McNab Mental Endurance

How to develop mental toughness from the world's elite forces
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-909160-70-5
Verlag: Amber Books Ltd
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

Reihe: SAS and Elite Forces Guide

You can train all you like, but when it comes to the crunch, do you have the mental endurance to see yourself through combat situations, being held hostage or finding yourself at the mercy of the elements? SAS and Elite Forces Handbook: Mental Endurance examines what it takes to be as mentally fit as a special forces soldier. It is equally important to focus on diet, rest patterns and mental discipline as it is to concentrate on push-ups, sit-ups and other physical exercises. Using simple steps, the book shows the reader how they can build up their endurance over a matter of weeks and months, and how their quality of life will benefit. SAS and Elite Forces Handbook: Mental Endurance demonstrates how you can gain the psychological edge over your opponent. Whether you are competing in unarmed combat sports, running a marathon or just looking to get ahead, the book will have helpful and practical advice for you. Exercises such as positive thinking and visualisations and memory games are explored as ways of dealing with solitude, depression, anger management and torture when in crisis situations. Using 300 instructive artworks, SAS and Elite Forces Handbook: Mental Endurance shows you how special forces units such as the SAS and Delta Force stretch themselves mentally.

Autoren/Hrsg.

McNab, Chris

Leseproben

Military service can involve the most stressful situations anyone can experience, yet by controlling mental processes, a soldier can limit the negative effects of stress, even making it work positively for him. 3
Being a serving soldier is mentally demanding. The challenges can range quickly from prolonged boredom to sheer terror. Effective mental management is essential. Mental Tools The challenges of military service begin for most recruits on day one of their basic training. At least in professional armies, training programmes are designed specifically to pressure-test the candidate, to show his real personality under extreme physical and mental conditions What is of particular interest to the instructors is to see how the recruit will act at the point of exhaustion. If he simply shuts down and stops thinking, he is unsuited to a military career. If he stays focused, keeps motivated and considers his actions at all times, then he has the makings of a fine soldier. This chapter is about how to stay in this second mental state. How Your Mind Works At a basic level, your brain controls the involuntary or unconscious functions of your body to keep you alive. These functions include heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, regulation of body temperature and digestion. Your central nervous system (made up of the brain, spinal cord and nerves) controls movement and sensory processing, such as vision, hearing and taste. The cerebrum, which is much larger in humans than other animals, controls thought processes and emotions, and stores memory. Simply put, it is that cerebrum that makes humans different to animals, which mainly perform instinctive actions necessary for survival and basic socializing. The Body’s Nervous System The body’s nervous system is an extremely complex work of biological engineering, yet even for the non-scientist a basic comprehension of its functions can help in understanding the full spectrum of mental performance. In essence, the human nervous system is broken down into two parts: • Central nervous system. This consists of the brain and the spinal cord, and is the core of the human body’s mental and physical functions. • Peripheral nervous system. This system is itself divided into two parts: the somatic nervous system, which sends sensory information to the central nervous system and motor nerves connected to skeletal muscle; and the automonic nervous system, which is responsible for controlling the smooth muscle of organs and glands. As we can see from this brief outline, a large part of the nervous system’s functioning is devoted to unconscious processes and the maintenance of basic body functions. It is for this reason alone that diet and mental function are intimately connected – the better the diet, the better the functions of the body are maintained. It also reminds us that mind and body are a holistic system – mental problems often have physical solutions, and vice versa. Brain Spheres The human brain controls involuntary and voluntary physical processes, as well as being an amazing tool that enables people to perform great feats of bravery and resilience in times of severe stress. The cerebrum is split into several areas, including the parietal lobe (responsible for language acquisition and processing as well as sensory functions), the frontal lobe (for short-term memory, motor skills and higher cognitive functions), the occipital lobe (for processing visual information) and the temporal lobe (for processing auditory information and long-term memory). Parts of the cerebrum are also responsible for fine motor skills and movements, visceral muscle control, taste information, social and sexual behaviour, emotional behaviour and personality. Understanding how your brain works will help you use it to its fullest potential. One basic point, outlined further in Chapter 4: Training, is that your natural reactions to events can be programmed by repetitious and realistic training. This is why Special Forces soldiers train hour upon hour, day after day, with their small arms, responding rapidly with bursts of aimed fire as targets are presented. They repeat this process so many times that it becomes instinctive, an action they apply in combat even when the stress of the situation is affecting their conscious mental processes. Judging Distance This image shows how a soldier forms a ‘telescope’ with his fist to judge the distance between himself and the aircraft he is monitoring. Using this simple technique filters out background disturbance that might otherwise distract the viewer. The greater the space around the plane, the further away it is. Another point this chapter will reinforce is that psychological studies have shown that the way you hold your body and carry yourself physically actually leads your mental state, not the other way around. In short, if you act confident and proficient, you will most likely become confident and efficient. These principles will recur in this chapter, but also underpin many other chapters in this book. Mental Focus Although armies vary in terms of their entry requirements, all professional armies look for certain core attributes. The US Army, for example, expects recruits to have the following qualities: Mental preparedness Armed Forces members must be mentally stable and able to withstand stressful situations that can occur during military operations. Physical fitness Military members must be physically fit to participate in or support combat missions that may be difficult or dangerous. Readiness Members of the Armed Forces must be ready and able to report for military assignments on short notice (see www.bls.gov/ooh/Military/Military-Careers.htm). These simple formulas conceal a broad range of mental and physical demands. For example, the description of the mental preparedness sounds simple enough, but the oblique reference to ‘stressful situations that can occur during military operations’ can include watching friends injured or killed in front of you, as well as facing up to your own imminent death. It is estimated that 12–20 per cent of Iraqi soldiers suffer from PTSD due to their experiences on active duty, indicative of the harrowing effect of modern warfare (more on this in Chapter 7: Trauma and Shock). Similarly, being ‘able to report for military assignments on short notice’ can mean being pulled away from family and friends in just a few hours and sent on a combat deployment that could last many months. Being able to face these issues and adapt to them is essential to mental survival as a soldier. Maintaining a state of ‘mental readiness’ is something that elite forces learn in training, with the objective of confronting normal, everyday activities and stressful combat situations in the same alert and focused state of mind. Combat Readiness These soldiers observe an enemy stronghold, knowing that they could be attacked at any second. Note how each soldier is assigned a specific sphere of observation, meaning they do not have to handle too much at any time. Breaking Down Barriers The military wants its soldiers to demonstrate the ability to succeed, whether in peacetime duties or in a combat scenario. Barriers to success can be split into two main categories: external and internal. External barriers are those that interfere directly in the time available to perform an important task. They could be anything from a busy week at work, feeling under the weather or family responsibilities, meaning you do not have the time or inclination to continue physical training or meet your self-set training or preparation goals. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that you cannot control every factor, so try not to get stressed or angry about things that are truly beyond your control, such as bad weather, accidents or sickness. When events are within your control, follow effective principles of time management, as follows: 1) Rank all the tasks you have to do in order of importance. 2) Focus the bulk of your efforts – at least 80 per cent – on the most important tasks. (If you can, delegate the least important tasks to a third party.) Allocate specific and definable periods of the day in which you will work on those tasks. Most importantly, define exactly what you want to achieve within the time period. 3) Focus all your efforts on completing tasks, not simply working on them. Create a checklist of tasks and only tick the ‘completed’ box when you have nothing more to do on that task. More about effective time management time is discussed in the ‘Leadership’ section below. Equally important is accepting the fact that sometimes goals remain out of reach for reasons beyond your control. Coalition troops in Afghanistan, for example, have had to get used to fighting hard for a piece of terrain, often suffering casualties in the process, but then are forced to relinquish the ground the very next day because of manpower limitations. If a soldier dwells obsessively on this fact, he is likely to become extremely demoralized. The lesson is that, as a soldier, you have to focus on immediate priorities and objectives and leave the big picture in the hands of greater political and social forces. If you get disheartened when events don’t go your way, you will find...