Under stress, when we’re surprised, our body responds by dumping adrenaline and we become stronger and unfortunately, stupider. Mary Roach, the author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (worth reading just to delight your sense of amazement) explores how military medics dropped into unbelievable realistic training scenarios are forced to deal with the adrenaline dump.
Bruce Siddle who consults in this area and served in the Department of Defense Special Operations summarizes the effect of adrenaline dump: “You become fast, strong and dumb.”
This strategy appears to be hard-wired from our evolutionary ancestors when hurling a rock or climbing a tree with superhuman strength and speed let you pass your genes on to children. To summary Ms. Roach: A burst of adrenaline prompts a cortisol dump … send(ing) the lungs into overdrive to bring more oxygen … heart rate doubles and triples to deliver (oxygen) while the liver spews glucose, the fuel needed for those superhuman feats. Blood vessels in the arms and legs expand to deliver more and faster, while flow to the low priority organs like skin and guts is reduced but these are not the only ones. Unfortunately for modern man, so does blood flow to the prefrontal cortex is reduced and your thinking ability browns out.
Reason, analytical thinking, fine motor skills aren’t needed to survive, just get the fuck up that tree and hit that carnivore with a rock hard enough to it's break bones. That same uptick of adrenaline makes the nerves primed to fire and shakes occurs.
Seems simple enough to understand, doesn’t it.
The Society of Internet Mall Commandos (SIMC) might have you believe this doesn’t happen. It is an interesting point of view. We all respond differently. Years ago I took part in a crude and unscientific study. They put a bicycle heart monitor on us, shot us in the ass with a stun gun and on that anticipated signal; we drew and engaged cardboard targets with a bunch of rounds. The results, no surprise here, were non-conclusive. But they did notice something. Some of us had a heart beat spike which immediately returned to a lower but still elevated rate while other had a heart beats that spiked and stayed there. So maybe some of the SIMC personal experience reflects their views.
Ms. Roach points out the average police officer taking a qualifying examine scores 85 to 95 percent of the available points. But in actual gun fights the police hit the VCA only 18 percent of the time.
Why? Reread the first two paragraphs.
The solution embraced by the military is to emerge the trainees in realistic, high stress situations where mistakes aren’t terminal. They drop these people, those lucky enough to make the class, into a sound stage that looks like a Middle East village. There is a call for prayers followed by an simulated explosion, the sound track from D-day battles originating from the movie “Saving Private Ryan” blares and around the corner and in the rooms are the role players, who are actually missing limbs, dressed in special effect suits pumping sticky blood or leaking shit from a lacerated and exposed colon. The trainees are stunned, cursed at, pleaded with and criticized and you know what, they get better over time at the job of saving lives. This seems to support the idea that you can be “vaccinated” and gain some improved level of performance. It is as if the body and mind says, “Oh look, this again, we’ve seen it and we know what to do.”
I suspect the members of SIMC have never been in a situation where everything seems to be turning into shit faster that they can wipe it up.
If this happens to trained police, fire, medical military what chance does the average CCW have?
First, let me remind you the average CCW doesn’t have the same responsibility. We don’t have to arrest or stop a violent criminal actor. We just need to slow the action down for the police to arrive. As first aiders we typically don’t need to inflate a lung or start a rapid blood infusion. We need to stop bleeding and keep an airway open. Our goals are different. Now as your goals change, so must your training. I can imagine that living two hours away from the nearest first aid station might make re-inflating a lung a critical and important skill. So get the training.
I took a very good first aid course from Joe Weyer at Weyer Tactical. He had a few scenarios that put you under pressure. Most tactical shooting matches put you under pressure to perform. A simple gun jam on the clock can be solved two ways: stop the clock and take the points down or clear the weapon and get back into the fight. The second way adds to your “vaccination.” The first way teaches you to give up.
The mover Greenport Tactical Association uses for the Tueller drill can surprise and stress you. I’ve seen shooters forget to draw as they move away from the charging onslaught of the cardboard target. I’ve also see how after a couple of exposures it becomes easy.
All of which help vaccinate you for when bad things happen.
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| Vaccines can be painful, but seldom terminal. |
This strategy appears to be hard-wired from our evolutionary ancestors when hurling a rock or climbing a tree with superhuman strength and speed let you pass your genes on to children. To summary Ms. Roach: A burst of adrenaline prompts a cortisol dump … send(ing) the lungs into overdrive to bring more oxygen … heart rate doubles and triples to deliver (oxygen) while the liver spews glucose, the fuel needed for those superhuman feats. Blood vessels in the arms and legs expand to deliver more and faster, while flow to the low priority organs like skin and guts is reduced but these are not the only ones. Unfortunately for modern man, so does blood flow to the prefrontal cortex is reduced and your thinking ability browns out.
Reason, analytical thinking, fine motor skills aren’t needed to survive, just get the fuck up that tree and hit that carnivore with a rock hard enough to it's break bones. That same uptick of adrenaline makes the nerves primed to fire and shakes occurs.
Seems simple enough to understand, doesn’t it.
The Society of Internet Mall Commandos (SIMC) might have you believe this doesn’t happen. It is an interesting point of view. We all respond differently. Years ago I took part in a crude and unscientific study. They put a bicycle heart monitor on us, shot us in the ass with a stun gun and on that anticipated signal; we drew and engaged cardboard targets with a bunch of rounds. The results, no surprise here, were non-conclusive. But they did notice something. Some of us had a heart beat spike which immediately returned to a lower but still elevated rate while other had a heart beats that spiked and stayed there. So maybe some of the SIMC personal experience reflects their views.
Ms. Roach points out the average police officer taking a qualifying examine scores 85 to 95 percent of the available points. But in actual gun fights the police hit the VCA only 18 percent of the time.
Why? Reread the first two paragraphs.
The solution embraced by the military is to emerge the trainees in realistic, high stress situations where mistakes aren’t terminal. They drop these people, those lucky enough to make the class, into a sound stage that looks like a Middle East village. There is a call for prayers followed by an simulated explosion, the sound track from D-day battles originating from the movie “Saving Private Ryan” blares and around the corner and in the rooms are the role players, who are actually missing limbs, dressed in special effect suits pumping sticky blood or leaking shit from a lacerated and exposed colon. The trainees are stunned, cursed at, pleaded with and criticized and you know what, they get better over time at the job of saving lives. This seems to support the idea that you can be “vaccinated” and gain some improved level of performance. It is as if the body and mind says, “Oh look, this again, we’ve seen it and we know what to do.”
I suspect the members of SIMC have never been in a situation where everything seems to be turning into shit faster that they can wipe it up.
If this happens to trained police, fire, medical military what chance does the average CCW have?
First, let me remind you the average CCW doesn’t have the same responsibility. We don’t have to arrest or stop a violent criminal actor. We just need to slow the action down for the police to arrive. As first aiders we typically don’t need to inflate a lung or start a rapid blood infusion. We need to stop bleeding and keep an airway open. Our goals are different. Now as your goals change, so must your training. I can imagine that living two hours away from the nearest first aid station might make re-inflating a lung a critical and important skill. So get the training.
I took a very good first aid course from Joe Weyer at Weyer Tactical. He had a few scenarios that put you under pressure. Most tactical shooting matches put you under pressure to perform. A simple gun jam on the clock can be solved two ways: stop the clock and take the points down or clear the weapon and get back into the fight. The second way adds to your “vaccination.” The first way teaches you to give up.
The mover Greenport Tactical Association uses for the Tueller drill can surprise and stress you. I’ve seen shooters forget to draw as they move away from the charging onslaught of the cardboard target. I’ve also see how after a couple of exposures it becomes easy.
All of which help vaccinate you for when bad things happen.
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