LANSING — The Detroit Lions helped the Michigan State Police set up a mental fitness training program for recruits, WILX reported.
Officials reached out to the Lions program as they looked for ways to improve officers’ mental toughness.
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“I came upon sports psychology in grad school and really resonated with the idea of using psychology not to fix something, but to make you better,” Sgt. Ashley Kierpaul told WILX. “The military’s been doing this for years. Professional sports teams and Olympians have been doing it for years. So I questioned why law enforcement wasn’t using it, where the stakes are arguably higher because we’re making life-and-death decisions.”
The Lions’ program focuses heavily on sleep, ensuring players receive sleep training to balance travel schedules with peak performance.
“As you can imagine, that helps police officers quite a bit, especially if you work midnights and swing shifts,” Kierpaul said.
Another aspect of the training related to self-talk. Confidence and calmness under pressure are critical skills for officers at incident scenes.
“In recruit school, there are a lot of tough moments, and how you guide yourself through those problems is what can keep you going,” Trooper Tucker Havel told WILX.
Kierpaul built and launched the program in order to encourage the grit in troopers that she saw Coach Dan Campbell working to build in the Lions.
“For the public, you’re going to get a more confident trooper, one who has better insight into their emotions and emotional regulation,” Kierpaul said. “You’re going to get better decision-making and someone who can remain calm under pressure, which is exactly what the public needs in a high-stress situation, and feeling confident about those decisions under pressure.”
