The story below is reviewed. It comes from the RCMP and features the use of real life scenarios as a way to asess an officer’s physical and mental response to a real-life scenario. Read and respond. Thanks MS

I authored a paper for a class I took on the interaction of stress on brain functioning among police officers. It was an awesome class taught by a physician Sabina Berretta, MD from McLean Hospital in Boston. Severe threat responses that are extended or frequently repeated can significantly raise the risk for physical and mental health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and anxiety disorders. “Although resilience — the ability to cope during and recover from stressful situations — is a common term, used in many contexts, we found that no research had been done to scientifically understand what resilience is among police.” as published in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Gazette Magazine in 2017.

More agencies are training with real life scenarios to expose LEO’s to high adrenaline exercises that brings out the feel of authentic, high-risk calls. The rationale is that officers will experience stress in a controlled training environment. I have done these exercises and have seen the care put into a safe training that challenges even the most physically fit. This is especially challenging when there are live actors serving as injured victims such as the school shooter training when the entry teams are made to step over and around injured and dying victims. There were incidents of friendly fire as two entry teams come in contact with each other during the search for a shooter. In cases where there is suspected to be more than one shooter, the two teams can misidentify each other. In obvious cases of terror attacks when there is known to be multiple attackers these missteps can occur and can result in friendly fire injuries and deaths.

The idea is to expose officers to realistic conditions—noise, confusion, time pressure, physical exertion, injured role players, incomplete information, and unexpected developments—so that they can practice decision-making under stress rather than encountering those conditions for the first time during an actual critical incident. As you can see from the heading the RCMP have been using stress innoculation training for several years to include mindfullness and breathing techniques to lower the fight flight response.

The rationale behind this approach is supported by research in human performance: stress can affect perception, memory, communication, and judgment. Realistic training attempts to help personnel recognize those effects and apply procedures despite them.

“Due of the nature of use-of-force training, hands-on practical training and scenario-based training have been most effective. Any time we practice or learn a new skill, we need to physically perform it and repeat it as many times as possible to create that muscle memory so that under stress, we can perform at as high a rate as possible.” RCMP 2017

Realistic, high-adrenaline scenario training is increasingly being used to prepare law-enforcement officers for the physiological and psychological demands of critical incidents. According to Angelica Huth in a 2020 article for Police1, “Police recruits need to learn to be effective and measured while controlling subjects during stressful encounters, and introducing them to this critical skill early in training helps ensure they get a head start in managing their emotions.” Huth’s discussion builds upon the concept of combat breathing, a technique designed to help officers regulate the body’s stress response. Under conditions of extreme stress, the fight-or-flight response can impair perception, decision-making, communication, and tactical performance. To address this, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police trains officers to employ controlled breathing techniques while en route to high-lethality calls, including active-shooter incidents. The objective is to help officers arrive better prepared to assess threats, make decisions, and perform effectively under pressure. Similar stress-management methods have long been used by the United States Armed Forces and are discussed extensively in military and law-enforcement training literature.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police incorporates breathing and stress-management strategies into officer training. Officers are taught to employ these techniques while en route to high-lethality calls so they can arrive better prepared to assess threats, process information, and respond effectively under rapidly changing conditions. Similar methods have been utilized for decades within the United States Armed Forces and other military organizations, where performance under extreme stress is a critical operational requirement.

I have been doing biofeedback with people for many years. It is very effective and has become mainstream in situations of acute stress reactions. In training with breathing techniques mentioned above, participants showed a lower physiological arousal in the tactical breathing (TB) condition, better performance was achieved in the prolonged exhalation (ProlEx) condition. Results indicate that TB may be superior in passive coping conditions, while ProlEx is more effective when active coping is required (Rottger et. al. 2021). I teach the prolonged exhalation method to people undergoing biofeedback treatment following traumatic exposure resulting in acute stress reactivity. Heart rate variability is key to adapting when a high stress response is needed. We need our hearts in times of danger and confrontation. Like the box breathing technique, the prolonged exhalation: three seconds in – hold – 4 seconds out, puts the brakes on sympathetic fight/flight/freeze responses and with training and practice, it can fascilitate lower stress-reactive physical dysfunction.

 It becomes essential that the burden from stress be mitigated at the end of each day. Unless this can happen, law enforcement officers and first responders alike may become cynical and lose resilience needed for a hardy career. In some cases, officers who are poorly regulated may become candidates for physical decline, career burnout, and questionable use of force.

Röttger S, Theobald DA, Abendroth J, Jacobsen T. The Effectiveness of Combat Tactical Breathing as Compared with Prolonged Exhalation. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2021 Mar;46(1):19-28. doi: 10.1007/s10484-020-09485-w. PMID: 32757097.