Meditating military helicopter pilots

By Dave English

A peer-reviewed scientific study published this year shows the positive impact of meditation on personnel in two Norwegian Air Force helicopter squadrons. This was not new-age wishful thinking, or sloppy science self-reporting that some people felt good. No, this was university and Air Force doctors and scientists taking chemical measurements of salivary cortisol, testing performance on computer-based cognitive tasks, and comparing the results to a control group. The subjects were all high-performance airmen during a prolonged period of high-demand work. This is real-world stuff.

The results:

From a mixed between–within analysis revealed that the [mindfulness training] participants compared to the control group had a larger pre to post increase in high- and low-cortisol slopes, and decrease in perceived mental demand imposed by the go–no go test.

The conclusion:

[Mindfulness training] alleviates some of the physiological stress response and the subjective mental demands of challenging tasks in a military helicopter unit during a period of high workload.

It totally worked! And this wasn’t weeks in an intense winter in a Zen monastery; it was a pretty standard mindfulness stress reduction program. After a 10-hr comprehensive introductory course, there were weekly 3-hr sessions and twice-weekly, 20-min audio-guided sessions. Totally doable by anybody.

Exactly how this ancient practice, stripped down to its secular core, changes the brain and the body is unknown. But unlike brain training apps or other dis-proven interventions, it seems to work on a special intersection of peace and action that is vital for martial arts — and flying.

A capacity to remain both calm and alert is not a combination humans have naturally inherited through the millennia. Therefore, [mindfulness training] has been suggested to be of particular value for several groups striving for excellence in taxing environments.

If evidence this strong was presented that a pill improved performance, we’d all demand prescriptions for the new wonder drug. Which makes me wonder, why aren’t more of us sitting for 15 minutes a day using a good meditation app (like Headspace) on our phone?

Is 15 minutes a day looking quietly inward too much to get better at flying? At life?

 

Reference: Meland, A., Ishimatsu, K., Pensgaard, A. M., Wagstaff, A., Fonne, V., Garde, A. H. and Harris, A. (2015). Impact of Mindfulness Training on Physiological Measures of Stress and Objective Measures of Attention Control in a Military Helicopter Unit. International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 25(3-4), pages 191-208. Published online 2016 May 10. doi: 10.1080/10508414.2015.1162639

Do ‘brain-training’ games make you a better pilot?

By Dave English

The Association for Psychological Science recently published a massive 200-page research report on brain training programs, seeing if fun cognitive tasks or games can enhance performance on other tasks. Peer-reviewed, respected authors, fully-referenced. It covered all the valid studies that have examined this question, a huge research database.

And the results?

Based on this examination, we find extensive evidence that brain-training interventions improve performance on the trained tasks, less evidence that such interventions improve performance on closely related tasks, and little evidence that training enhances performance on distantly related tasks or that training improves everyday cognitive performance.

So no, they don’t!

Pretty much all brain games make you better at, is brain games.

If you want to be a better pilot, maybe play a flying game? There is some evidence that fast-moving video games help eye-hand coordination and spacial reasoning. Ultimately we know this is true as we train in flight simulators. But luminosity or whatever isn’t go to help.

Practicing a cognitive task consistently improves performance on that task and closely related tasks, but the available evidence that such training generalizes to other tasks or to real-world performance is not compelling.

There was good news in the literature review. Non-cognitive interventions show promise. Stuff like aerobic exercise, meditation training, and even pharmaceutical use. However, as the report points out,

Each technique requires an intentional, active effort on the part of the learner that is likely viewed as less enjoyable than playing a video game.

So I’m deleting luminosity and other brain games from my phone. Will still play Angry Birds, but not fooling myself it’s making me a brainiac.

 

Reference: Simons, D. J., Boot, W. R., Charness, N., Gathercole, S. E., Chabris, C. F., Hambrick, D. Z. and Stine-Morrow, E. A. L. (2016). Do “Brain-Training” Programs Work? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Volume 17(3), pages 103–186. Full HTML and PDF http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/hK6Y5zBI1Rv.M/full

 

Checklist complete! Or is it?

By Dave English

This airline training slide explains ‘active monitoring’ – visualize, act, compare. You must look for something, not just at something:

jetblue active monitoring It’s easy to say we should be mentally flying the aeroplane, but it’s also kind of a cop out. So it’s a nice addition to have some concrete ideas on how to actually do it.

Anne McClain on facing fears

By Dave English

Anne McClain has faced down many fears, and is now going to be rewarded with sights that are literally out of this world.
fear
She’s been an Army combat helicopter pilot who deployed to Iraq, an instructor pilot and a test pilot. She is currently a NASA astronaut, in the pipeline to fly to Mars.
 
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