 The Virginia Military Institute aka VMI is one of the most prestigious military colleges in the country training young men and women to join the military and they're teaching the students meditation but why is that? Stay tuned and find out why. What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. So I've been reading this book right here meditation for fidgety skeptics by the amazing Dan Harris and I was gonna do an end of book review I'm still in the middle of it but there's so much good information in this book that I just kind of want to do some videos on some really cool topics in there and if you would like to get this book check out the description below there will be a link but anyways part of this book they go to VMI this military institute where there are college professors actually teaching these young cadets various forms of meditation and there's a there's a very good reason why so let's talk about some of the topics behind this so one issue that comes up is devout meditation practitioners they were asking is this ethical you're teaching people who are going to war to kill people you're teaching a meditation and any of you who follow the science of meditation or you've checked out some of my other videos like this makes you more effective at what you do it makes you better at the things you do so they're wondering is this ethical but the great argument for this is that by teaching these cadets meditation it could potentially actually lessen the casualties because something that happens when you meditate you're allowed to keep your cool you're allowed to you're you're able to focus you're able to pay attention so in reality it could actually lessen the casualties imagine being in a combat situation and not freaking out and just spraying bullets in everywhere and potentially killing innocent people right so meditation helps these military men and women keep their cool a lot better and focus on what they're shooting at right one of the other benefits to this is the vast amounts of scientific research that shows that meditation helps with PTSD we live in a country and this is in all countries where war veterans often struggle with PTSD this increases the likelihood of suicide as well as substance abuse meditation helps with PTSD because one the whole practice is about bringing yourself back to the moment PTSD is something that's triggered where your brain is reacting to something that happened in the past so when you're practicing a meditation like mindfulness you're constantly bringing yourself back to the moment the other thing that meditation does is that it decreases cortisol levels cortisol is your stress hormone so and when you're having an episode of PTSD meditation will actually calm your body down the other benefit to this is that meditation teaches us not to turn away from our experience but to just embrace it and feel it and lean into it so one of the concerns that comes up obviously at a military academy you got a bunch of these big bad people you know ready these killing machines some of the students were reluctant like man if I had meditate are people gonna call me a wuss are they gonna call me a wimp but one of the instructors he made a very valid point he said I think that you're a wuss if you don't meditate and I was like dang right because it's so true meditation is a practice where you're actually turning towards your experience when you sit with yourself and you sit with your experience with your thoughts with your emotions you're embracing them most of us not just military personnel but most of us we have a tendency to turn away from our emotions turn away from our feelings and completely avoid them it takes a real bad ass to turn towards those things and just fully embrace them it's about facing our fears head on and learning how to deal with them effectively rather than in toxic ways right rather than snapping at people rather than being verbally abusive physically abusive rather than turning to substances it allows us to sit with whatever we're thinking or feeling all right but part of what Dan Harris and his partner Jeff Warren did was they took this boss and they went around and were teaching people meditation and interviewing people so they met with a lot of the young cadets who were practicing meditation so this next clip that I'm going to show you it's actually from one of the seniors at this college and if you don't believe me here's Dan Harris talking about this young man and what he said about what his experience has been with meditation take a listen I was particularly struck by Anthony an imposing senior who had recently enlisted in the special forces and looked like he too occasionally enjoyed a lemon for a snack he said he had learned about meditation from his girlfriend who quote is kind of a wannabe hippie after she told him how it helped her with stress he started doing 10 minutes at night in the library he told us it definitely changed my evenings and how I felt centered in myself the voices and the narrative that I was constantly going through in my head just kind of faded away I was more present in myself to sit there and listen to this archetypal badass so accurately described the benefits of meditation made my heart sing and I fully agree with Dan Harris like this kid just perfectly summed up what happens when you begin meditating all right so I I hope you enjoyed this video and like I'll do other videos on this I'm not sure if he talks about it in his book but I know Dan Harris has interviewed police officers like when we're talking about lessening the casualties of war think about what would happen if we started teaching our police forces meditation think about how how much officer involved shootings might decrease if officers were trained to keep their cool a little bit better right so anyways these are all topics that I'm going to cover in the future but again I highly highly highly recommend that you go check out this book meditation for fidgety skeptics by Dan Harris and Jeff Warren I will have a link in the description below if you would like to get the book use that link because that's an affiliate link and what that does it helps support the channel and what I'm doing here helps me make more amazing videos to help people like you with symptoms of mental illness so go ahead and check this book out we both win all right but anyways if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here please don't forget to hit that little round subscribe button I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health all right if you want to check out some other videos on this channel you can click or tap right there on one of those thumbnails but as always this is Chris from the rewired soul thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time