On a humid afternoon in Gurugram, a North Indian city, a police officer sits in his patrol vehicle, eyes fixed on a tablet flashing red with incoming calls. A traffic collision. A domestic dispute. A theft report already two minutes old. Somewhere in the background, a supervisor’s dashboard quietly measures how long it will take him to respond. The technology is new. The urgency is relentless. His body, however, is ancient.

Modern policing has become a race against the clock. Response times are plotted in graphs. Performance is ranked in seconds. The quicker the arrival, the better the officer is assumed to be. In many ways, the profession now mirrors the hyper-speed economy — where groceries arrive in minutes and efficiency is defined by immediacy.

Recently, governments have begun warning companies against pushing workers into unrealistic ten-minute delivery promises, citing concerns about accidents and exhaustion. The message is simple: human beings are not built for perpetual urgency. What has received less attention is that policing has quietly adopted the same culture of speed — and the human costs are far higher.

Police officers across the world suffer disproportionately from heart disease, hypertension, sleep disorders and burnout. In India, multiple studies reveal that a large share of police personnel are overweight, hypertensive or both, often within their first decade of service. International research tells a similar story. This is not a matter of poor personal choices. It is the biology of constant stress.

The job of policing is governed by two powerful hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline sharpens reflexes in moments of danger. Cortisol keeps the body alert under threat. Together, they are responsible for the sudden bursts of strength and clarity that allow officers to respond to crises. But these chemicals evolved for brief encounters — a wild animal, a sudden attack, a short sprint to safety.

In the modern police force, these hormones are rarely allowed to settle. Sirens, alarms, deadlines, public scrutiny and unpredictable danger ensure that the stress response remains permanently switched on. Over time, the effects accumulate quietly. Blood pressure rises. Sleep becomes fragmented. The immune system weakens. Cognitive functions suffer. Decisions grow more reactive and less reflective. Burnout sets in. The irony is striking: in trying to make policing faster, systems may be making it biologically weaker.

What neuroscience and the science of well-being now tell us is that stress alone cannot sustain high performance. The human body requires counterbalancing chemicals to recover and thrive. Dopamine, released when effort is recognised and progress is felt, fuels motivation. Endorphins, released through physical movement and immersive activity, elevate mood and reduce pain. Oxytocin, released through trust and social connection, acts as a powerful buffer against stress. Healthy professional environments — from elite sports teams to high-risk medical units — deliberately design routines that stimulate these chemicals.

Policing, by contrast, largely ignores them. In many police stations, work revolves around problems: crimes reported, complaints registered, crises handled. Rarely is time spent acknowledging small victories — a dispute peacefully resolved, a vulnerable citizen helped, a neighbourhood kept calm. Yet behavioural research shows that recognising even modest successes triggers dopamine, sustaining morale in demanding professions.

Movement, too, has quietly disappeared from much of urban policing. Officers spend long hours seated in vehicles, at checkpoints or behind desks. Yet regular physical activity is one of the most effective ways to lower cortisol and increase endorphins. Some countries have begun to reintroduce foot and bicycle patrols not merely as community-policing tools but as health strategies. In parts of Scandinavia and Japan, officers routinely walk or cycle their beats, combining visibility with built-in physical exercise. The result has been healthier officers and stronger community relationships.

Human connection is another overlooked resource. Oxytocin — the hormone of trust — rises when people work in stable teams, share experiences and feel supported. Frequent transfers, rotating assignments and hierarchical isolation undermine these bonds. Police forces in Britain and Australia have experimented with structured peer-support systems and post-incident debriefings, allowing officers to process stress collectively rather than in isolation. These practices have been linked to lower rates of trauma-related symptoms and improved resilience.

Then there are moments of recovery. In high-performance environments such as aviation and emergency medicine, short pauses are deliberately built into workflows after intense activity. Even a few minutes of controlled breathing can significantly reduce stress hormone levels. In policing, transitions are abrupt. A violent confrontation is followed immediately by paperwork, then another emergency. The body never resets. Small institutional changes — brief recovery breaks, quiet rooms at stations, short guided breathing protocols — have shown promise where implemented.

What makes these reforms striking is not their complexity but their simplicity. None require massive budgets or new technology. They require rethinking how work is organised. Yet the potential payoff is enormous.

Chronic stress does not merely harm officers’ health. It affects how policing is experienced by the public. Elevated cortisol is associated with impatience, impulsive reactions and reduced empathy. Calm nervous systems, by contrast, support thoughtful judgement and constructive communication. Healthier officers tend to de-escalate conflicts more effectively. Communities report better everyday interactions. Complaints fall. Trust rises. In this sense, officer well-being is not a private workplace issue. It is a public safety strategy.

As governments modernise policing with artificial intelligence, faster communications and advanced surveillance, they risk overlooking the most complex system of all: the human body. No algorithm can compensate for an exhausted nervous system. No dashboard can replace sound judgement under pressure. Speed will always matter in emergencies. But when speed becomes the organising principle of daily policing, it quietly corrodes the institution from within.

The government’s caution against unrealistic delivery timelines offers a broader lesson. Systems that ignore human limits eventually fail — whether in warehouses, on motorcycles, or behind police badges. The future of policing will not be secured by faster responses alone. It will depend on forces designed around human biology — balancing urgency with recovery, pressure with connection, action with reflection. When policing becomes more humane, it often becomes more effective too. The paradox is simple: slowing down, in the right ways, may be the fastest path to better policing.

( The writer is former DGP, Haryana. )