As you pull into work, your heart starts beating faster. Dressed in uniform, your palms slightly sweat. You pull your badge from your pocket and get ready to clock-in as you mentally prepare for whatever today's shift might throw at you. Upon entering your facility, the gray walls shut out the free world as the din of inmates talking and shouting surrounds you.  

You try to brush aside the exhaustion of constantly staying on your feet and focus on the suspicious activity, fights, or inmate attacks that can erupt at any second.

Welcome to a day in the life of a corrections officer.

It might sound like a normal day of work for most COs, but the truth is the level of stress prevalent in this type of work scenario is flat out unhealthy.

“Stress is so damaging if it goes on for prolonged periods of time,” says Dr. Caterina Spinaris, Executive Director of Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, a Colorado non-profit focusing on correctional officer stress. “The job of a correctional officer is probably the most stressful out there. We have to teach officers how to counteract the toxicity of their jobs.”

Spinaris says that one of the most important ways to deal with stress is realizing the long-term effects it can have on the human body. Her organization offers a hotline and email address for COs vent their frustrations. It also developed stress management strategies specifically for corrections, since COs tend to deal with different kinds of stress. 

“The human body responds to stress like it would to any major danger. Your adrenaline starts pumping, your heart rate and blood pressure go up,” she explains. “Your body releases endorphins so you cannot feel pain. You go into fight or flight mode. This is a very strong natural response developed by your body to survive. But if you have chronically stressful situations, that response never lets up and it's very damaging to your body.”

The extra stress of working as a corrections officer can have long-term negative health effects. Weakened immune systems, depression, irritability, high cholesterol and high blood pressure are just a few of the possible repercussions officers can suffer, causing them to have an average life expectancy of 59.

“It's important to remember that stress can kill you. There is anger that comes along with stress and that is a problem as well. There are a lot of conditions in the corrections workplace that officers cannot control. What they can do is learn how to control their responses to those situations,” Spinaris advises.

Inmates are typically thought to be the most stressful part of a job in corrections, but Spinaris says that 95 percent of COs in a recent survey she conducted felt as though their co-workers increased their stress-levels in the work environment.

Spinaris offers these tips to help corrections officers keep their cool, even when it comes to co-workers.

• Take responsibility. Realize that you cannot control others, but you can control your reaction to their behavior. Taking control of your behavior and reactions gets you one step closer to reducing stress.

• Stay positive. Instead of viewing the glass as half-empty, try to get into an upbeat mindset about your job, co-workers and even the inmates around you. Discipline your mind to focus on the good things.

• Don't be paranoid. Do not assume co-workers are your enemies. Instead, try to build friendships and a support system within your facility so that COs feel respected and have a place to turn if they feel stressed.

• Get your sleep. Everyone knows how important a good night's sleep is, but in corrections it can really make a difference. The more well rested you are, the better your body can deal with stressful situations.

• Laugh hard. Those deep belly laughs that bring tears to your eyes are important for counteracting the effects of stress. So the next time someone tells a funny joke, laugh it all out.

• Schedule downtime. When you get home from work, relax your body and mind with hobbies, exercise, and quality time with loved ones. Do something you enjoy to take your mind off of work. Go outdoors to shake off that corrections atmosphere that might be making you glum.

• Take deep breaths. Any time you feel yourself getting angry, stressed out or frustrated, take a deep breath, count to ten and evaluate the situation around you. It will make you less likely to act out of rage or stress.

• Ask yourself questions. Evaluate any action you are going to take before you do it. While you might feel anger and stress boiling up inside ask yourself: Why am I upset? How can I manage this? What kind of person do I want to be? Do I want to find a solution to this problem? Can we talk this out?

• Stay healthy. Cigarettes and coffee might help you get through your day, but these stimulants actually do more to bury your stress than to help deal with it. Alcohol poses a similar problem. Healthy meals provide the nutrients your body needs to manage stressful situations.

 “Officers know how stressful their jobs are,” Spinaris says. “Daily, they face gangs, HIV, Hepatitis C, mental illness, psychotic delusions and suicide attempts. But by controlling their stress, they can improve their overall well-being and the security of the facility where they work.”

Officers have a chance to combat stress and improve performance if they show up to work with these tips in hand. So while the rest of the cellblock might be heating up with inmate yells, fights or attacks, you will be able to keep your cool in corrections.