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The information on this website is designed to offer self-care tips and recommendations based on evidence-based research and literature from professionals in each field. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any specific medical condition. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any health-related decisions.
Reducing anxiety by using stressors to enable growth, and preventing violent behavior, poor decision making, and reduced judgment will happen if you choose. Don’t be restrained and controlled by your brain’s automatic responses.
Learning how the brain responds to stressors and what actions may be taken to reduce or stop this automatic response will empower military service members to control the level of stress that impacts their brain health. Targeting specific parts of the body through psychotherapy techniques recommended in this article will provide this empowerment.
This first requires a self-identification of all variables that activate the body’s natural stress response, then taking control of the Sympathetic Nervous System’s (SNS) automatic response to these variables, thereby preventing the negative impacts body. Additionally, a brain under constant stress impacts physical and mental health and decreases one’s ability to make accurate decisions. Sheilds, et al. explains that ” that stress impaired working memory and cognitive flexibility. The effect of stress on inhibition was nuanced, such that it impaired cognitive inhibition but enhanced response inhibition”.
Next time you are about to speak in public, going into a promotion board, leading a patrol at one of the elite military schools or basic courses, or execute a combat mission, if you conduct a quick five-minute mindfulness session, stress will be reduced. Accurate decision-making and creative thinking will increase.
The military culture comes with multiple variables that influence worry, concern, anxiety, or fear. Some are justifiable, and others are a result of systemic toxic policies and leadership. Servicemen and women cannot avoid these stimuli but must learn to live with them. You can choose to grow from these stimuli, or you can choose to allow slow destruction of your mental and physical health. Neuroscientists with MIT have found that chronic stress leads to executive function impairment and can influence violent behavior, crime, and poor decision-making.
Learning to live with unavoidable stressors in a way that maintains a healthy lifestyle requires an understanding of the brain’s response to these types of stimuli. This will empower one to choose not to allow these negative stimuli to be perceived as negative, preventing the SNS’s activation. In fact, the variables that have triggered this automatic stress response are not a threat to your body at all. Your brain has tricked you into believing that it’s a threat. In his book Deviate, Beau Lotto does a magnificent job of explain the reality of the meaningless information all around us. This is information that has not meaning until our brains give it meaning. When you have anxiety your brain has chose to place a threat as the key meaning, when in reality, you are not seeing reality, as the stimuli creating the threat is not a threat at all. Understanding the mechanics of a stress response allows you to target specific parts of the brain to prevent the response from occurring.
The Brain During Stress
Every second of our lives, our brains collect and store billions of bits of data. We are unaware of most of the data being stored. This data will then shape the lens through which our brain creates our perception, our version of reality. That reality also creates automatic responses to stimuli. Violent behavior, fear, and anxiety are some of these responses. Many of these SNS activating variables are very subtle, and we may not realize the impact that they are causing to our overall mental and physical health.
Studies have demonstrated that constant exposure to even small stressful situations can lead to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) over time. Some are genetically prone to GAD and are more susceptible, and others develop it over time. However, the effects of GAD felt by each person is a choice. We can all choose the level of the impact of stress on our lives. We can’t avoid all stressors, yet we can choose to turn down the SNS activity when the brain is processing a stressful stimulus.
During a stress response, the SNS prepares multiple organs for a fight or flight, and most of the time, there isn’t a real fight at hand. Our false perception of reality has created this threat, and it’s on us to turn off the SNS. Over time, when we do not halt the brain’s automatic response, these small responses, bit by bit, lead to anxiety, hypertension, addiction, digestive issues, and much more. We all have the choice not to allow this to happen.
See video below for a metaphoric explanation of the brain’s activity during stress.
Looking Inside the Brain
Within the brain, the hippocampus, responsible for converting short-term memories into long=term memories, plays a key role in perceptions that influence worry and anxiety.
Stimuli will enter the brain for processing through the thalamus, which serves as the control station to process and assign stimuli to various parts of the brain. The hippocampus begins to connect with the stimuli being processed to long-term experiences saved in the brain to determine the appropriate response. When a fight or flight response is determined, which can be a valid threat or a perceived threat (a threat that will not cause harm the body but the perception from stored memories believes it is), the Amygdala and the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis activates, creating the stress response. This Youtube video provides a great explanation of the body’s response of stress from the brain through the central nervous system.
Military Ecological Stressors
There are a variety of stressors that come with serving one’s country. Stress can be good when it leads to growth. Some stress is created through implicit actions by toxic leaders. Others may be created explicitly to degrade or create a growth opportunity in a learning environment, regardless of the purpose of the imposed stressful stimuli. We can choose how we will allow stress to impact our mental health. When we do not choose to stop this response, we have allowed an automatic response that will cause negative impacts on one’s physical and mental health. You see, anytime we perceive a variable that activates the SNS, our fight for flight response, neurotransmitters, and catecholamines are released, preparing various parts of the body for a fight. There is no legitimate fight at hand and not a valid reason for this response, and we must take control and stop these automatic thoughts.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
This technique can be conducted anywhere at any time. It’s a thought process where one will challenge the initial thoughts that come to mind. These thoughts are labeled as cognitive distortions. These cognitive distortions are perceived beliefs or assumptions that are not real. They are made up of beliefs created by our minds. Such as the perception that others are against you, others are judging you, or constantly assuming the negative. Perceptions play a key role in mental health. Because none of us see reality. We see our mind’s definition of reality. It’s this assumed reality that can cause stress response and CBT can help reduce this.
The technique is an organized thought process of challenging one’s cognitive distortion, questioning it, understanding why it’s there, looking for alternate thoughts, then rating your overall level of stress after this process is complete. Many minor cognitive distortions have a minor impact but, over time, negatively impact one’s life.
A detailed explanation along with thought process printouts can be found in this clinician’s guide to CBT.
ABBT is a great technique in a military culture where real stressors are not cognitive distortions, and they cannot be avoided. They must be accepted. We must accept them with an optimistic outlook and a desire to live with them and grow in the face of them. ABBT is a good technique in dealing with PTSD, chronic illness, or constant pain. The focus of ABBT is on accepting the way things are, changing your thoughts to focus on living a fruitful life of accomplishment in the face of existing stressors. Your goal is to eliminate the negative feelings that occur due to physical or environmental stressors. Check out these great techniques and practices for AABT on the Association for Contextual Behavioral Sciences websites.
Transcendental Meditation
Transcendental meditation is one of the easiest forms of mediation and is a recent buzz of many celebrities. It’s simple as it doesn’t really come with any ideology that some of the meditative practices. Many of us are too tough for these hippie weird medication practices. Yet it works, and this one is straightforward. All you do is close your eyes for 20 minutes and allow your thoughts to focus on anything but the typical distractors of your life. These distractors can be described as anything that begins with, “I have to.” I have to do the dishes, and I have to get ready for work; I have fixed the car. You must be in the moment and relax, removing any thought that doesn’t focus on your desire to achieve joy and obtain a stress-free life. It’s recommended that one develops a mantra or a phrase to repeat in your head when your mind wanders to one of the “I have to” thoughts. This mantra should focus on your why. I want to think clearer and make better decisions. Or. I want to reduce stress and anxiety in my life and feel happier. This is an easy, simple task. Do it now. I Challenge you to remind your phone and do this at least 20 minutes a day. See this guided meditation video below.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness can be done anywhere at any time. A key fact of motivation is the science behind meditational practices such as mindfulness. Multiple studies have demonstrated growth in the frontal lobe regions and a decrease in the limbic system. It increases the area that will reduce stress and shrinks the region the encourages stress! Mindfulness is a process where one will focus all one’s energies and concentration on one variable. During this process, when other thoughts enter the mind, you ask them to leave and continue to focus on the chosen variable. I have used mindfulness to reduce pain right after hitting my head or smashing my thumb. It can be done by looking at the slats in an HVAC vent, counting them over and over. Counting the leaves on a tree. Sitting down and focusing on the feeling of your legs on the chair. Feeling the breath leave your nose. Focusing only on the sound of a fan. Last week as I walked the dog in 30-degree weather, I placed all of my focus on the stinging of the cold on my fingers.
Mindfulness is very simple, yet it can be very difficult. It has been really difficult for me to grasp at first. I had so many thoughts entering my head because of the intense schedule and life of being in the military. I was never in the moment. I was always thinking about work. During mindfulness, you simply ask those thoughts to go away and continue to focus on the variable. There are apps that help with mindfulness, such as.. but I found that it’s easier without the app. Because all you need to do is choose something to focus on and place your mind on that variable.
These meditational practices do work. I didn’t buy into them at first. In fact, when I was told to do them in therapy, I was skeptical. It wasn’t until I learned what was happening in the brain and focused on the neuroscience aspect of medication that I grew some motivation. Once I began to see the results, I was sold on its effectiveness and daily need for mental growth and resiliency. It does work, and you can only know the results if you try it.
Next time you are about to speak in public, going into a promotion board, leading a patrol at one of the elite military schools or basic courses, if you conduct a quick five-minute mindfulness session, stress will be reduced, and accurate decision-making and creative thinking will increase. Our perceptions are moldable; we can question those perceptions that enable the stress response and choose not to impact our mental health. Don’t believe me? Try it. Leave a comment, and I’ll provide help.
References
The Capacity of Cognitive Control Estimated from a Perceptual Decision Making Task (nih.gov)
The half‐second delay: what follows? (tandfonline.com)
Reduced brain connections seen in people with generalized anxiety disorder (wisc.edu)
Sympathetic nervous system (sciencedaily.com)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): An Overview (psychotherapy.net)
Cognitive-behavioral.pdf (apa.org)
Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray
matter density
Stress can lead to risky decisions | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (contextualscience.org)
