Category: Plan Your Health

One Comment

A Healthy Combination of Diet and Exercise for Cops

  By

My friend and fitness author Jon Benson sent me this email. I have his permission to share it with all of my friends who are in law enforcement or are police officers, sheriff’s deputies or work in corrections.  Despite the really personal details what he shares has a lot to do with people who work in law enforcement.  It turns out that he had a near-fatal event in the gym and wanted to share the story with my readers. I was blown away by what he did in the name of “preventative medicine”… so read this. It may just save your life.

John

———————————————————————-|

My Medical Emergency; This Happened Today
by Jon Benson

———————————————————————-|

Sometimes you have to nearly lose it all to realize what you truly have.

I can honestly say that I have come close to death several times in my life. I’ve had my share of accidents, medical emergencies, and a near-fatal accident while driving.

But there was something about just laying on the gym floor today with two doctors hovering over me that gave me serious pause.

Time for some major reflection.

Now, before you get too alarmed (for those who know me, or just think I’m a pretty good guy… ; )… fear not. I did not have a stroke or anything like that, thank goodness.

What I did have was a major drop in blood pressure… so much that I came dangerously close… Continue reading

6 Comments

The Future of Stress Management for Law Enforcement

  By

Teams of LE field professionals conducted hundreds of interviews prior to creating the US Department of Justice’s 222 page proposal to create Law Enforcement Stress Management Training in 1996.  The results can by synopsized as follows: EAP services, CI training, and city/county-wide services are necessary, but not enough.  The government’s top noted benefits of a preventative stress management program are:
•    to provide a confidential, specialized approach to treating and reducing stress for officers and their families, and to improve their ability to cope with stress on their own (most officers do not trust–or use–city or county programs)
•    to increase officer morale and productivity
•    to increase the agency’s overall efficiency and effectiveness Continue reading

8 Comments

Police Officers Need to Learn to Manage Stress Before it Ruins their Lives and Careers

  By

Here we tell the story of Chris Prochut (pronounced “Pro-Hut”) who was a Commander for the Bolingbrook Police Department at the height of the Drew Peterson investigation, who nearly lost his life, but instead lost his career.  Watch this Fox News video then Page down to listen to our interview with Chris.

From age 10, Chris Prochut knew he wanted to be a police officer.
Upon graduation from High School in 1991, he was hired as a part-time animal control officer for the Bolingbrook Police Department.
He advanced to full-time status as a Police Cadet in 1993.
In 1995, Chris was selected to serve the Village of Bolingbrook as a 911 Police & Fire Dispatcher.
After graduating with a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice Chris was hired as a Bolingbrook Police Officer in April 1996.
In August 2002, Chris was promoted to the rank of Sergeant where he supervised the C.O.P.S. (where he had worked) Unit, Animal Control, and Code Enforcement Unit.
He attended the Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command in January 2005 where he was chosen as Class President and was selected to receive the Kreml Leadership Award… Continue reading

One Comment

Creating Peer and Family Support Groups for Police Agencies

  By

I had a chance to interview three people who are involved in the Evansville Indiana Police Department’s Peer Support and Family Support Groups. I spoke with Police Chief Brad Hill, Sgt. Dave Barron and his wife Lori Barron in what proved to be a very informative interview.

Sergeant Barron was involved in a fatal shooting in 2003 and was then instrumental in the creation of the the department’s Peer Support Team. Because of what happened to her husband and it’s effects on her and other members of their family Lori, who is a cardiac rehab nurse, was involved in starting the Family Support Group for their Police Department. Chief Brad Hill, a 29-year veteran of the Evansville Police Department, was sworn in to office as chief in January 2004 and has been instrumental in the development of both teams through his support and leadership.

If you are considering starting either or both of these kinds of groups for your department you might ask yourself:

How does your department support officers involved in a shooting?
What about other traumatic events like the injury of an officer or their partner, how do you support them then?
How do you handle the effects of major natural disasters or mass injury accidents on the members of your department?
Do you provide support to officers who have handled cases of injured or murdered children?

What about the family of those officers involved in any of the events mentioned above?

The Evansville Police Department in Indiana has experienced all of those things and they have learned from their experiences and recognized that they need to provide… Continue reading

No comments

TPCG Helps Police Officers Manage Stress

  By

As the founder and CEO of Trance Personnel Consulting Group (TPCG) I am proud to be working with CopsAlive.com to help police officers and other law enforcement professionals learn to cope with the stress that you endure on a day to day basis.

TPCG has chosen a field thick with stress, trauma, denial, depression, overwhelming cynicism, abuse and suicide. Providing stress management and emotional survival tools to law enforcement agencies is not something that I take lightly. Never before have we encountered a group of people so steeped in all the many realms of societal dysfunction. These men and women are asked and expected to deal with worst case scenarios on a daily basis while many of us sip our morning coffee, contemplate our day, or tuck our children in at night. Of course there are other trauma-centric professions… Continue reading

No comments

Nutritional Tips for Cops

  By

CopsAlive is proud to welcome a new contributor as we introduce Tina Ulatowski, MSW who will be offering input on nutritional issues for police officers and law enforcement agencies.

As a three time cancer survivor, Tina now shares her story as well as educates individuals, groups, schools, and healthcare professionals on the correlation between nutrition and disease.   She is the author of the book “What Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You, A Simple Guide between Nutrition and Disease”.

Tina is a native of Colorado.  She obtained her Associates of Applied Science, with an emphasis in Criminal Law in 1992.  In 1994, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a Major in Social Work and a minor in Criminal Law. Then in 1999 while battling some of life’s obstacles… Continue reading

No comments

Police Suicide is an International Problem

  By

We’ve mentioned this before but as I have been watching the news lately there seems to be a preponderance of evidence to support this claim and I wanted to share some of the links with you.  To begin with you will find an excellent article in yesterday’s Boston Globe Sunday Magazine that has an excellent perspective on the issues.  CLICK HERE to read their article.  Forgive the links showing below but I wanted you to see where they are coming from.

Switzerland – January 26, 2010 – Police chief found dead on eve of Davos meeting
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g7hN7U5Anz-aL4lR33WLhzfDYsDg

Taiwan – A policeman shot himself to death early January 23, 2010 at the Hsinsheng South Road police substation of the Daan Precinct in Taipei, marking Taiwan’s second police shooting suicide in 10 days.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/local/taipei/2010/01/24/242073/2nd-police.htm

Philadelphia – January 25, 2010 Police in Philadelphia say an off-duty officer who died following a crash earlier in the week apparently killed himself.
http://www.timesleader.com/news/ap?articleID=3638927

India – December 22, 2009 ‘Harassed’ by senior, cop commits suicide. A sub-inspector with the… Continue reading

No comments

A Diet that Works for Cops!

  By

For those of you who are looking for New Year’s fitness ideas heres one from my friend and fitness author Jon Benson who was also on our cruise and that was part of a 3-week business vacation during which he LOST 11 pounds of body fat while I gained 6 pounds on the same cruise.  I met Jon on our first CopsAlive Cruise three years ago and this is a product that we use and have sold on CopsAlive for over a year.  If you are in law enforcement and struggle to maintain your wellness or are a police officer who is having trouble losing weight this might be for you.

Here’s an email Jon sent me this week detailing how he lost weight while I gained on the same trip… Enjoy!

John Marx

———————————————————————-|

How I dropped 11 lbs… on vacation?

———————————————————————-|

It was the weirdest thing …

I mean, I’ve been around you know? I’ve had just about every body and fat loss experience you can think of… the good, the bad, the ugly…

… and now the really bizarre.

Here’s the story:

I took off on an 8-day cruise to the Caribbean. This was a “business” cruise (yeah, right)… and I knew there was no way to eat the way I prefer to eat. At least not ideally. After that I had to speak in Tampa Florida at a fitness summit, then off to Las Vegas for yet another summit meeting.

All-in-all I was gone for almost three weeks.

First thing that I knew had to go was my “ideal” diet plan.

That’s my “Extreme” Plan on the Every Other Day Diet plan…

CLICK HERE

There are three plans in EODD:  The Primer Plan, which is literally “every other day”. You get to eat your favorite foods… Continue reading

No comments

Are You Living Your Life Like an Emergency?

  By

CopsAlive is pleased to welcome a new contributor in Diane Sieg.  Diane was an emergency room nurse for over 20 years.  She wrote her first book, “STOP Living Life Like an Emergency”, because she wanted to illustrate and identify how so many of us were living in such a frenetic state of more, better, faster.

Are you Living Your Life Like an Emergency?
As an emergency room nurse for over twenty years, I witnessed overdoses, car accidents, heart attacks, and gunshot wounds.  More often than not, the patients I treated created their own emergencies.  Whether it was falling asleep at the wheel, ignoring warning signs, or rushing to get something done, the emergency living they participated in contributed to the events that brought them to the ER.
Why are we all in such a rush?  This can be especially true for you as police officers where emergency living is full of chaos, crisis, and panic.  It keeps us moving at warp speed, always thinking about… Continue reading

2 Comments

Ten Tips Toward Total Wellness for Police Officers

  By

CopsAlive.com offers law enforcement professionals a list of Ten Tips Toward Total Wellness for Police Officers with supporting information from the Mayo Clinic and other health professionals.

1. Drink Lot’s of Water
2. Get Eight Hours of Sleep
3. Control Your Stress
4. Reduce Your Intake of High Fructose Corn Syrup Continue reading