98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive Page 4
7. Know where you are going: navigation.
8. Know the environment: weather.
9. Ability to attract help: signaling for rescue.
10. Ability to provide help: first-aid kit.
11. Ability to obtain physiological and psychological repair: adequate sleep.
The inarguable bottom line is this: regardless of how simple a skill appears on the surface, all conscious body actions are composed of extremely complex neurophysiological functions. It is imperative that you keep your survival plans as simple as possible. Fancy, complicated, hard-to-learn skills represented in many survival books and videos, and the junk they try to sell, flat out have no relevance in a real-time, modern-field emergency.
All professional survival instructors have consciously chosen the profound responsibility of training their clients to effectively and efficiently deal with deadly worst-case scenarios. It is not just another job or fun hobby. With this responsibility comes the obligation to understand how the human body reacts to and deals with stress, whether through hot and cold weather, fear, panic, or a billion and more scenarios Mother Nature and human nature can dish out. Teaching tactics must be sought that consciously and subconsciously prepare a student for the real-world pressures of staying alive by allowing the student to actualize basic skills quickly with a limited response time. Repetitious, realistic training—based upon simple, gross motor skills that are easy to learn, practice, and perform—does wonders for a student’s motivation and confidence. Once an instructor understands the physiology of how freaked-out people react and what they can be expected to accomplish physically, mentally, and emotionally, the instructor can develop and teach skills and activities that are relevant and effective in a modern, short-term survival emergency.
Sweet Dreams
The importance of getting a good night’s sleep cannot be overemphasized. Like oxygen, water, and food, sleep is an essential physiological need. The relationship between sleepiness and accidents has long been apparent, from taking a wrong turn in the woods to the horrors of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez. Athletes the world over have long believed in the power of shut-eye for optimal performance. Studies on sleep deprivation, both military and civilian, are prolific yet there’s still a lot to know regarding how we spend a third of our life.
In a nutshell, sleep patterns consist of an inactive slow-wave state called non-REM and an active dreaming state called REM, although there are tons of age-related differences in sleep patterns. Both are regulated by circadian and homeostatic influences, controlled by areas of the brain located in the hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and pontine brainstem. Circadian rhythms, biological rhythms that occur at an interval of approximately 24 hours, also influence important survival systems such as mental and visual alertness and core body temperature. Even single cells are capable of demonstrating circadian rhythms, which are rhythms that persist regardless of how much sleep, food, or activity you’ve indulged in. These rhythms systematically and naturally drop core body temperature, whether you have hypothermia or not, and can, for obvious reasons, add fuel to an already ugly predicament as well as can be linked to your metabolism and oxygen use.
While there’s much disagreement in the literature, sleep deprivation compromises the body in many ways. It doesn’t take a scientific study to realize that a failure to catch some Zs makes folks feel cranky, tired, forgetful, clumsy, and generally no fun to be around. Unfamiliar outdoor stressors, such as strange noises, temperature extremes, calorie deprivation, odd sleep times, and more, work in unison to gradually pound you into submission with a feeling of extreme fatigue and weariness. Although most of what we know about the lack of sleep revolves around the immune system and brain function, sleep deprivation was recently found to interfere with the metabolism of glucose (a critical source of energy for all cellular activity) by slowing it down 30 to 40 percent! This could impair endurance, physical recovery time, and the regulation of body temperature. The storage of glucose in the muscles and liver (glycogen) is particularly important for any endurance activity. In a sleep -deprived state, glycogen storage may be slowed, preventing the survivor from “topping off the gas tank.” Elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, a catabolic (breakdown) hormone, were also discovered and have been linked to the development of memory impairments, impaired tissue repair and growth, and a depressed immune system, causing greater susceptibility to nasty cold bugs and diseases. While tasks that require a short burst of concentration are less affected from weariness, tasks that require constant monitoring—like looking for your rescuers—suffer big time. In addition, outside of practiced skills, complex decision-making plummets as does short-term memory and verbal communication. On the plus side, oddly enough, sleep deprivation has been used as an alternative treatment for depression, producing drastic improvements in the moods of about 60 percent of the people who tried it.
The good news is that the negative effects of sleep deprivation can be cured by a normal sleep pattern. Much evidence also points to the fact that “strong motivation,” paired with good physical conditioning, is one of the principal factors for temporarily holding at bay the effects of fatigue. The bottom line is that the jury is still out on many aspects of sleep-deprivation physiology, and more studies need to be accomplished before any “new” information sticks.
Equally important, if not more important for the survivor, is the ability to stay awake if necessary when tired. Try stimulation activities such as movement, conversation, drinking, chewing, or anything else you can think of to help temporarily shake the sleepies. If you’re up for a challenge, the world record for not sleeping in a person without a medical condition is 18 days and 17 hours.
The All-Powerful Nap
Although many scenarios exist that are virtually impossible to sleep through, strive to get as much sleep as you can, when you can. Humans require about 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night depending on age and other individual factors, yet research has shown the importance of achieving a minimum of 4 ½ to 5½ hours of “core sleep” every 24 hours. Under the bizarre sleep circumstances of most survival situations, naps may be one of the most effective means of increasing mental, emotional, and physical performance. While naps can be taken at any time, those initiated at night, early morning, and mid-afternoon will allow you to conk out the fastest. The longer the nap, the greater the restorative response, yet naps as short as 20 minutes have been found to be amazingly effective. Snoozing ahead of time, before an expected no-sleep adventure, is also helpful. The well-known nap side effect called sleep inertia, or sleep drunkenness, in which you feel bitchy, confused, disoriented, and overall worse than when you started, is easily dealt with by walking around for 5 or 10 minutes after awakening. The moral of the story is obvious, try to avoid doing critical tasks immediately upon waking from a nap.
Even the most experienced outdoors person can and does get caught off guard, so don’t expect to be a superman or woman. Nature has a way of opening your Pandora’s box, regardless of your level of training. Like my friend’s SWAT scenario earlier, 100 percent training realism in understanding the effects of intense mental and emotional stress is impossible to obtain. Regardless of the quality of training and the competence of the instructors, the student always knows it’s a drill. This knowledge is a personal blind spot into our own psychology. The reality of your survivor mind-set is this: while training is a must and of extreme value, you’ll never truly know what you’re made of until the day the brown stuff hits the fan.
4
WHY FEAR SUCKS
“If you are scared, you will die.”
—RICHARD VAN PHAM,
AFTER BEING RESCUED BY A U.S. WARSHIP AFTER
SPENDING THREE MONTHS ADRIFT AT SEA. ASIDE
FROM HAVING A POSITIVE ATTITUDE, RICHARD
SURVIVED BY CATCHING RAINWATER AND ROAST-
ING SEA BIRDS THAT LANDED ON HIS SAILBOAT.
While the body’s initial response to fear has saved coun
tless lives since time began, the long-term stress of fear sucks, as its damage to the human body has been clinically proven for decades.
When the brain perceives a threat to survival, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) goes hog-wild by immediately releasing tons of stress hormones—called adrenaline or epinephrine—into the circulatory system. This reflex action to stress happens automatically and is virtually uncontrollable. The chemical cocktail is the basis for the body’s fight-or-flight mechanism and is characterized by several factors, including an increased heart rate (from 70 beats per minute to more than 200 in less than one second), increased cardiac output, higher blood pressure, and increased blood sugar. Blood is diverted from organs to the larger muscle groups, resulting in increased strength capabilities and enhanced gross motor skills while the breathing rate accelerates, thereby transporting greater amounts of oxygen to the newly recruited muscle fibers. At the same time, sweating increases to cool the muscles. Minor blood vessels in the arms and legs constrict to reduce bleeding from potential injuries, digestion ceases, and muscle tremors take over. The pupils dilate, reducing depth perception, while axillary muscle performance takes a nosedive, creating blurred vision. And, as if this isn’t enough, the field of sight narrows, producing tunnel vision. To a greater or lesser extent, time appears to pass more slowly, called the tache-psyche effect, allowing for increased reaction time to the perceived emergency.
Researchers have spent years figuring out why stress deteriorates performance in combat soldiers, ultimately linking an elevated heart rate to the crappy execution of fine and complex motor skills. They found that a heart rate of 115 beats per minute or faster severely compromised fine motor skills. When the heart rate exceeded 145 beats per minute, complex motor skills began to suffer. In contrast, in times of high stress, gross motor skills were relatively unaffected! Again, all the more reason to keep your outdoor skills and the gear you carry simple in design.
Five Factors Dictating the Severity of an SNS Total Body Takeover
1. The severity of the perceived threat.
2. The time available to respond.
3. Personal confidence in skills and training.
4. The level of experience in dealing with the threat.
5. The amount of physical fatigue combined with the present anxiety.
Once the physiological chaos begins, the SNS rules the body with an iron fist, controlling all voluntary and involuntary systems until the survival threat has been eliminated, personal performance takes a dump, or the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) regains control. The more freaked out you are, the more your SNS takes over your world. Before busting down the door in the middle of the night, police officers on a raid routinely experience low levels of SNS activity, resulting in increased heart rate and respiration, muscle tremors, and a heightened sense of anxiety. Being charged by a grizzly bear, however, will cause very high levels of SNS action due to the qualities of “in your face” potential death coupled with decreased response time. Such cir-cumstances cause extreme failure of the body’s visual, cognitive, and motor-control systems.
Additional problems surface upon realizing the body’s physiological response to extreme stress and the PNS payback time occurring as a result of the demands placed upon it. The SNS mobilizes body resources to deal with the perceived survival scenario. It is the body’s “physiological warrior,” instantly heading to the front lines for battle regardless of your opinion. The PNS deals with your body’s digestive system and its recuperative processes. It is the physiological equivalent of the body’s nurturing caretaker, accomplishing everyday tasks for the moment and the future.
When your body is subjected to stress, the natural balance between the two nervous systems goes down the tubes and the physiological warrior starts to raise hell (fight-or-flight mechanism). As the body’s energy is redirected to ensure its survival, its caretaker is thrown into battle as well, and nonessential PNS activities suddenly take a dump (sometimes literally). As a result of the PNS shutdown, thousands of World War II veterans admitted to urinating or defecating in their pants during combat operations.
It’s a lot of work for the body to maintain such an intense state of alert. At the end of the crisis, the PNS demands attention and the physiological payback commences in the form of feeling amazingly whipped on all levels. But wait, that’s not all. A survival situation is a continuous roller-coaster of ups and downs, thus the hapless survivor is a slave to repeated chemical cocktails of intense adrenaline spikes and their PNS paybacks. Bit by bit, the body’s once-natural and useful response to danger starts to chemically wear down the survivor, pitching the person into a state of immense physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. In summary, human beings have three primary survival systems: visual, cognitive processing, and motor-skill performance. Under stress, all three go to hell in a handbasket.
The physiological responses to stress can be broken down into four crucial factors for the survivor:
1. Fear inhibits your metabolic process. Your body produces heat by digesting the calories in the foods you eat. If this is impaired, your body has a harder time regulating core temperature in cold weather. Thus, the onset of hypothermia can manifest much more rapidly. By metabolizing food, your body creates energy that can be used to create shelter, signal for rescue, or make a fire.
2. Fear impairs your circulation. Basic first-aid training stresses the importance of the ABCs (airway, breathing, and circulation). Your circulatory system is how your body feeds itself, delivers oxygen to cells, eliminates waste products, and keeps itself warm and cool. In cold weather, blood flow is the primary means by which your body maintains its peripheral temperature, which is automatically restricted by the SNS’s response to stress! Compromising circulation puts your odds for living into a serious tailspin in both hot and cold climates. In addition, the chances are good that your circulatory system will already be impaired due to dehydration.
3. Fear impairs your good judgment. Good judgment is your number-one tool for preventing or dealing with a survival predicament in the first place. Poor judgment calls, without a doubt, are the hallmark of every single outdoor fatality. Occurrences such as auditory exclusion, tunnel vision, irrational behavior, freezing in place, and the inability to think clearly have all been observed as by-products of survival stress. Do all you can to chill out and calm yourself, redirecting your energies away from the fear factors.
4. Fear impairs your fine and complex motor skills. Although these phenomena have been observed and documented for hundreds of years, and formally studied since the late 1800s, there is very little understanding by researchers as to why stress deteriorates performance.
There are three generic classifications of motor movements or skills involving coordinated action from your body. They are gross, fine, and complex motor skills. Gross motor movements signify action involving the larger muscle groups of the body, such as the arms and legs. Running, jumping, pushing, pulling, and punching are some examples. Fine motor skills involve some type of “hand-eye” coordination, such as threading a needle or making a ten-foot, Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala. Complex motor skills comprise a whole string or series of motor movements, such as shooting a bow and arrow on horseback at full gallop, or purchasing several copies of this book. The problem lies in the fact that fine and complex motor skills deteriorate rapidly under stress. Highly detailed activities, such as striking a match, become nearly impossible to perform under psychological pressure and the physiological flow of adrenaline, rendering all but the simplest of tasks out of the question. Once the proverbial bullets start to fly, the survivor stops thinking with his or her forebrain, the part that makes us human, and instead depends on the “mid” or mammalian brain, the primitive part of the brain that’s unrecognizable from that of an animal.
In contrast, gross motor skills are performed very well under extreme stress and are easier and quicker to learn, often taking just a few minutes of practice to begin forming a motor pattern. For this
reason and others, pack survival gear that is simple in design—gear that can be operated using gross motor movements. For example, a magnesium bar with striking insert—a fire-making tool we will explore later—can be crudely scraped into tinder to start a fire. Doing so is much easier to perform under stress than striking a match. Unfortunately, much survival training ignores this fundamental truth by continuing to promote complex, detail-oriented skills and behaviors that have little application in a real-life emergency. These training mistakes are many times responsible for a student’s failure to use what he or she has learned when faced with a hairy situation.
Note that two of the four impairments involve basic body temperature regulation. As I’ve said before, the biggest people killer in the outdoors is exposure, or the failure to regulate core body temperature. It’s long been a cliché that fear kills, and now you know why.
Knowledge and practice is power. The more training you have dealing with situations that could jeopardize your life, the more efficiently you’ll act if placed in that situation.
Physical and Psychological Fear Factors
While the reactions to fear and anxiety are largely the same, anxiety is usually not as intense as fear and persists for a longer length of time, leading up to a specific threat or fear.
Physical symptoms of fear:
Increased heart rate
Shortness of breath
Tightness in chest and throat
Dry mouth, higher pitched voice, stammering
Increased muscular tension, trembling, and weakness