Excel Under Stress: One Simple Technique Used by Elite Military Special Operations Forces
/Breathing. An action so common yet so often neglected. We don’t realize the power inherent with our breathing. We know it keeps us alive, but beyond that, we tend to just forget about it.
Improper breathing accelerates stress and anxiety while hampering physical performance.
Proper breathing gives us better conscious control over stress and anxiety and enables peak physical response.
The odds are you have never considered the critical effect proper breathing has on mental performance, especially the ability to perform under pressure and stress. Stress and pressure are constants in our lives. We face it at work, at home, and in activities like athletics. Proper breathing, especially in high-pressure environments, enables peak performance and the ability to defeat your competition.
All it takes is one simple technique.
This breathing technique, the 4-Count Breathing Method, is an essential tool for anyone facing stressful environments. The source of the stress is irrelevant. It works in all stressful environments - a big presentation, a heated conversation, or a life-threatening situation. The 4-count breathing method allows you to regain control and calm your mind.
This technique is not just a theoretical suggestion. I can’t emphasize this point enough. Not only is this technique used by professional athletes, surgeons, and musicians, but several elite military units, such as the U.S. Navy SEALs and Soviet Special Forces, use this method to handle the pressure of direct combat engagements.
The idea is this - if it works in combat, it will work for the daily stressors we face.
While the technique is simple, rehearsal is critical. Make it an automatic response when stress strikes. Just reading about it is not enough. We need to prime our unconscious to reflexively engage the 4-count method at the first sign of stress. It is pointless to think about the technique after the stress has passed.
If you are a leader, share this tool with your team. Stress affects everyone. It’s an epidemic in most careers. Since organizations fail to teach people to handle stress, this is one technique that can be implemented immediately.
Here’s the 4-Count Breathing Method:
• Inhale to a count of four
• Hold your breath to a count of four
• Exhale to a count of four
• Hold your breath empty to a count of four
That’s it. A short series of breathing movements, all held to a count of four. Its simplicity is its strength.
Let’s understand why this technique works so well.
Hendrie Weisenger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry, describe in their book, Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most, why breathing is critical:
Being able to depressurize is dependent on your ability to regain your feelings of control so that you can reduce your anxiety and overcome the sense that the situation is slipping away. At the same time, you want to put yourself back in control and restore your sense of confidence. The fastest, easiest, and most accessible way for you to do this is to bring your physical arousal under control via your breathing.1
One of the best ways to think about the link between breathing and stress is from the founder of Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls. He describes the unfortunate, but common response of turning excitement into fear:
Fear is excitement without the breath…the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it. On the other hand, excitement turns into fear quickly if you hold your breath. When scared, most of us have a tendency to try to get rid of the feeling. We think we can get rid of it by denying or ignoring it, and we use holding our breath as a physical tool of denial.2
Most of us tend to hold our breath under stress, even for short moments. It’s much more common than you think. The first step is awareness, so you can then implement the technique. If you don’t have the awareness, you will always miss it.
In the U.S., we can credit Dave Grossman, a former U.S. Army Ranger and West Point psychology professor, for popularizing the 4-count method. Dave is the author of several books on military and police psychology.
Dave describes the technique:
Think of your autonomic nervous system as a big, shuddering, shaking machine that has only one control lever sticking out from its side. Your breathing is that control lever, the one thing you can reach out and grab. When you control your breathing you control the whole autonomic nervous system…through proper breathing, you can control your sympathetic nervous system response, the fancy term for fear and anger…the more you practice the breathing technique, the quicker the effects kick in, as a result of powerful classical and operant conditioning mechanisms.3
Dave also elaborates on the diverse backgrounds of people who use the technique:
I teach tactical breathing to Green Berets, federal agents, and even surgeons in hospitals so they do not lose their fine-motor control in the middle of an operation. I also teach it to basketball players to improve their free-throw rate and to college kids suffering from test anxiety.3
Why This Technique Works
The only link between the sympathetic nervous system and the autonomic is breathing.4
Breathing is powerful because of the direct link between breathing and the autonomic nervous system responsible for our stress response. The science is clear – breathing mitigates our automatic stress response:
Body functions, such as heart rate, body temperature, breathing, blinking, and digestion, are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, or ANS. You are unaware of the workings of the ANS because it functions in an involuntary, reflexive manner. However, one of the responses you do have control over is your breathing. The strategy here is to use your natural act of breathing as a bridge back from mindless panic to an optimal condition to perform. Anxiety speeds up your breathing, forcing you to breathe high up in your chest. By consciously slowing your breathing down and making sure you breathe from your diaphragm, you will be able to quickly calm yourself down.5
Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes, further explains how breathing helps control stress:
How could something [breathing] so simple be so powerful? The breath is one of the few actions that reside in both our somatic nervous system, which we can consciously control and are autonomic system, which includes her heartbeat and other actions we cannot easily access. So the breath is a bridge between the two as combat instructor Dave Grossman explains. The consciously slowing down the breath we can de-escalate the primal fear response that otherwise takes over.6
The Trained vs. Untrained
A physical confrontation is one of the most stressful situations imaginable. While unlikely to happen to most people, these situations are an extreme example of how proper breathing can save your life. And it all comes down to who is trained vs. who is untrained.
Rory Miller, author of Scaling Force: Dynamic Decision Making Under Threat of Violence, describes the reactions during a violent encounter:
Untrained adversaries will begin to breathe shallow and fast in the upper chest while trained opponents will breathe slow and deep from their abdomen….Most people aren’t mentally prepared for sudden violence…It does not matter why you are being attacked, simply that you are in danger.7
Technique Flexibility
Former Navy Seal Mark Divine shares a similar technique called Box Breathing, using a 5-count method. Same idea with a slight variation.
Now let's turn to my favorite training tool, which develops the relaxation breath and concentration simultaneously. It is called Box Breathing and it is simply adding a hold at the end of each inhale and exhale. Start by exhaling all of the air from the lungs. Now inhale to a count of five, and then hold your breath to a count of five. Next, exhale to a count of five, and hold the exhaled breath for a count of five.8
Don’t get hung up on the exact count. Use a count that allows you to regain control of your emotions. Practice and adapt until you know what works for you.
Personal Experience
On a personal level, I’ve had two occasions where I’ve suffered because of improper breathing during high-stress situations. Now that I’m aware of it, I’m better able to take control when it matters.
I was a member of the public speaking organization Toastmasters for several years. Early on, I remember being out of breath as I would begin my speech. I didn’t realize that I was shallow breathing due to the anticipation and stress. When I began speaking, I was already out of breath, compounding my nerves. I never figured it out, until coming across this technique.
The other example comes from martial arts. I competed in Taekwondo for several years. I remember becoming exhausted so quickly after the match started even though I was in excellent physical condition. I now realize I was doing the same thing as I did in Toastmasters: I’d begin shallow breathing well before my competition began. Then as my match started, I would essentially hold my breath as we began sparring. I was completely unaware of what my lack of breathing was doing to me.
I now practice and compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and have much better control of my breathing. I can compete for an entire match because I’ve consciously trained to breathe. It’s an automatic habit.
It doesn’t matter what kind of condition you’re in if you don’t breathe. It seems obvious now, but it’s never apparent in the moment. As the person competing in the arena, you don’t realize how stress and tunnel vision cause you to neglect the most basic actions. I now realize how the pressure of any situation, including competitive tournaments, leads to poor breathing and poor performance.
Sources:
1. Hendrie Weisinger, J.P. Pawliw-Fry, Performing Under Pressure: Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most
2. Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap: The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
3. Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why
4. Sam Sheridan, The Disaster Diaries: One Man’s Ques to Learn Everything Necessary to Survive the Apocalypse
5. Hendrie Weisinger, J.P. Pawliw-Fry, Performing Under Pressure: Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most
6. Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why
7. Rory Miller, Scaling Force: Dynamic Decision Making Under Threat of Violence
8. Mark Divine, Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level