I have spent a great deal of my adult life studying fear and how it relates to survival.

My interest in this subject started when I was a boy, growing up in central Louisiana. On a cold dreary day in November, while on a hunting trip with my father and two brothers, I became lost. At first, it was no big deal; I had been turned around in the woods before, but always found my way out within a reasonable time. Not today. After several hours of walking it became clear to me that this time was different. I was truly lost, and darkness was coming.

It was then that I began to focus not on how to find my way out of these woods, but rather all the bad things that might happen. I became fearful of every noise, or lack thereof. I imagined things were behind every tree or just beyond the next small hill. I became truly paralyzed by the thought of having to spend the night alone in these dark woods, even though I carried a gun and had matches to build a fire.

Something was blocking my ability to make sound decisions about my predicament, and I became truly lost, not just physically, but mentally. I did not fully understand what was happening to me, as I sat with my back to a large pine tree, but I had convinced myself that it would lead to no good.

I know now that my emotions had taken over. Anxiety, nervousness, and uneasiness are emotions that we have all felt, but as a boy, lost in the woods with darkness approaching, I did not understand. I also did not understand why suddenly, I knew that I had to flee these woods, and started moving again. A short time later I walked out on a road that I recognized and was picked up by another hunter I knew, and driven back to where my father and brothers were waiting. One of my brothers asked if I had gotten lost, and I replied, of course not, I was hunting. But, that day started my lifelong quest to understand what had happened to me mentally and how we survive under those circumstances. What I have learned is the basis for this article.

I have come to understand that I experienced anxiety that day in November, so many years ago, not fear. The difference between fear and anxiety is that anxiety is an emotional state of unpleasantness but it does not have a specific thing to fear. Therefore there is no way to pinpoint the actual cause of fear and this causes severe compounding distress. Exactly, what I experienced that day. Fear is based on a stimulus you perceive as dangerous and is related to survival; fear helps you react in an instant to a stimulus you perceive as dangerous and survive the event.

So how does it work? This stimulus we call fear has evolved over millions of years as a way to protect us from harm. The newer part of our brain, the amygdala, recognizes and identifies a threat and then passes it on to the oldest part of our brain, the hypothalamus, to respond to the threat. The amygdala is the body’s central alarm system, and is located in the temporal lobe behind the ears. It is continually assessing your surrounding environment for any threat and takes action along the lines of: “Danger! Danger!” This action takes control of our body and initiates additional actions one of which is to alert the hypothalamus, a walnut-sized gland near the base of the brain, which then sends a signal down your spinal cord to the adrenal glands.The adrenal glands then send hormones through the blood stream back to the brain to help you deal with the stress. That is when you jump out of your seat.

In my quest to understand how the brain responds to the emotion of fear in a survival situation, I discovered that research into this question was almost non-existent. Then I discovered the work of Dr. Joseph LeDoux of New York University and I might add a native of Louisiana. Dr. LeDoux has discovered that the components of fear go beyond feelings and emotions. According to Dr. LeDoux it also involves the specific memory of the emotion. This is why a survivor can often vividly remember details, but when so doing, their body reacts as though they are going through the experience again.

Not all research makes this distinction between emotions and feelings, most do agree that the fear response involves more than just a physical preparation to “fight, flight, or  freeze.” When I asked Dr. LeDoux what happens in our brain when the fear emotion is activated, he replied that once the fear system of the brain detects and starts responding to danger, the brain will begin to assess what is happening, and try to figure out what to do about it through the following process: Information of the threat stimulus is detected via the senses of the body; sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. Information from one or all of these senses is then routed to the thalamus (a brain structure near the amygdala that acts like an air traffic controller or a mail sorting station that sorts out incoming sensory signals. In a non-spontaneous threat situation, the thalamus will direct information received to the appropriate cortex of the brain (such as the visual cortex), which consciously thinks about the impulse, assessing the danger, and making sense of it.

This is where the O.O.D.A. loop begins (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

Once a decision has been made as to what to do, the information is then downloaded to the amygdala, which creates emotion and action through the body to either perpetuate a physical response or to abort a physical response.  In addition to Dr. LeDoux’s work I have studied the research of Bruce Siddle and Dr. Hal Breedlove and their work dealing with “Survival Stress Reaction” or SSR. 

Siddle defines SSR as “a state where a “perceived” high threat stimulus automatically engages the parasympathetic nervous system.  The parasympathetic nervous system is an autonomic response process, which, when activated, there is little you can do to control it. Some of the effects of SSR include an increase in your heart rate, which will cause you to lose certain motor skills starting at around 115 beats per minute or bpm. At around 175 bpm you experience tunnel vision and visual tracking becomes difficult along with difficulty focusing on close objects. Your hearing starts to shut down at approx 145 bpm and as a result people may not hear what you say. At 175 bpm you may have difficulty remembering what took place or what you did during the situation. At 185 bpm, most people go into a state of hyper vigilance. This state is also commonly known as the “deer in the headlights look”. During this state you may do things that are not effective or show irrational behavior. This is also the state in which people describe that they can’t move, speak, or scream.

Remember that SSR is an autonomic response, which happens without thought on your part. Siddle did find that a person can manage SSR during a survival situation in the following ways:

Visualization is commonly known as “spinal tuning” and we know that the upper part of the spinal column holds short term memory. For this reason I teach my first responder students to visualize both their plan A and plan B strategy while enroute to a call.

Simulation Training helps build experience and confidence through realistic stimulus/response based training. The more real the training the better. To all you instructors out there, skills should be separated into progressive steps, rather than taught all at once. Many instructors teach physical techniques by having the students practice the entire process from beginning to end when first learning a new skill set. This is a big mistake. The brain learns first in pictures and through modeling. By teaching a skill from A to Z all at once, the student may not fully get the whole picture needed to perform the skill properly. You must insure that the student understands step A fully, before moving on to step B and so on. By doing this, frustration on the part of the student and the instructor goes down, while confidence and skill level go up.

Autogenic Breathing You breathe in through your nose for a count of three, hold for a two count, and then breathe out through your mouth for a three count. Research has shown that if you perform this technique for a three cycle count, you will decrease your heart rate up to 30% for up to 40 seconds. If your heart rate was around 175 bpm, autogenic breathing would bring it down into a target range of 145 bpm. Siddle found that a person with a 115-145 bpm range is a maximum performance range. In other words, 115-145 bpm is where your fighting skills and reaction time are maximized.

So how do you as training officers incorporate this information in the field of Fear and Survival Skills Training?

1. Use the above information as a starting point and do your own research.

2. Seek out instructors, like Tony Blauer, founder of Blauer Tactical Systems, Bruce Siddle and his PPCT management system, Darren Laur of Personal Protection Systems Inc. whom I credit with much of the above information, and the various training programs I teach to public safety professionals also revolve around the above noted principles. These instructors use the above research in their teaching.

3. If you are unable to attend a course by one of these gentlemen or their associates, take a look at your own training instruction and ask yourself if your teaching is in agreement with the above information.

4. There are ways to reduce fear and inhibit the fear response (see the steps Siddle found to manage SSR above).  Research into fear and how it impacts survival is evolving and you as instructors need to keep abreast of this evolution and integrate them into your training programs. Stay safe.

 Dale Stewart, Founder and CEO REACTION. Known world wide for his ability to plan, integrate and succeed at missions in some of the most hostile terrains and circumstances on earth. He has been there, done it, and survived to teach lessons learned. He leads a team of tactical instructors who teach their skills to those men and women with a vested interest in the public safety of our citizens. Dale and his team are experts and practitioners in the art of survival and tactical decision-making who teach their “in the trenches” experience to other professionals through their unique training programs. You can reach Dale at dstewart@dalestewart.com