complex relationship with variables that are seen to be central to the development of PTSD” (2009, p. 7). So, if Maguen et al are correct, a supportive work environment can counteract that “drip drip drip” (Benito, 2018) of police officers’ trauma.
Dr. Carrie Steiner (2018) of the First Responders Wellness Center recommends that officers equip their “emotional tool belt” just as they would their tactical tool belt and suggests the following comprehensive approach to building officer resiliency, both inside and outside of the work environment:
- build a social support network
- make time to have fun
- exercise regularly
- eat healthy
- have good sleep habits
- learn deep breathing techniques
- use open-hand techniques
- recognize abnormal responses to trauma and stress
- don’t be afraid to ask for help
- find a specialized treatment provider
So, where does the ancient practice of yoga fit in? Founder and Director of Yoga for First Responders Olivia Kvitne stated yoga is not only good for first responders, it is “meant for them” (2016). Kvitne (2014) explained,
“ … the original and true intents of yoga are to obtain a mastery of the mind and achieve an optimal functioning of the entire being—from the subtle nervous system to the whole physical body. This authentic objective of yoga is thousands of years old, with no relation to how recent Western culture has marketed it as trendy and hip …. Yoga allows people to increase their ability to focus and problem-solve, gives them heightened situational awareness, and helps them make intelligent gut reactions to situations. People who practice yoga also have the ability to make self-directed biological changes, meaning they can impact the functioning of their brain and nervous system through their own actions. Such biological changes are shown to be a possible outcome of those who practice mindfulness exercises, such as yoga, thanks to research projects using biofeedback machines that track activity inside the brain and body. When stress is trapped in the body and mind and no action is taken to process it, stress causes a depletion of a person’s health. However, when individuals take steps to consistently handle the stress they’re feeling, they can improve their well-being and even become more resilient in the face of adversity.”
The photograph of the police recruits practicing yoga in the firearms facility seemed familiar because maintaining a sense of peacefulness amongst seemingly ubiquitous violence is important to me. With nearly 20 years of law enforcement behind me, I’ve experienced the darkness of police work, felt the burning sensation in my stomach and that punch in the chest. I have chronic insomnia and I’ve used words like “heart breaking” and “gut wrenching” to describe tragic incidents. Most often, though, I listened to parents describe their heartache when their child was missing. I’m proud of my career, but it does take its toll.
I’ve taken a yoga class or two. And, I confess that during those classes, I repeatedly glanced at the clock to see how many more minutes I had to endure. I looked around when my eyes were supposed to be closed. I was baffled why I needed to concentrate on my breathing. I twiddled my mental thumbs in boredom or perhaps my inability to concentrate and be still. But, like Kvitne (2018) said, “it’s time” to take yoga more seriously.
SOURCES:
Kvitne, O. (2016, April 26). 5 Reasons First Responders Should Take Yoga Seriously. In Public
Safety. Retrieved from: https://inpublicsafety.com/2016/04/5-reasons-first-responders-should-take-yoga-seriously/
Maguen, S. et al. (2009, October). Routine Work Environment Stress and PTSD Symptoms in
Police Officers. Journal of Nervous Mental Disorders, 197(10): 754-760. Retrieved from: https://onlinecampus.bu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-5920073-dt-content-rid-21999412_1/courses/18sum2metcj720so1/course/media/metcj720_M6_Maguen.pdf
MarcelinoKHOU. (2018, August 7). UPDATE: Sad news, @BaytownPolice1 officer Beasley’s body
recovered this AM. [Twitter Post]. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/MarcelinoKHOU/status/1026863258060419074
O’Hara, A. (2018, January 1). 2017 Police Suicides – A Continuing Crisis. Law Officer. Retrieved
from: http://lawofficer.com/exclusive/2017-police-suicides-continuing-crisis/
Steiner, C. (2018, August 6). Emotional Tools to Build Officer Resiliency. In Public Safety.
Retrieved from: https://inpublicsafety.com/2018/08/emotional-tools-to-build-officer-resiliency/
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of
Trauma. p. 163. Penguin Books. New York, New York.