I am a 23 year law enforcement officer. I’m currently conducting research and strategies on the physiological effects of repeated trauma exposure and hyper-vigilance.
Here is a brief summary of what I want to measure and why. Police officers wake with 2-3 times the cortisol as the average person and where it is supposed to dissipate later in the day for people ,it doesn’t for Officers. The issue compounds with over night shift work. I have seen the use of HRV used to measure the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. First responders increased cortisol is a response of the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight mode). This inflammation leads to a cascade of issues like cardiovascular disease, PTSD, anxiety, suicide etc. Another stat to hit this home is the average person sees 1-2 critical incidents in their lifetime whereas officers we be exposed on average to 188 in a 20 year career.
Currently my Garmin Connect App shows my body battery 4w average between 5-45 out of 100 and two highs in the 60’s. My average heart rate is 116, my stress average is 47 that is compiled with lots of highs and lows.
I would like to work with Garmin and Firstbeat to develop widgets with features to warn officers when the sympathetic nervous system peaks and will measure the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. I believe we can do this using HRV, some of the current widgets may do this but for a marketing approach we may need to change the name. I would want to create an app specifically for it or add features to the connect app.
A majority of the officers and firefighters I work with wear the Garmin Instinct. Many don’t know how to use it and don’t see the benefit it could have. What does the market look like for this, there’s approximately 660,000 officers in America and 1.2 million firefighters.
Thanks for any input.
Mike
