An Cosantóir

| 15 www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE clear, logical thought while reducing brain activity in areas of our brain associated with more primitive defensive and emotional reactions. For this technique imagine a box, with each side representing 4 seconds. Breathe in from the nose using your belly for 4 seconds i.e. one side of the box. Next hold that breath for 4 seconds, side 2. Exhale for 4 seconds, side 3 and hold for 4 seconds before taking the next break, side 4. Practice this as often as you like, typically for 4 or 5 boxes in total and see if you notice clearer mental focus. Technique 2) Grounding. Many of us at some point in our lives will experience anxiety. For those in military training there can be many things that cause us to feel that sinking feeling in our stomach, heart racing, sweating and our mind racing at 1000 miles an hour. This is a normal reaction and is our brain's way of getting us ready to respond to threats in our environment. The downside of this reaction is that it can make it difficult for us to respond to orders, learn and remember new information or to think clearly under pressure. A simple technique to help clear our minds of racing thoughts and come back to the "present" is called grounding. Grounding simply involves using our sense to slow down our thoughts. We can practically do this using the 5,4,3,2,1 method. 5 – using your eyes, identify 5 different objects around you. Think about what color they are, what shape are they and get really specific. 4 – four things you can touch or feel (may be difficult while on parade), think about texture, is the object hot or cold, think about both your sense of touch but also how your clothes feel, your feet in your boots etc. 3 – three different things you can hear, birds, the hum of a computer. 2 – What two things can you smell and 1 thing you can taste. The important thing here is not what you focus on but rather that you are simply engaging all of your senses. It might surprise you to learn that grounding, a form of attentional training is a component of mindfulness (a word with un-paralleled power to get people to stop reading your article). – But mindfulness in reality is a method or collection of methods that simply aims to clear our mind of anxiety for the future or re-hashing events of the past, something I think most of us would benefit from. Technique 3) Your ACE in the hole. Rather than a specific technique ACE is an acronym for Achievement, Connectedness and Enjoyment. The ACE method is a method for improving your mood and your subjective feeling of wellbeing. Simply put, we should aim to engage in activities each day with give us a sense of Achievement, Connectedness and/or Enjoyment. Some activities will give us a sense of just one of these ACE's or some activities will satisfy all three. For example, going for a run might give you a sense of achievement but going for a run with a friend might give you a sense of achievement, connectedness and enjoyment. Research has shown that neurochemicals such as oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, which are sometimes referred to as the "happy chemicals", are produced when we engage in activities which give us a sense of A, C and or E. More so, often times when we are under stress, the first things we drop are things like socialising, exercising, leisure activities. We can then notice our mood drop and feelings of stress continue to build… it's a vicious circle. In military training it might feel that you have limited control over your ability to engage in ACE activities. But hope is not lost. Aim small here, it could be pushing yourself an extra few percent in PT (achievement), getting a call in with a loved one (connectedness) or shooting pool in the mess (enjoyment). If you build in these activities, particularly when you notice stress building, it will help activate the soothe system, reduce overall mental stress and bolster your psychological resilience! This has hopefully been an easy to digest talk through some tangible, practical skills to boost your resilience. Resilience is dynamic so it is important to know it will fluctuate both up and down throughout the day, week, and month and beyond. However, with simple steps we can "bounce back" from life's challenges in as safe and as healthy a way as possible. Lt (RDF) Colm Doody PhD BA is a Trainee Clinical Psychologist Queens University Belfast and Special Staff Officer, Office of the Defence Forces Organisational Psychologist J1. Twitter: @colmdoody Military training often requires mental resilience

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