{"id":1332,"date":"2016-12-20T01:13:12","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T08:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innerairmanship.com\/blog\/?p=1332"},"modified":"2016-12-20T01:24:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T08:24:59","slug":"meditating-military-helicopter-pilots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/20\/meditating-military-helicopter-pilots\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditating military helicopter pilots"},"content":{"rendered":"

A peer-reviewed scientific study published this year<\/a>\u00a0shows 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\u00a0salivary 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.\u00a0This is real-world stuff.<\/p>\n

The results:<\/p>\n

From a mixed between\u2013within 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\u2013no go test.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The conclusion:<\/p>\n

\n

[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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u00a010-hr comprehensive introductory course, there were weekly 3-hr sessions and twice-weekly, 20-min audio-guided sessions. Totally doable by anybody.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Exactly how this ancient practice, stripped down to its secular core, changes the brain and the body is unknown. But unlike brain training apps<\/a> or other dis-proven interventions, it seems to work on a special intersection of peace and action that is vital for martial arts \u2014 and flying.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a>) on our phone?<\/p>\n

Is 15 minutes a day looking quietly inward too much to get better at flying? At life?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reference:\u00a0Meland, A., Ishimatsu, K., Pensgaard, A. M., Wagstaff, A., Fonne, V., Garde, A. H. and Harris, A. (2015).\u00a0Impact of Mindfulness Training on Physiological Measures of Stress and Objective Measures of Attention Control in a Military Helicopter Unit. International Journal of Aviation Psychology<\/em>, 25(3-4), pages 191-208. Published online 2016 May 10.\u00a0<\/span>doi:\u00a0<\/span><\/a>10.1080\/10508414.2015.1162639<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A peer-reviewed scientific study published this year\u00a0shows 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\u00a0salivary 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.\u00a0This is real-world stuff. The results: From a mixed between\u2013within analysis revealed that the [mindfulness training] participants compared to the control group had … Continue reading Meditating military helicopter pilots<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,6],"tags":[47,51,67,59,119],"class_list":["post-1332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-link-to-articles","tag-awareness","tag-meditation","tag-military-ops","tag-training","tag-zen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1337,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions\/1337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}