Executive Summary
Law enforcement training has long focused on external skills, marksmanship, tactics, and decision-making under pressure. What often gets overlooked is the officer’s internal operating system: the nervous system itself. Under stress, physiological responses like elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, and tunnel vision can scramble perception and impair judgment. Misreading those internal cues can be just as dangerous as misreading the scene in front of us.
In Tactical Nervous System Training: Biofeedback for the Badge, Patrick Scott Welsh and Melis Yilmaz Balban make a compelling case for integrating biofeedback into police training. Their research highlights how stress physiology impacts decision-making and shows that biofeedback offers officers a way to recognize, regulate, and recalibrate their internal state. In practice, biofeedback helps officers build awareness of their unique “stress fingerprint,” improve self-regulation, and enhance performance in critical moments.
The implications are clear: this is more than a wellness tool. It is a readiness tool. Agencies that adopt nervous system training can improve decision-making, reduce use-of-force errors, and foster a healthier culture that prioritizes officer resilience. Just as we normalize firearms qualification, we should normalize nervous system training. Our most important piece of tactical gear isn’t on our duty belt—it’s inside us.
Patrick Scott Welsh
Bio
Melis Yilmaz Balban
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