This week I read an article discussing current research by Dr. Brian Vila, a 17 year veteran and former street cop for the Los Angeles Police Department. Dr. Vila now heads the Simulated Hazardous Operational Tasks laboratory in Washington State University’s Sleep & Performance Research Center. Dr. Vila has been researching fatigue and how it affects an officer’s ability to carry out critical tasks and make decisions.

Vila states, “Fatigue decreases attentiveness, impairs physical and cognitive functioning, diminishes the ability to deal with challenges, and sets up a vicious cycle: fatigue decreases your ability to deal with stress and stress decreases your ability to deal with fatigue. So far as health and wellness are concerned, chronic sleep deprivation is associated with cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders, sleep apnea and other sleep disorders, and metabolic syndrome—the group of risk factors that increase your chances of coronary artery disease, stroke, and type-two diabetes.”

Dr. Vila estimates that fatigue is, at least in part, responsible for 15 percent of officer deaths and career-ending injuries from vehicle crashes and felonious assaults. That’s one out of every six officer deaths or serious injuries.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety conducted a survey and discovered the following information as it relates to law enforcement officers doing business in the US and Canada:

• 53 percent get less than 6.5 hours of sleep daily (compared to 30 percent of the general population)
• 91 percent report feeling fatigued “routinely”
• 14 percent are tired when they start their work shift
• 85 percent drive while “drowsy”
• 39 percent have fallen asleep at the wheel

Riding dirty. Dr. Vila believes that driving while fatigued puts an officer and the public at great risk. “A drowsy driver does not experience a steady decrease in driving ability,” Vila explains. “You get random, but increasingly frequent, lapses of attention. You space out for a few seconds.”

Infrequent adrenalin rushes that occur during a typical shift help to keep an officer awake, but Dr. Vila speculates the adrenalin-fatigue interaction may yield its own negative effect on performance.

Weary warrior. In a combat situation, fatigue dulls an officer’s edge. Fatigue slows one’s ability to recognize an enemy, assess their actions and respond accordingly. When tenths of a second count, fatigue can be a killer. Vila explains, “You’re not able to shift focus readily with a lot of competing demands on your attention.” In fact, when you’re tired you slip into a state of continuous tunnel vision or “cognitive narrowing” causing you to miss essential details and perhaps the warning signs of danger.

Dr. Avila states, “Parts of the brain that we know are especially vulnerable to fatigue are those that help you control emotion and arousal and those that direct the executive functions, such as making and realizing the consequences of decisions. These elements obviously affect your ability to survive life-threatening challenges. Being tired puts you at a substantial disadvantage, compared to being fully alert and having your best faculties for detecting and addressing the threat.”

Sleep meter. When you’re tired it’s difficult to judge exactly how tired your are. According to Dr. Vila, a person’s ability to judge their level of fatigue is one of the first things to be affected by fatigue. That’s a vicious irony. “Your cognitive ability can be affected by fatigue without your realizing it, to the same degree as someone who’s drunk”, Vila explains. “In tests even of elite professionals, people’s reports of how tired they are don’t relate accurately to how tired they really are. In short, you just can’t self-monitor fatigue worth a damn.”

It seems the only way to ensure we are operating at fully capacity is to stay on top of our daily health and rest regimen. A healthy diet and exercise will help you make the most of your sleep routine. Health professionals recommend seven to eight hours of sleep every night. If you’re working the midnight shift, make sure to schedule adequate time for rest.

As we’ve discussed in previous articles, caffeine and similar stimulates will affect sleep quality due to their withdrawal effect, so we need to watch our intake. Create a healthy sleeping environment. Make sure your room is dark and your bed (or couch) is comfortable. If you’re waking up with back pain or stiffness, odds are you’re not sleeping well and it’s time to look for a better mattress. Employ your personal stress management techniques to fall asleep faster and to sleep more deeply.

Departments are slowly becoming aware of the dangers of working while fatigued. Sometimes you simply need to meet up with a beat partner and grab a power nap. Discuss fatigue issues in your next briefing and make your supervisors aware. After all, we do our best work when our minds are sharp. Buy a copy of Dr. Vila’s book Tired Cops and toss it in the break room.

Sleep well, be safe.

Original interview conducted by Force Science News. Special thanks to PoliceOne and all they do for law enforcement world wide.

Dr. Vila’s Book, Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue can be found on Amazon.