Law enforcement are no strangers to threat and danger. It’s essential to the job. Officers sign up to confront violence and crime and often find themselves in harm’s way. When they do, a stress response is activated in the brain.
The stress response is familiar to most of us. We’ve all felt threatened at one point or another. There is an intensity of emotion, a tensing of the body, a compulsion to defend or protect. When we feel threatened, our bodies seem to separate themselves from our minds and react to keep us safe. This reaction is critical in life-or-death situations. It focuses our attention on defeating or escaping whatever the threat might be.
Read more in our full article in American Police Beat.