Chief Patrick Flannelly from The Coptimizer Podcast

Chronic stress, poor sleep, hypertension, obesity and elevated cardiovascular risk all lead to the #1 health epidemic facing law enforcement officers in America today, cardiovascular death. 

On this podcast we are joined by Chief Patrick Flannelly from the Coptimizer Podcast and Sagahealth talking about unique testing they are doing to help early detection of cardiovascular risks and to help eliminate those risks. 

Chief Gault takes the blood tests and reveals his results on air. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Uh earlier on what's based on other website.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

On this episode of the Mowling Police Podcast, we are going to talk about what is killing police officers, their hearts. Patrick Finley is the retired chief of the Lafayette Indiana Police Department. His post chief consulting work owners on officer wellness, physical health, and cardiac biomarker screening. Before joining law enforcement, he served four years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force as a security policeman, and earned a bachelor's degree in law and society from Purdue University. He joined the Lafayette Police Department in 1995 and left the Department of Teachers from November 2012 until his retirement in March of 2022. Finally, a specified before Congress square at the Indiana Association of Foods of Police, Congress Elections Committee, served on the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy Training Board, and shared the IHCP Indiana Wellness Committee. He has a law history officer for physical fitness and wellness. Welcome to the Mowine Police Podcast, where you will hear conversations about our people, our cases, and our community. Moline is located in the heart of the Midwest along the Mississippi River. Just three hours from Des Moines, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois, the Moline Police Department has served our community since 1872. Our agency is guided by core values of professionalism, teamwork, and integrity that help us provide high-quality policing to improve the safety and quality of life in our community. This is the Moline Pass. Mike, I think this is going to be a really podcast that have that finally on today.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too, Chief. I have to run up to this as a five stars.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Spiritual hells. I think our first podcast uh physical wellness. I think a lot of officer wellness budwards have focused lightly on metal health with a lot of speakers. A lot of the conferences I've gone to at least of a lot of speakers on metal halls stuff. And most people assume that, you know, the greatest threat to police officers is really violence in the line of duty. That stuff gets the news a lot. But really, over the course uh of a career, there's a lot of resources to one of the dangers of really this heart disease. Uh it's one of the deadliest dangers uh in law enforcement study after study research that I've residenced teams and states as linked to fleece and the chronic trust or sleep, hypertension, hyperpressure obesity, elevated cardiovascular risk, uh both uh on the job and long after retirement. Uh heart disease is one of the leading causes of death among American law enforcement officers. So uh a friend of mine that I've I've um met a couple of years ago uh through a mutual friend, uh Pat Flannely, um, and I have been talking, and uh I wanted to bring him on to help us understand what this professor may be doing to our hearts and and the long-term health of police officers. And so we're today, we're joined by retired Lafayette Police Chief Patrick Flannelly. Chief, thanks for coming on today to our podcast to talk about officer wellness.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Well, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. I'm humbled and uh yeah, thanks. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about something that is incredibly passionate. I'm I'm very passionate about this. You'll probably take it on it if you haven't already.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, now we're we're all cops uh on this podcast today. We're not doctors. This is uh we're not giving medical advice. We want people to consult with their physicians if you're interested. And we're gonna discuss uh Dr. Jim Greenwald and Special Health and Saga uh Saga Health Corps, and uh they are gonna be good resources for you if you are interested in this. But we're gonna get into the weeds of uh police physical on us today. And um, you know, behind every badge is a hard working overtime, uh, not just in the line of duty, but even after the uniform comes off, and we're gonna look at one of the most overlooked areas uh of the job that's uh that may be doing damage to the heart of the people behind the badge. Uh and so we're even gonna look at maybe some of my blood work. I I had some blood work done and we're gonna let uh uh Pat talk about those today. Um and so I'm I'm really excited about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Chief Lanley, before uh before we get started in this, can you give our listeners a quick overview of your uh law enforcement career?

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Yeah, absolutely. Um I did four years uh Air Force Security Police back in the late 80s uh before I attended Purdue University. I graduated from Purdue, so not too far from you guys as a boilmaker. And uh started my my policing career in 1995. Pretty you know, pretty typical route. I was uh I worked night shift for many, many years. Uh but you know, I did patrol work for a a good part of my career, patrol officer, you know, eventually patrol supervisor, lieutenant in patrol, um chancellor duties uh in SWAT. I was a crime scene photographer, like you know, we're a mid-sized agency, so you have to fill a lot of different roles. But um I did my first wellness lecture and night I it was funny because I just found it not too long ago, uh back in 1999. And uh we're we're gonna talk about a lot of what I discovered then that really captured my attention. I was very fortunate uh to come across some of this data, but eventually uh you know, I worked um in a narcotics unit that was uh part of a an FBI safe streets task force, did that for several years, and then you know, I did I had every cop's dream job. I transitioned from work in uh narcotics to community outreach. And uh I know that's what everybody wants to do, that's their dream job. And uh I learned a ton in that role. Um actually it was kind of one of those things that was a very fortuitous move, uh, that somebody somebody saw something in me, recognized that I needed to get rounded out a little bit better, uh, you know, from a communications and uh community interaction perspective. So and you know, in hindsight, it's one of the best things that ever happened in my career. I didn't think think so at the time, but um I wound up eventually taking over as chief and uh did that for for 10 years before I retired. But uh wellness, officer wellness was a passion of mine throughout my whole career. Um and uh I could tell a few stories about that, but I'll just leave it there for now.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Tell us a little bit about Lafayette PD. You mentioned it was a mid-size agency.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Yeah, right on uh I-65 at the midpoint between Indianapolis and Chicago. So uh just over 150 sworn, about 200 in total personnel here in Tippecanoe County, Purdue University, right across the river. So we've got West Lafayette, West Lafayette PDE, Tippecanoe County, um Lafayette. So a little bit more, a little bit more urban and and blue collar, a lot of industry. Caterpillar, Subaru Azuzu, GE, Wabash, you know, Wabash trailer manufacturing company. So um it's it's a little bit different, you know, once you cross the river into into Lafayette. Um most of you know, we serve really about a 16-county uh radius when it comes to emergency and trauma care. The the two main, you know, actually right now the only two hospitals in Tippany County are both in Lafayette. So all the mental health services, uh all the addiction services, everything that that is uh police related is housed in in Lafayette. So it it creates a a lot of demand for police service in our so I would say you know, the metro the metropolitan area is about just over 200,000 people. And um, so we stay very busy. It's it's a very high tempo busy agency. You know, from a crime perspective, the um a lot of us, I think in that 250 mile radius of of Cook County and City of Chicago, a lot of you know, I I can just flat out say it, like in the 2015, we we did a little internal study with our analysts and we found that 67% of our part one criminal offenders that were in our local jail uh have a history coming from Chicago or Cook County. Um we're a little bit closer to Indianapolis, but Chicago uh really is you know a major influence uh on crime in our area. We have our own fair share of homegrown uh issues that we that we have to work through. But but for the most part, it's a very safe community, it's a very safe county. It's um it's been you know in the in the Forbes top 50 list a few times for for growing cities. Um the university has a very strong influence in our county, which is which creates a you know a fun and you know an interesting environment to live, work and and recreate.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Well, let's start with your own journey. Uh you you just told us about decades in policing, um, you know, SWAT, all these command roles that you had, and and then of course a decade as a police chief. When do you think the light bulb went on for you that officer wellness had to mean more than just passing that fit test or looking good in a uniform?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Yeah, I'll tell you the you know the first story I this wasn't intentional for me. I kind of stumbled on some of this data. Um, you know, when I was in the military, I had a lot of fun. Uh we worked hard, but we played hard. And uh, you know, so I like to drink beer, I like to drink uh my Mountain Dews, and you know, at one point I got pretty I got I'm on I'm 5'9 of you know, uh ectomorphic type of body frame, which is which means you know, thin bone. Um, you know, I would say crossover between ecto and and mesomorphic, but you know, I put on a lot of weight. And uh it really kind of took one of my friends pointing it out to me. He's like, Hey, aren't you in the military? Like, aren't you supposed to be like protecting us? He's like, I'm not sure you can fight your way out of a wet paper bag. And uh he, you know, it's kind of one of those moments where, you know, only your best friends can say something like that right to your face. And I was kind of like, yeah, you know what, he's not right. And uh I was stationed in Alaska at the time, so I I you know I I quit all that stuff and just started working out and exercising and doing, you know, reading muscle and fitness and stuff like that. So I really I I got in pretty good shape. I went from like 200 pounds down to about 180. And uh and then I got to college and I bartended. I was a 23-year-old, um, I guess sophomore junior. I had some credits and stuff from from the service. But when I got on to the police department in 1995, I was in good shape. Um, I enjoyed working out at that point, and uh uh exercise was just a part of my daily routine. So at the academy, I thrived in our in our fitness environment and firearms and stuff like that, did very well. Um and like a lot of young police officers, I was attracted to the tactical side of of operations. Being on our SWAT team was something that was a goal of mine. We had a you had to have to be on the department for a minimum of two years before you could even try out. And uh part of part of the the tryout process was a physical fitness test. So I just started researching fitness and and diving in to see what I can do to maximize my opportunity to score the best that I can on this test. And so I was working midnights at the time. I'll I'll try to make this story quick, um, but it really is kind of central to uh my story. Uh I never really had any trouble sleeping at night. I worked, I bartended in college at night. When I was in the Air Force, I worked night shifts. So at 20, you know, 23, by the time I graduated, I was 25. You know, I'm looking at seven years of of shipwork, and then I was very comfortable. I went right to the midnight ship. That's where I wanted to be. That's where all the fun was, that's where the action was. Quote where the real cops work, you know, on midnight. And uh I loved it. And um, so I read this book, and it was it was called The Power Diet, and it was written by a marathon runner because if you think back to the mid-90s, if you were trying to define who a fit person is, well, the fittest people were marathon runners or triathletes. So I read this book that said 60% of my calories should come from carbohydrates, 25% of my calories should come from uh protein or from fat, and then 15% from protein. And um I was disciplined, I started following this this regimen, and within a couple of weeks I uh I started waking up. I would use I would usually go to bed at 9 a.m. in the morning, wake up around 5 p.m. My routine was get up. I wasn't married, didn't have kids, so it'd be I'd get up, go to the gym, uh lift, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, back and buys, Tuesday, Thursday, chests and tries, Wednesday leg day, and then uh go home, eat dinner, hang out. Uh at the time we worked eight-hour trips, so it was I would work 11 to 7. In the morning I would get off. Um there was a really nice trail down along the riverfront in our city, so I would run anywhere from you know, depending on the day, I would run anywhere from five to ten miles, go home, uh eat my my healthy power diet breakfast, and uh repeat. And uh this this power diet breakfast consisted of like a big bowl of Wheaties, because you know, right, Wheaties are they make you healthy, and slice a banana on there, put some skim milk on, and then even for the added uh benefit, I would you know, sprinkle a little granola on there because you know just the the word granola means healthy. And uh at least in my mind it did. And uh I had this I had this issue pop up and and after the first couple weeks of doing this where where I used to sleep all day just fine, I started waking up around noon after two to three hours of sleep, and I was just ravished, just so hungry that I couldn't fall back asleep. And I I just I was getting really frustrated. So I would have to get up and eat a snack and then try to fall back asleep. And then I was like feeling like I was lacking discipline, I couldn't stick to this program, and then I was tired, I was going to work, I was irritable, and um that led me to one one of those days where I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep, I was frustrated. Uh I had a Barnes and Noble bookstore with a Starbucks in it just down the road, so I I zipped down there and got myself a 20-ounce coffee and just started perusing the bookstore and because I love to read. Reading is one of my passions. Uh, if I wasn't working out, I was oftentimes reading. And uh I just picked up this book and opened it up right into the middle. It was on the end cap, and which I often do just to kind of see if something grabs my interest. And the paragraph that I read said, if you uh if you're waking up hungry or you're having difficulty falling asleep, you might want to look at what you're eating before you go to bed. And it was literally one of those moments like the hair on the back of my neck stood up a little bit. I was looking around, like it felt like I had like a guardian angel or a ghost or somebody sitting there that just guided me to pick up that book and literally open it up to that page because I'm like, that's weird. Like, this is why I'm standing here right now. That book was called The Zone, written by Dr. Barry Sears. And I read that, I sat there, I read it, drank a couple of big cups of coffee, read that book, uh, went home, skipped my workout, kept reading, went to work, took the book to work with me that night, dodged as many calls as I could, uh learned about zone blocks and the the recommendation for why to eat, why 40% of your calories should come from carbohydrates, 40% should come from fat, and 40% should come from protein. And here's the macro breakdown, here's what each thing should look like. I went home, I went to the grocery store before I went home. I made this big omelet with cheese and sliced up vegetables and some some lunch meat. Went to bed and I slept like I hadn't slept in in in forever. And so I woke up that night feeling like my life had literally just changed, and I felt so good. And uh, of course, you know what that means from there is is like I was like the guy who just found Jesus, you know, for the first time. And like uh instead of handing out Bibles, though, I was going to work and I was handing out this own book, like, oh my god, you guys, you have to read this book. And uh I know that's that's a long intro and it's a long way into the story, but the the short takeaway was I learned about insulin and about the body's response to insulin and what happens physiologically in your body as you're processing food. And I had never thought about food that way. I've never thought about hormones, I didn't understand it, but I felt so good after that. And within three months, without changing anything in terms of my workouts, I took over a minute off of my mile splits. Uh my bench press went from like 235 to almost 300 pounds. I never quite hit a 300-pound deadlift or bench press. That was one of my goals. My weight went from 175 pounds down to about 160, 155. My two my push-ups, my sit-ups, everything like I was literally like a new person in a couple of months. And so the the lesson for me was wow, what I put into my body has such an extreme impact on my performance and how I feel. Like I just couldn't help but to share this with people. And I was I was known as the zone guy, and I was probably a little bit overdeveloped in hindsight. But that start that started me down this path of discovery and and trying to understand, well, if this is having such a main uh such a big impact on my performance, where else might it help? And uh that just it led me to a few other things. And uh some of that was the work of Dr. John Violante, even all the way back in the 90s. You know, John uh is at the University of Buffalo, he's a retired cop. Uh, he wrote the book dying for the job. But that was the first time I discovered this, you know, the the mortality data on police officers that were our average lifespans were 17 to 24 years below the you know the national average. Cardiovascular disease was killing us at rates that were far exceeding that of the general population. And um, yeah, so that's a long story and I'll be quiet there, but that that's what started me down this path. And um it's it's you know, I'm very, very thankful, very fortunate that I did read that data because I can now look back 30 years down the road and tell people um you know, I I can show you the example of what what happens and what's possible when you understand the physiop the physiology of hormones in your body's response to food, stress, sleep deprivation, and I'm sure we'll get into all that as we.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yeah, we well great story. And I think if you haven't worked fifth work, and I know based on uh our our audience and our listeners, we know there's there's police officers that listen to this and and there's family members that listen to us and there's just you know people in our community that listen to us that are interested. And they they sometimes don't understand um, you know, the chiff work effects on the body, and then of course we have police officers that are just trying to survive um that they've taken a shift, you know, third shift like it's their families or maybe that's third time at first uh narcotics or I work third shift a long time between my time and narcotics and then being a commander on a night shift, and I had a really hard time sleeping. Um and then and then oddly enough, when I came off of it after I got myself sleeping, I had a hard time sleeping back at when I went to days on investigations. But you know, you mentioned the data and research, you and I have both been doing this for 30 years of law enforcement. And the research really hasn't changed. It's it's got the the the mortality rate has been consistently greater than 20%, or for police officers in a general public, and it's not just on the job. We know that there's been studies, there was a big study of Milwaukee police officers, uh uh retired officers and active active active duty populations continue to have uh in the in the police profession, uh, higher rates of obesity, metabolic syndrome, sleep deprivation, cardiovascular disease compared with the general population. And so you just kind of talk to us about uh, you know, what kind of triggered this for you uh uh back many years ago, and then now you're retired and you're continuing to do this uh this new path and into consulting work and a new and new endeavor. And you're really in the space emphasizing sleep, encryption, stress control, exercising, and then also doing some um uh uh physiological or medical testing like blood work. How do you explain this philosophy to police officers that don't get it? What's the basis? Where where do you start?

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Well, it'll be difficult to cover this. I know we're like we have limited time today, so uh I often say this is like trying to pound uh 20 pounds of jello into into a 10-pound sack when you know we're trying to just describe this in a in an hour or 90 minutes, but I'll do my best. And I lived it and I experienced it, and that's why for me it was so transformational. Like I would if if you start talking food and macros to somebody that that maybe maybe they're not in a uh performance type of sport, maybe they're just trying to to live their day, a lot of times it's just gonna go right over the head, they're not gonna think about it. But you know, right now, insulin resistance, and we'll cover that in a little bit more detail in a minute, is is really the root of all inflammation and probably one of the biggest risks to our general population as a whole. But for police officers, all those risks are amplified because of what you said. We work shipwork. Shipwork is a carcinogen. The World Heart Health Organization declared that all I mean almost 30 years ago. Why? Well, because it disrupts our normal circadian rhythms, and humans are meant to sleep at night. They're not meant to stay awake be, you know, stay awake at at you know all hours of darkness and then and sleep during the daytime. You know, Alex if we were, right, we'd be like tigers, right? We could see in the night, but we can't. And so there is a physiological trade-off for when you do stay awake, and it really triggers these hormonal responses. Um what I try to what I what I try to capture the attention on is is if if you've gained a little bit of weight, if you're if you put a little extra notch in your duty belt, if you're feeling a little experience of the brain fog and and the sluggishness, it's it's not because you're just lazy. Uh it's that your body is giving these signals. And that is something that we need to pay attention to. And what we we need to educate our workforce on what it means to them, not just from a health and wellness perspective, but for police officers and police leaders, we have to understand what that means organizationally from an operational perspective. And so I I try to tell people that wellness is not an optional add-on thing that we should be doing uh just to check a box inside of our organizational. We have to think about it as an operational imperative because we spend a lot of money on equipment, we spend a lot of money on salaries and benefits and training, and we we we spend a lot of time teaching people how to use firearms, we spend a lot of time in math rooms, probably not enough, right? Not enough time on the on the driving courses, yeah, doing evoc, not enough time shooting guns, and you know, your cops will always tell you that they always need they need more, they need better equipment, they need more training, and you know, no chief is ever going to disagree with that, but you also have to cover ships, you have to run operations, you have to manage the city. But all of those things that we're doing are designed and and for a purpose to make sure that we're providing the best level of service we can provide and stay safe while we're doing it. But if we're doing it in a suboptimal state because we're sleep deprived, because we're working night shifts, we're waking up in the middle of the day, our circadian rhythms are being disrupted, all that time, money, and effort that we've invested into the officer is no longer being optimized, and we're draining and bleeding value because the most important piece of equipment that any police officer brings to work with them every night is the six inches between their ears. It's the brain. The brain in our body makes it makes everything else function. So it doesn't matter if you if you have the latest handgun with the coolest uh you know topic on it, if the officer that's operating it is working at a 20% recovery because they've they've worked six nights in a row, they're getting four hours of sleep a day, their decision making is impaired. And then to a larger point, we really focus on these tactical things from a training perspective because they're tangible, they're fun, there's a things that the cops signed up, that's what we want to do. But we are dying at cardiovascular disease rates at 25 times that of violent assaults. And then additionally, our suicide rates are 12 times that as violent assaults. And if we have time, we can touch on that as well, where there is a direct metabolic component to anxiety and depression as much as there is to weight gain and other things, because these are all operating in the same biological pathway. So it's a long way of saying I I try to c I try to cover a lot and and capture that attention, but I I think that as investigators, as people that should be curious about the why behind everything that we do as police officers, the understanding of what's impairing our decision-making ability, what's impairing our health, what's impairing our overall uh operational capacity, you know, that should be first and for you know, front and center in our minds. It should be one of the first things that we really think about. Think about root causes, think about sources, um, because once we identify that and we start to address that, everything else gets better. And that's and that's what we've been able to do. It it's just a it's a little bit different approach. I think all you know, you mentioned earlier, right, when you go to go to a lot of seminars and and conferences, mental wellness is always a big topic, as it should be. It deserves it deserves that space. But the one thing that the one thing that we're always talking about is how do we fix these issues after they're broken. Um and I don't like to use the term broken cops. I just you know, I I just think some of these issues that we have um that that will show themselves in different ways. Um could be a disciplinary issue, could be poor poor performance, could be trouble at home, uh, could be substance abuse. A lot of these things, you know, there's there's a there's a upriver cause that's driving some of these things. And uh that that's my goal is to help people try to understand the system as a whole and uh to really take a data-driven approach to to your own health.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

And um sorry, that's a lot, but that's no, it's all it's it's hard to get it all out. Chief Flandley. Uh when Chief uh to be completely transparent with you, I uh I was one of the ones that took the police fitness test this morning, and then I followed that up by uh eating a large pizza cake. And as we stay here, I'm drinking a monster energy drink. So when uh Chief Galt told me about this podcast content, I can imagine uh you know that I don't know much about terms like lipoprotein. Can you explain that, what that means to people like me and people that aren't familiar with this you know, uh probably an overly healthy lifestyle. And I know you've never seen me, I'm not a big guy, but I do like sweets.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Yeah, well, we all do. And there's a reason why we like sweets, um, because we're tapping the uh the dopamine uh hormone in the brain. That's what we're doing. It's it's sweets are not much different than you know what a what a crack addict sees when he sees someone, you know, when he sees an eight ball. So we're all talking, we're talking about the same pathways. Um I like to joke about it, but you know, it's funny when uh when I took over as chief, everybody was freaking out because I owned a CrossFit gym. You know, I had a group of people that you know were heavily involved in what we were doing. We're kind of these fitness fanatics, and everyone's like, oh no, the chief's gonna make us all do CrossFit. And uh that was, you know, I started doing CrossFit all the way back in in 2005. So it's a totally different story, but to your point, um, you know, my goal was never really to make people CrossFit athletes. I did eventually put a uh nonprofit CrossFit affiliate in our training center, but it was because I wanted people to have access to a high-quality facility where they could work out, where they could exercise, where they could find whatever they're gonna do that they find enjoyment in that they could do. And when you when you're looking at wellness programs, and you know, Steve can probably support me on this, we spend a lot of money on wellness programs. Municipalities spend a lot of money. And what the what the data shows us is that we get about four to seven percent engagement in in these wellness programs. And EAP programs while you know, and the the strength of those programs has grown tremendously, uh, particularly since the 21st century policing initiative and that document uh was produced uh over a decade ago. Um yeah, it's the data the data is pretty clear. We're not engaging in these programs, even though we're spending money on them. And then even in the EAP programs, you you look at maybe 20% participation. I think the match last time I looked, it was like 17%. Um, but that was generally people were engaging after there was a severe disciplinary issue or something traumatic happened at work. There wasn't any preventative uh way to do this. So in one one of the programs that I got involved in, and just this was really even through my own, my own uh alternative medicine position, he ran me through these lab, these lab tests um that were very comprehensive. I got a 20-page report back and I learned this thing called uh lycoproteins and what particles were, and this one in particular called lipae small A, LP little A, which is a genetic trait that's in about 20% of the population. And it means that you have an extra little tail on your LDL cholesterol, and it's an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. So even people that are very healthy and doing everything right might have this independent risk factor. But it really made me look at, okay, well, wow, these labs are really comprehensive. But when I go to get my annual physical, um, I don't see any, I get HDL, LDL, photocholesterol, and triglycerides. And it's it doesn't look anything like this. So I started researching this and I started finding somebody that would help me put together a program where we could bring this testing to our police officers. And that's how I got involved with uh Dr. Greenwald, uh Jim James Greenwald, Reno, he's in Reno, um, and he had done work with uh now retired Chief Steve Pitts and a few others out there, um, they had a a DOJ recognized bonus program all the way back into 2013 uh when they were using labs. So um I that's what I wanted to do. Uh somebody else had already kind of shown that you can do this at the organizational level. So if you want to get people to participate in behavioral change, if you want to get them to understand what's happening to their health, fitness is just one indicator, right? Can I ask how you did on your fitness test today? Did you did you pass?

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Oh, yeah, I passed. But our standards are I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

All right. Well, I say that jokingly, but we also know that less than two percent of police departments in America have uh fitness as a job qualifying standard. Um a lot of departments will require officers to participate in fitness evaluations annually, but their jobs are at stake, um, which is a little bit different than the fireside. Um but if you think about that, right, you have to go through an academy, you have to pass these rigorous standards. Well, they're not rigorous, but you have to pass standards to get out of an academy to graduate. But then after that, no ongoing real requirement. The Supreme Court says agencies can have these standards, but very few agencies do. And there's you know, that's a whole nother podcast to discuss why, but ultimately, you know, fitness, fitness is just one indicator of overall health. And you know, my you know, my background in in fitness really led me down this path to understanding you know the physiological response to food, how it impacted hormones. So I was very lucky, but most people don't see that data. And you know, when you're young, you you know, we all kind of feel a little bit bulletproof. Uh we don't think too much about the, you know, back when you're in your mid-20s, you know, you think of old timers, a guy that's in it, you know, in his late 30s or early 40s. And you know, you look at it, you know, you look at some of some of the guys out you know out on the street that have been working the job for 15 years, you know, it's it's beat them down pretty good. Um so the the long way around the barnet again is what I have found is the one thing that has driven participation into engagement in a wellness program, a physical fitness program, is lab work, comprehensive lab work that identifies potential risk.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Well, let's talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about those labs, those labs because I would agree with you. I I've uh so my backstory to my interest in this area is that my dad passed away when I was 12 years old, uh, had a heart attack. And um, so that you know, I live with that every day, and it's always been in the back of my mind. And so, you know, I've tried to live a healthy lifestyle early on, you know, in my teen years and probably into college, just like you, just didn't pay attention to it. But it was always in the back of my mind, and I'd always worked out um, you know, mostly with weight, uh, more of a weightlifter. But I did I have run a marathon. I did do that with a a colleague when I was in East Moline. Uh him and I, three three of us ran the Indianapolis marathon, actually. And um because it was flat, Pat. I ran that because it was it was the flattest marathon I could find. There was no help. But anyway.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Um that track is hard, dude.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Like people love to run on the 500 track point, but um, I don't know if the one that you ran, like Indy Mini goes around the Yeah, I did the monumental, I did the monumental marathon, ran all the way around uh indie. But um, yeah, so so uh but I can tell you I started to get into lab work. Um one of my doctors that I uh go to here uh was uh I I think Dr. Petrie, a lot of people go to him here. He's like a lipidologist, he likes to look at lipid panels. But over the years I've I've uh found different um people online, like Gary Barecca is a national speaker, uh big into labs, owns a company that does some of these testing. I've had different tests done, and I would agree with you. I think that those are um life-changing or perspective changing. And then, you know, there's a lot of people, cops dabble in the supplementation, uh taking creatine, taking protein, taking vitamins, all these different things, but they don't know what they really need for their body because they've never had lab work done. So we're gonna talk specifically about cor uh the coronary lab work today, but there's all other lab work you can have done to make sure you're taking the right vitamins. But to your point about like LP little A, um, you and I were together a couple three weeks ago, and um, and you were like, hey, you should just you should take these tests, so you set me up with um this uh specially health uh system that you just mentioned, Dr. Greenwald, and uh you have a copy of my labs there. I mean, we can just kind of tell people what what what were tested, what labs were tested, and why they're important. I got a very comprehensive report back. Um, I think it's I don't know, probably all together, maybe over 20 pages, um, the raw scores and then some charts. And they uh did some uh unique testing that you you know if you go into your regular general practice doctor, they're gonna draw blood and they're gonna do, like you said, your cholesterol, uh your triglycerides. And uh 25 years ago, maybe not even that long ago, cholesterol was evil, right? The the levels of cholesterol were just the sole marker for cardiovascular risk. And that's really changed. And to get to the root of some of your um real concerns in cholesterol, you have to do these advanced NMR, this nuclear resonance testing on uh on cholesterol particles, and then really, you know, like you said, testing this LP little A, which I had done. So, do you want to walk through some of these tests that that um Specialt Health did and and talk about uh the my results or what what someone should be looking for in these in these test results?

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Yeah, absolutely. And um so what we're talking about is moving from the lipid world into the lipoprotein world. And just like you're explaining, the NMR is it's the easy way to explain is kind of like an FMRI for your blood. It doesn't just look at your HDL and your LDL particles, it actually looks down into all the subparticles that make them up, like what they consist of. So it's it's if you imagine a microscope, it's like going deeper and deeper and deeper into and zeroing in on something. And we focus we look at seven lines of data primarily. But what we're really looking for, the thing that we look at most for cops and for first responders is what we call the lipoprotein insulin resistance score. And it's a it's a laboratory developed index, it's been associated with insulin resistance and diabetes risk and should be used as is really as like one of the main components anytime you're trying to make a clinical assessment. And again, like we said at the offset, um, you're not a doctor, I'm not a doctor, I didn't sleep at the Holiday Anne Express last night. But but I've been looking at these labs for over 20 years. Um and this is the best thing that I've ever seen or found that will drive behavioral change because what it does, it educates people on and helps them understand what their real risks are. And we Can stratify that risk out over years, not just today. In the early warning, the canary in the coal mine of any of that data that you're looking at is that LPIR score. So why is LPIR an insulin resistance public enemy number one for policing? It's because it drives all of these other risk factors, it's the root cause of chronic disease. And we can test for it. We can see it coming 10 years in advance. So for officers that are getting treated for high blood pressure, if they're getting, you know, if they have obesity, if they're getting migraines, if they have dementia that runs in their family, if they if they have Alzheimer's, uh something that men don't like to talk about, um sexual uh issues, like erectile dysfunction issues, these are all signs potentially of insulin resistance. So this fMRI is going to break things down. And we look at that LPIR score, which is a calculation of these particles and the subparticles. So looking at your test, your L what we call the LDLP, your total particle count is really good. You're below a thousand. That would put you in the green zone. We would say anything below a thousand is good. Between the thousand and fifteen hundred, you're in starting it in the elevated range, the cautionary range, and then above 1500, you're you're getting into the high risk range. And so your LDLP is just one component of that LDLC, your tonal cholesterol. So when you break those particles down, you have what people are known as what the good cholesterol and the bad cholesterol, HDLP or HDL and LDL. But those those all have different particle particles inside of them. So in your LDL, we're looking at what they call large pattern A or small pattern B. A small LDLP and LDL size are associated with cardiovascular risk, but not after LDLP is taken into account. So there's an equation that comes in there. So you have your test came back 21.5, uh where and and then you have so your range, you're in what they call the large pattern A, like you're dead smack in the middle in the healthy range. Uh, you have generally small LDLP. So your LPIR score was 37. That's a sliding scale from it from zero to 100. Anything above 40, you're you're starting to move into the insulin resistance range. You'll be diagnosed as insulin resistant if you're 41 or above. So to put this into context, the groups that we've run, and we've been running these groups uh for over a decade now. I've done my own agency, I've done a group of chiefs here in Indiana, we've done work in Nevada, uh, Dr. Greenwald and different folks have run this at Quantico at different times. We find that 70 to 80 percent of cops that are getting tested are insulin resistant and they don't know it.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

So what explain explain insulin resistant to someone who might not get that?

SPEAKER_04 47:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

So to define insulin resistance, you're really you're um let me think of a good way to uh there's a couple ways to explain this, but it's really a condition where your body's cells become less responsive to the hormone insulin. So that leads to the dysregulation of your blood sugar levels. And to kind of even go upstream, and this is a very simplified explanation of it, um, when you eat food, your body is is gonna, your your metabolic processes, right, are gonna release hormones and they're going to take care that you're gonna grab that energy from food and they're gonna use it in different ways. So when you blood sugar, when what when you eat food, carbohydrates generally get processed very fast into blood sugar. That glucagon enters your bloodstream, your body, your pancreas then releases in uh releases insulin to go out to grab that and convert it into energy. Your brain loves glucose. It's a glucose eating machine, uh up to around, you know, depending on which studies you're looking at, but really um, you know, it it's it's the one thing in your the one organ in your body that uses the most amount of glucose. So but there are two energy systems that the body works on. And and so when you eat a lot of carbohydrates, you're primarily feeding on glucose for energy. And all that if you eat too many carbohydrates, your blood sugar goes up, your pancreas releases insulin in response, it converts that into energy, and then from what's not used for energy in the moment is then transported into fat cells. And so your body produces fat cells and it stores that that uh blood glucose in those fat cells so it can be released later for energy. When you constantly abuse that system, and there's different things that drive, you know, you know, that drive that that glucose into the bloodstream because we need it, it's a good thing. Too long and too much can start to impair your glucose metabolism. So insulin resistance is a result of this impaired glucose metabolism, which leads to obesity, eventually type 2 diabetes. What does that mean? It's been linked to cognitive decline, uh, reduced attention, reduced memory, impaired decision making. Insulin resistance can contribute to like stress, fatigue. Um, it can compromise the mental well-being and resilience for first responders, and it can decrease the physical performance. So, you know, in a nutshell, you eat food, your insulin level goes up in production to grab and use that energy. What's not used in that moment gets stored. What happens when people eat high carbohydrate meals is you get these big spikes, and then that uh the body produces a lot of insulin, sends that insulin out, grabs it, and then it stops, and then those insulin levels start to decline. And sometimes they decline pretty rapidly, which sends these false hunger signals to the brain that's saying, oh man, you're hey, your glucose levels are dropping, insulin's dropping, we need to eat. And so this is a prime example of why, like, especially for cops who are operating in a high stress environment who are in a hyper-vigilant state, you walk by a cookie and it looks really good, and you eat it. Um, it feels good for the next 15 minutes, but then you kind of feel sluggish and tired. Or you eat a big plate of a big meal of spaghetti or a burger with a big plate of french fries. Tastes great in the moment, but it gives you this huge insulin spike and then this crash. And what most people just don't realize is that excess insulin is converting all of that glucose, that excess glucose, into fat. So you you start to gain weight, and then eventually you run out of places for that fat to store in the fat cells, and then you start getting certain higher levels of circulating uh fat, which that is an indicator like your triglycerides start to go up. So we do measure triglycerides and we do want to see them, but rising triglycerides are just an again another symptom. So uh it can it can get pretty complex, and that's why I I really recommend when you when you do these tests, have somebody sit down and explain it to you, what it means and why it's important. But when you see that, when you know we just do this in in just plain red, yellow, green. Green is good, red is bad, yellow is cautionary. And when you see your numbers in red, it tends to capture your attention, and now you can start asking the question why? Why am I in red? Well, why are cops in red? Why do cops have higher levels of insulin resistance? Well, we've mentioned one thing sleep deprivation. What happens when you're sleep deprived? Well, your cortisol levels elevate. What does that do? Well, that requires energy. So your body releases glucose for energy from the liver, which then, you know, then your body in response is going to produce insulin from the pancreas. So that's a good thing. Cortisol makes us, you know, the normal process and normal flow of these things is good for our health, it's good for our energy, it's good for our attention. But the constant peaks, the constant valleys, the spikes are really high, and then the lack of ability to recover is where we start to get into trouble. So that's where we start to really want to dive into those particle counts to look to see what the particles are doing to be, you know, to give us clues. That's why we call this program, you know, once when we presented this to IECP uh wellness proposing, we call it the blood doesn't lie. Again, tapping into that investigator's mindset that when these levels uh what when the the blood can help us solve crimes through DNA, splatter, and everything else, but it can also, if we look inward, looking at these um these comprehensive labs, we can begin to see the picture of what's happening for us. And the other thing I also like to point out is that these labs, um, you know, health is highly individualistic. Population data can give us a good direction, but the more we've learned in the last 10 to 20 years, we've really, really started to discover that it's not it's not always wise to base your decisions about what you're gonna do based on what is successful for somebody else. We can learn from that, but we can also begin to see that the devil is in the details, literally. Like we've got to get down and look into these particles to see which direction we're going. So I don't know if that's too deep or not deep enough, but um I don't want to confuse people either in the short term.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

No, I think it's good deep. Um I'm uh talking I was uh registering panel myself. Um and I got dark and minority. So what do you do in my yellow or some red? Um what do you do? Do anything. How do we go from there if someone has a core on desktop topic?

SPEAKER_03 55:41

Yeah, well, it's all of the above. And um, you know, one of one of the physicians that we worked with for years, you know, he has a great saying, it you know, first you got to see, you gotta know. And what Greeny always tells us, Dr. Greenwell, we call him Greeny, um, he says, you know, any plan always has to start with the correct diagnosis. So you have to understand what the problem is first, uh, and then take active steps to engage what that problem is, and then you have to measure. And this is kind of where I like to talk to police chiefs about this. Um, you know, we just don't send our well, maybe the old way, right? You you know, you got your assignment for your squad car, you jumped in it, and you drove around. Maybe you had a district or a beat or a part of the city, but you pretty much just went and did whatever you wanted to do. Um, and so data a data-driven enforcement process is really looking at well, where are our problems? What's driving our calls for service, and then how do we develop a strategy and a plan to address that? So call this Comstat for your for your own health. Get the lab, get the measurement, see what's working, see what's not working, uh, and then take steps to implement. It's all of the above. So we look at lifestyle, we look at stress, we look at nutrition. And depending on where you are on that spectrum, on that continuum, then that's that's gonna drive the decisions that we make. And so let me let's let's just do this for fun for an example. Um I um I went through um this test with uh a police chief from New Jersey just the other day. It was in his 30s, right? So we and and you and I'll just go through all these numbers real quick and then I'll tell you what we did in line. Um is glyc A, which is glyc A is one of the things that we test for. It's one of the seven lines of data, and it is uh an inflammatory marker. It's so it's it lets you know what what level of inflammation that you have in the body. You really want to be below 360. Uh between 360 and and 400 is moderate, above 400 is you know, you're now in the high risk range. So he's in the moderate inflammation range. His HBA won't see. Uh, you you know, you're typically not going to get this on a lab test unless you ask for it. Some labs will, some labs won't. Uh was 5.4, which is low, which is in a good range. Anything 5.7 to 6.3 is moderate, anything above 6.4 is high. What we would tell you is that if your h if your HBA1C is above 5.6, 5.7, then you're starting to get into the cautionary range. His LDLP was uh just under 1800. So, you know, if we compare that on Darren on do you want me to share if your number is five ones? So Darren, Darren was in the 900 range, well below a thousand. And I won't say how old you are, but uh I'm 50. You know, you're getting up there a bit.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

All right. Um, we see this constantly. Young patrol officers working night shifts or even day shifts that have gained 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds because 80% of cops are overweight. You didn't know that. 40% are clinically obese, and just under 20%, I actually it's probably exceeded that now, are morbidly obese. So we would expect to see high LDL particle counts for them. Um so right then and there, what we know is like, okay, he's he's in a he's in a risk range, and when we looked at his LPIR score, you know, he's in a in a in a high LPIR range uh in the 60s. But he's got some good things, right? He you know, his his HBA1C is is under control, his inflammation is just a little bit low. Um so for him, the first question I have is is how do you sleep? Um he's he's sleeping about four and a half hours a night. Not good. All right. It's a long explanation, I'll make it really quick. When you don't sleep seven to eight hours a night, right, and and go to sleep at a normal time and wake up at a regular time, you know, that can give it you know, give a take for people. Early in the morning before you wake, your cortisol levels start to rise naturally, right? Because that's you know, our blood, you know, our blood sugar starts to drive, that's what's raising our awareness, that's bringing us from a sleep state to awake state. It's we're adding energy, and and conversely, towards the end of the day, our cortisol levels tend to decline. And those things are built naturally around um sunrise and sunset, these normal circadian uh clocks. And so for him, he's not sleeping well. And so he's you know, New Jersey has a great first responder wellness program. He's getting uh that's covered by the state. He's getting a comprehensive sleep exit study done. So he's gonna find out what's happening at sleep. Do I need to get a T PAP? Um, because we can do a lot of things with nutrition and exercise that can help. But if you're not sleeping well, um, you know, it's gonna be hard to correct some of these things. And we might not really know um, you know, what what the real issue is for him. So yeah, that that's his first step. He's getting his sleep diagnosed. Um we'll know, but then we look at what his nutrition looks like on a daily basis. We are when when you are insulin resistant, uh, we like to use a low-carb approach to nutrition, a therapeutic ketogenic diet. Why we want to convert your body into having the being able to shift to what we call good metabolic flexibility. When you deplete your stored level of glucose in your bloodstream and in your liver, your body starts to produce ketones. Ketones are the human system's way of being able to tap into a fat cell and convert the fat cell to energy. Your brain loves ketones, and ketones have a lot of different properties that are not just good for converting fat to energy, but they're uh they can create like good uh you know, beta hydro beta hydroxybutyrate, which is you know, it can help with brain processing, it can help with lowering inflammation. Um yeah, so for you, I you know, just based on what you said, I uh you know, I ate a piece of cake and I had a I had an energy drink after I worked out. Yeah, if you're gonna have something like that, you know, you know, a post-workout, probably not a bad time to do it because that's when you you know your muscles are one of your greatest glucose sinks in your body. So having having a good amount of lean muscle mass is a great way to help regulate your blood sugar. Uh people with low leak low uh uh lean muscle mass are gonna have you know typically higher levels of circulating uh um insulin. So and glucose, I'm sorry. So yeah, I mean that like why do we use a therapeutic ketogenic diet? Well, because you the you know my backyard neighbor, uh Buster Heart woman named Sarah Halberg ran the largest clinical study that's been done. Uh they're now, I think, at eight years post-study. Um, but using that type of uh nutritional approach, they were able to reverse type 2 diabetes or put into remission type 2 diabetes 60% of their studies subjects. Uh right around 25% significant reduction in uh the need for medications, and then really about a 10% non-compliance rate. So insulin resistance is the precursor to type 2 diabetes. If we can get that insulin resistance under control, we can reduce those risks for type 2 diabetes, and then all of those other associated uh diseases that uh civilization that come along with that. So um while life saying, yeah, I would tell you how did you know my next question for you is going to be how do you how do you sleep and like how many hours of sleep are you getting at night?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

You know, I've been sleeping good, so I I've spent blessed on my for only work 34. Probably not even that at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Oh my god, uh, you can't do it. Summary for people. Uh, particularly if you're, you know, remember back when you maybe took your physical for getting the job. Uh they may t may send you four physical, they might even do a stress test or an XS x-ray. You get a physical exam, they took your heart height and weight, stuff like that. Um probably got labs, basic labs done. We all do that on an annual, or hopefully people do that on an annual physical, but they're just checking kind of the basics. And what you've talked here today is what's I think the big takeaway here is there are labs that can be done, and where most cops are not measuring insulin resistance, their hemoglobin A1C, their LDL particle numbers, their lipoprotein A, their little the little A, that genetic test, and their glycan. And those can be done fairly inexpensively and give you a big picture on your advanced risk of a cardiovascular disease or a cardiovascular event, and it's preventable. You can take a step like you just said to turn it around. It's not uh it's it's not over. You can uh make some simple changes with a coat and uh and know your risk and and make a change to get back into normal glucose levels, normal LDLCs, uh normal stress levels, and in uh you may not understand what is going on inside your body without these blood tests. Is that a fair fair assessment?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

Absolutely. And uh if if you can give me about two minutes, I'll hit them. I'll hit them just topic by topic, we'll knock it out. And all I really want to do today is uh hopefully raise your awareness and your curiosity as to what this test is and why it's so important. Because most labs are underpowered. That's what Greeny would say, and they're not giving you the right diagnosis. And people get pretty dogmatic about uh nutrition, and there are so many people out there, these influencers on every channel. Uh you see it everywhere. Every, every, you know, people we love to share success stories. So, hey, I lost, you know, I got you know overweight, you know, I found myself, I lost 100 pounds, and this is how I did it, and you should do it too. And you know, maybe some of those things would work, but maybe some of them wouldn't. And one of the things I'm passionate about is like I lived this, right? I worked night shifts, you know, for for 20 years straight. Like, you know, I wish I I would as a badge of honor at the time, but you know, in hindsight, like how much you know, how much damage should I do long term? So, glucose, it matters. We measure it. It's your primary energy source for your body, but chronically high glucose will damage your blood vessels, it stresses the heart, it accelerates aging. It's the front door to type 2 diabetes. So you gotta know what your blood glucose levels are doing. Insulin is the hormone that helps move glucose into the cells for energy. Why does it matter? High insulin means your body's becoming resistant, which drives metabolic dysfunction, weight gain, and fatigue. Do you feel that as a cop ever? Yep. We talked about H1C and HBO1C. It's a three-month blood uh uh average of your blood sugar levels. It helps detect prediabetes and diabetes earlier than just glucose alone. Uh glucose alone is not just a good indicator. LDLC, cholesterol. You know, you know, LDLC is a measure of cholesterol that's carried within your LDL particles. So why does that matter? High levels can raise cardiovascular risk, though in some cases it can miss risk factors entirely. And there's a lot of data that's coming out on that now. Like people like are really concerned about statins. Should I be on a statin? Should I not? Standard of care will more often than not just tell you go on a statin because your cholesterol is high. But you know, the new data is saying, well, maybe that's not the right choice. Maybe we need to educate ourselves a little bit better on what alternatives we have before we make the decision to medicate. In some cases, I think that's the absolutely the right move. In other cases, it's like, well, what are my immediate risks? And then how do I make the best decision moving forward to see if I can reverse these things on my own without putting myself at additional risk? So that's why the LDLP matters. It measures those particles using the NMR technology. It's more predictive than just LDLC alone. Uh LDL, you know, more particles means you have a higher risk factor for total plaque. Plaque is when that um starts to calcify, and you know, you have soft plaque and and and you know, calcified plaque, triglycerides. You know, that's the type of fat that's circulating in the blood. You need it, it's important. But high levels increase the risk of heart disease, especially if you can if somebody has low HDL. So that's why we want to look at those things. If you have low HDL and high triglycerides, um, you're you know, you're in a danger zone. So, you know, that's what we call the HD the triglyceride to HDL ratio, and why it matters. A ratio of greater than three signals that you're insulin resistant. Lower ratios indicate, you know, ideally you want to be at a one-to-one ratio. And you can do that by understanding what you're eating and how it's impacting you personally. And then, you know, ultimately that's what drives that um that total uh LPIR score. So, and then the LP little a, you only need to get tested for once. You either have the trait or you don't. Me personally, I'm unfortunate carrier of LP little A. I've lived my whole life in you know, in keeping all of my numbers in the optimal range until I hit my early 50s and my LPA numbers started to go up. So uh there are while there are some pharmaceutical interventions that are in phase three clinical trials right now for LP little A, the best the best way to treat it is with lifestyle intervention and you know, maybe even some other pharmaceuticals. But you have to look at that in combination to all these other risk factors. You know, is someone's fitness levels good? Are they sleeping well? Or, you know, are they overweight? Are they in a good way? So, you know, and you know, really just to kind of in summary, the only way to find these things out is to test and to test with the deep numbers. The the regular rats are just underpowered, they're not gonna do it for you. And so that's why I write about this stuff, that's why I travel and I preach this from the mountaintop. And uh I I I apologize because I know I I get on these long uh explanations, but it's just it's so important to me to help others understand how this can save lives. And uh I I know I know that I've saved lives in in these testing groups that I've done, and um I'm that's why I just want to share it with others.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

Well, and that's what we want to do. We want to bring awareness and we want to make people healthier, uh, we want to save lives. But as you also said, I think if we fix sleep, food, movement, and and preventative screening, we also have the opportunity to reduce misconduct, absenteeism, and burnout. Do you would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:30

100%. And that goes back to my opening statement. Wellness is not optional, it's operational. And you have to do it all. And and I could talk about ROI, the return on investment, and it this is one of the things that frustrates me to no end is in the in the world right now, we've never had a higher demand on the expectation of professional police service. Never before have that standards been so high, never before has scrutiny been so high. Yet when we start talking about wellness and investing in the individual, suddenly there's no money. Oh, we can't afford that. We're not gonna write those checks. And so what happens is we have a systems failure because we don't invest what we need to and in our first responders, and it's not really just cops, but you know, we're all cops here. So we then when we have a an endpoint failure, like a disciplinary issue, like uh a critical incident that goes bad. Maybe someone throws five punches when that when they should have only thrown one. And we're not doing that, we're not trying to understand. Well, guess what? He just worked eight ships in a row, 12 hour ships. He's been averaging three nights of sleep or three hours of sleep a night. He's been called into court four times in the last five days. Nobody can no one in the public doesn't care when stuff like that happens, but we blame the individual, right? That's the fundamental attribution error. We blame an individual, but the system is the problem. So, yes, 100% chief. I mean, we have uh, you know, this again, you can see me, you can hear my passion probably getting a little bit up. And uh I I really right it's frustrating to me to you know to you know what other profession in the world would we defund them? Would we cut their funding, but then yet increase the demand on their workloads? And oh, by the way, we're gonna expect you to perform better.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

Yeah, it's it's uh we we got to do more to try to save the lives of those uh who are out there saving lives for our first responders. Pat, this has been awesome. We probably could do another podcast, maybe invite you back. Uh maybe Mike will get his blood work done and we'll we'll analyze it. But uh Pat, how can you get them done? How can uh how can our listeners continue following you or Greenie? Uh how can they learn more?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:53

Yeah, I appreciate that. Um you can go to our new website with the program that we're running this program now, I'll get help school.com with S A L dot com. You can reach out to me, uh Pflannelly, F-L-A-N-N-E-L-I-Y, I'll get help school. We're really just uh probably the easiest way is to find me on LinkedIn, Patrick Flannelly. Um I write a newsletter on LinkedIn and a Substack where I share a lot of this information. That's that's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:25

Yeah, great. Check him out, Pat Flannelly. He has a podcast called Coptimizer, uh, available on Spotify and other uh uh platforms. If you're check check into the podcast, or it's all over. Uh, like you said, he does also have that coptimizer newsletter on Substack. Uh I talked to Greeny the other day when he reviewed my uh blood work. He recommended a book called Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement by Dr. Kevin Gilmartin. Check that out. Uh, really appreciate you guys to attorney and fat. I appreciate you uh getting on and and uh bringing awareness to this really important uh piece of health advice for our police officers. If you like this podcast, I'd ask you if you'd share it with someone. You can find for 40 more episodes of our podcast in our vault on Spotify Apple Music or on our website at MolinePolice Department for. Uh, there you can hear more about our people, our cases and our communities. Take care of yourself, take care of it. Until next time, thanks for the Mowling Police Department.