 The
effect of training on the effects of stressby Ralph Mroz
There has been a great deal written during the last 25 years about
the effects of stress on performance in both the academic and research
literature, and in the practical literature such as this magazine. Yet
there are still a few ongoing debates in our field-the use of a firearm
in critical incidents and the teaching thereof-that are debated at all
only because of a lack of understanding of how stress affects
performance. And some of these debates are critical to what we teach and
how we teach it. Or, from another perspective: lives depend on a proper
understanding of the issues debated. We are talking about such things as
sighted us un-sighted fire, movement vs. freezing, fine/complex motor
skills vs. gross skills, and so on. The debates over these issues are
not, surprisingly, dead-neither on the printed page nor in practice. You
still see different people teaching sighted and un-sighted fire, and
hotly defending their doctrine in print. You still see some people
teaching a fine and/or complex motor skill technique as a solution to a
problem awhile others teach a gross motor skill in response to the same
problem-and each side defends their actions vociferously in print. You
still see people teaching movement (usually to cover) as a universal
imperative, with very little thought or ink given to the view that such
an action may not be possible under the worst of circumstances.
The reason that these differences still exist, and the reason that
there is still confusion over these issues in our field, is because
there is an incomplete practical understanding of the effects of stress
as they relate to the effects of training. Lets review what we know
here-it's not difficult nor particularly complex.
The nervous system is divided into the Somatic Nervous System which
controls organs that are under voluntary control (mainly muscles), and
the Autonomic Nervous System which directs our bodily functions (like
heartbeat and respiration) without conscious thought. The Autonomic
Nervous System is itself divided into two basic branches. One, the
Parasympathetic Nervous System (PANS), is concerned with conservation
and restoration of energy, as it causes a reduction in heart rate and
blood pressure, and facilitates digestion and absorption of nutrients,
and consequently the excretion of waste products. In contrast to the
Parasympathetic Nervous System, the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)
enables the body to be prepared for fear, flight or fight. Sympathetic
responses include an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and cardiac
output, a diversion of blood flow from the skin and splanchnic vessels
to those supplying skeletal muscle, increased pupil size, bronchiolar
dilation, contraction of sphincters and metabolic changes such as the
mobilization of fat and glycogen.
While the relative effects of the PANS and the SNS fluctuate as we go
through our lives on a minute-to-minute basis, they are usually in
balance with one another and within normal bounds so long as nothing
unusual is happening to us. However, when we perceive danger, the SANS
tends to dominate the PANS, a condition I call SANS dominance. (The term
Body Alarm Reaction refers to the same thing-to this shift toward SANS
dominance.) But SANS dominance is a relative affair. At its mildest
levels, SANS dominance occurs when we anticipate something stressful.
Its most extreme manifestation occurs if we find ourselves startled by a
spontaneous deadly threat. It is this extreme state of SANS dominance
which I call SANS override. In a state of SANS override, we have no
conscious control over our responses, and we are completely at the mercy
of Mother Nature's genetically programmed reactions. In a state of SANS
override we cannot help but lose fine motor control, we cannot help but
look at the threat (not our sights), we cannot help but crouch, and we
may not even be able to move (we may freeze in place.)
One of the things that's often not understood is that this pattern
holds true for each and every one of us. Regardless of training level,
the more stress we are under, the greater the SANS dominance, and thus
the less voluntary control we have over our physiological mechanisms and
even muscle control. Training does not overcome the tendency towards
SANS override as the stress we are exposed to increases. The most highly
trained operator in the world will target focus, freeze in place, and
become incapable of anything but gross movements if placed under enough
stress.
What does differentiate the trained person from lesser trained person
is the amount of stress they can be under and still function acceptably
well. In fact, realistic training is often fittingly called "stress
inoculation." While such training does not actually completely immunize
you from the effects of SANS dominance and SANS override, it shifts the
curve so that it takes more stress to cause the same amount of
dysfunction that a smaller amount of stress would cause in a less
well-trained person. That is, given a certain situation, a trained
person will remain in acceptable control his/her reactions, while a
lesser trained person will default to the effects of body alarm. A
well-trainer operator, placed in a dangerous but familiar situation-one
that they have been through many times in training-may well be able to
focus on their sights, keep their heart rate under control, and be able
to perform fine motions such as weapons manipulations. Another person,
placed in the same situation, but one they are less familiar with
because they have trained in it less, may well tip over into SANS
override.
So when we discuss the relative merits of, say, sighted aiming vs.
threat-focused aiming, we have to make sure we are specifying two
parameters without which the discussion is meaningless (as so many of
these discussions actually are): we have to specify the level of
training we are assuming in the operator, and we have to specify the
level of stress they will be under. The level of stress is usually
proportional to the control the operator has over the situation and the
level of surprise he/she is under. A well-trained SWAT officer making a
entry or felony stop is both in control of the situation and is not
surprised by it (in fact, they are initiating it.) Thus it will not be a
surprise if such an officer remembers, for example, clearly seeing their
sights if shooting erupts in such a situation. A rookie, on the other
hand, placed in the same situation, could well be expected to
threat-focus. Likewise, on that same SWAT entry, if things suddenly go
in a direction that no-one anticipated-say a bad guy suddenly pops out
of a surprise location-then, losing control and surprised, the same SWAT
officer could be expected to threat-focus.
I haven't made a hobby out of interviewing prodigious numbers of
gunfight participants about what happened to them, whether they saw
their sights, etc. I'm in no position to do so anyway. But I have heard
or read a number of both first and second-hand accounts from gunfight
survivors and victors, and there is definitely a pattern in both these
stories and many others that are reported to me. And it is this: when
people are taken by surprise, or when things go to hell (i.e., they lose
control), then no one see their sights! Events have forced them into a
state of SNS override. And I'm talking here about the most competitively
selected, highly trained, supremely talented warriors that this earth
has ever produced. Ladies and gentlemen: if they threat focus under
extreme stress-if even they enter SNS override sometimes-what arrogance
makes you think you won't?
So what does all this mean for training? It doesn't give us a
one-size-fits-all answer, but points us in two directions. It lets us
understand the issues involved clearly so that we can design our
training intelligently. The lessons we can take are:
- We should familiarize our people with more stress than they will
face in their most likely encounters, so that they will not enter
SNS override during them. This means that we need to train exactly
as we will have to fight-and maybe harder. Staying out of SNS
override, our people will be able to access a variety of techniques,
including sight focus and those involving finer motor skills.
- We also-not instead-need to train our people in the few
techniques that are available in a state of SNS override-threat
focus, gross techniques, etc.-because if the event is spontaneous
enough or not familiar enough or when control is lost, our people
will for sure enter SNS override…and they still have to fight for
their lives there!
Finally, we need to avoid the conceit that because we have trained a
number of people to perform a skill under stress, that that skill is
"validated" as combat-worthy. The fact is that such skills are validated
as useful only so long as the stress level in training is not exceeded.
In an actual encounter, stress levels can go much higher than in
training for several reasons, and once they do, our people will enter
SNS override where only a few hard-wired techniques will work. The
reasons that stress in an actual fight can far exceed stress in the
training environment include:
- It is for real. No one really thinks they will die in training.
- It is not under our control to a small or great degree
- We may be out-gunned, out-classed, or out-numbered
- It takes us by surprise
Again, the lesson is to train for our likely encounters with the most
effective techniques, as realistically as possible. And to train in the
few techniques that work is the situation goes to hell and we are at
Mother Nature's mercy. |
