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Sleep Deprivation and Police Officers

There are many professions were lack of sleep can be dangerous none more then law enforcement. We have heard the stories of truckers falling asleep at the wheel because of long hauls and 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. 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. 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.

Of course, what will usually happen is, the officer will 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.

But drugs won’t help. 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.

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 to much use of any drug can lead to dangerous side effects or addiction. 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.

This can give a person time to adjust 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.

We hope this information was helpful. Check our other articles for more information on sleep issues.

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