 The only easy day was yesterday Welcome to the only easy day was yesterday the official Navy SEAL podcast Anyone who's pushed their personal limits knows it's the mind that must be trained to overcome barriers and that peak performance requires more than physical capability I'm Daniel Fletcher in the next couple episodes. We take a look into naval special warfare's mind-body medicine program Today we speak with an NSW psychologist to discuss optimizing the mental health component of training Rebounding from stress and reaching peak performance under pressure. Let's get started If you could start off with talking about your role here in this environment and some of your core responsibilities Absolutely. So we have there's three psychologists that we have here at Naval Special Warfare Center and we provide support to Both basic training command. So all of the SEAL and SWCC students as well as advanced training commands So the subordinate commands to Naval Special Warfare Center So some of the things that we do here are we provide Clinical services when it comes down to psychotherapy when it comes down to instructors or our students and then other roles and responsibilities that we have fall in the domain of Non-clinical services. So we do assessment selection So personnel selection of all of the candidates that are coming into the pipeline and as well as the instructors So they're participating in highest trainings We have to screen the instructors to make sure that they're doing things We have the right people for the right job when it comes to both the students as well as the staff So that's what we'd mostly do. We also provide some support for some other training evolutions Like so for example with SEAR we provide some support and then where there are other domains of what we do here regarding Mental performance optimization and executive coaching. Wow interesting. It seems like you have a Big broad and expansive responsibility here. What would you say are some of your favorite areas to work in some areas that really resonate with you? Yeah Well for the purpose is also this particular podcast, you know One of the things that tends to get a lot of traction that we're trying to be able to build this equity has to do with how to be able to look at this next generation of operators the students that are in training and How to make sure that we're able to equip them with skills that aren't just necessarily in the physical domain but how much of the training is really built upon the mental game and there's a lot of Applications when it comes down to when they finish the pipeline and they come into the teams Be it the special boat teams or when it comes out on the SEAL teams what we can do right establishing this foundation of How to optimize mental performance, and that's where I think mind-body medicine comes into play How is that transformed in your experience in the time that you've been here? You know, it's something that for example, you know, we have trainees that come in and The big four is something that all of the students that are going to be exposed to in both respective pipelines When it comes down to SEAL and SWCC candidates So at Great Lakes students will be exposed to These big four when it comes down to looking at sports psychology So one of our predecessors and other psychologists that used to be assigned here at the center Looked at some of the best existing practices and they saw you know what we incorporate some of these things because we want to Equip students with the skills to be successful without kind of showing like here are the keys to the kingdom But how can we set them up for success? So we have those big four and I can go into a little bit more about it Is that yeah, if you want to go on a high level that would be good I think it's important for people to understand if they haven't listened to all the podcasts because we've touched on them before You could go over them as an overview and then kind of dig in how it's applicable here. Absolutely So the big four that if you haven't heard before as far as our listeners We look at visualization being a really important one and that's definitely Appropriated from the literature regarding mindfulness and mind-body medicine Arousal control when it comes down to breathing also one of those things that has a direct correlation When it comes down to mind-body medicine things such as looking at goal-setting or positive self-talk that there's some things that have been kind of appropriated from some of the therapy skills that we have so Visualization is looking at how to be able to look at visualizing something So there's Olympic trainers that teach their athletes about how to be able to incorporate using visualization I think one of the stats that I remember reading was about 95 percent of Olympic trainers use visualization with their athletes and Yeah, I know right and so these athletes that even when it comes down to medalists they look at some of these these techniques Arousal control right how to be able to look on your breathing has huge implications regarding your performance from a physical standpoint And again, that's something that's in mind-body medicine goal-setting looking at how to be able to Prioritize one's goals how to be able to chunk things that are more manageable right that adage of how do you eat an elephant? Yeah, one bite at a time one bite at a time right and the last one being Looking at positive self-talk because it's the ability to bounce back That's also really important and a lot of times if you have any type of setback and this that's one of those things It's really important when it comes down to being in the pipeline if you're on one particular evolution Struggling with something and you're not measuring up to where you thought you would perform How do you find a way to be able to engage in positive self-talk? So the next time that you go do that evolution or the next evolution if it's something completely different that you're able to optimize that Performance as opposed to just spinning down the drain and just focusing on all of your shortcomings So why do you think that those the first two specifically have direct application NSW community? Yeah, so let's look at something Let's say something apart from NSW and then we'll come back through it Okay, so looking at sports the biathlon right you have people that are skiing right and then having to stop and then shoot All right, so you think about that what's in some happening your heart rates increasing You have all these things physiologically that are occurring that can really impair your ability to hit a target So they have to be able to practice these by athletes How to be able to down-regulate that physiological response and being able to focus on hitting the target and then boom Ramping right back up hitting the slope skiing and getting the next target, right? So you think about that and you look at that parallel What are you doing tactically? You're doing something very similar when you're going in to be able to say to clear a house Yes, you need to be able to ramp up to get to that optimal zone of functioning and performance But not to the point where your system physiologically gets overwhelmed. So you look at Practicing your breathing the same things that are taught within our mind-body medicine class that a lot of Soraco teaches here How to be able to get in that right state of zone of functioning? Same thing happens regarding being on the range right, so we have Operators that go to Indiana and they have their sniper school We have students that also have to be able to learn how to shoot when it comes down to doing CQC close-quarters combat And how can they bring everything down as far as the breathing, right? It's the same thing learning how to be able to Exhale right controlling slowing down your heart rate pulling the trigger and hitting it so that your breathing isn't Affecting where you're overshooting the target. Do you feel that there's a certain pushback against some of these practices until people? Learn them. It's a lot harder I think for people to wrap their minds around the benefits without doing them especially on a surface level Is that something that you have had a challenge with trying to incorporate this it to be quote taken seriously? Yeah, the biggest one is about people just not building the time into their schedule so we have people that Are able to say okay. Well, I can do this and it's like Working out Part of it about Working out and having a regimen is being able to do it with some periodicity How to be able to incorporate so it's part of your lifestyle you can't cram working out You can't be like all right I'll spend, you know three hours in the gym this week and I'll make up for everything Yeah, right as opposed to let's say 30 to 60 minutes segments on a daily basis So the same thing with mindfulness same thing with mind body medicine. How do you incorporate this? So it's part of your normal battle rhythm every single day There's a quote about if you'll say you're stressed out, right? You know if you're really really busy and you're stressed out and you have no time to be able to engage in these practices That's the the time when you need to be able to do it. Maybe three-fold, right? Right, so how do you I guess speaking to a potential recruit someone that's kind of really entering the pipeline Maybe they're involved in high school athletics or around that type of their life You mentioned its applications in an operational sense it with the seals or or swick or whoever Maybe you can give a couple ideas of how you would recommend they implement these practices into their lives before they get here Absolutely, so part of it about any of this stuff is building some self-awareness so Every single step before they're gonna be getting this training when it comes down to being in prep, right? So we have eight weeks that are dedicated from a physical standpoint They're gonna do some conditioning but a mental standpoint. They're gonna get access to these big four Before they even come out Part of the job is making sure that they have some awareness of where things are for them internally, right? So if they're going to the gym It's so easy to be able to plug in some music or even plug in this very podcast while they're in the gym and just be Mindless, right and just be able to be disconnected But part of the approach is being able to actually dial in and of be in the moment Understand what's happening to you physically, right? We need to be able to have that as the foundation and precursor for them to be successful to learn the skills that they have in prep So just finding out kind of where they are So one of the things like we are what we will talk about is the body scan and How to be able to look at checking in with yourself? What's happening to you physically because a lot of people are just pushing through it, right? They're invincible. They're in high school They're you know, they want to be able to grab life by the horns and get into NSW But how can they slow the process down to check in what's happening to them physically? How often do you think that's not necessarily required or recommended to do that kind of self-evaluation when they're Not experienced with that kind of sensitivity So repetitions and iterations are really important So to be able to do it on a daily basis and there's some fringe benefits, right? So we have literature that suggests like even something regarding the breathing retraining how to focus on your breath The fringe benefits are it actually over a long enough time period that it lowers any type of heart disease The number one risk for heart disease is stress I'm like the whole thing about a type A personality was that the coin was turned by a cardiologist, right? so it has to do with stress and so there might not be aware of it now but If they're able to kind of see that they put this into practice now in their youth or even if let's say They're a fleet transfer and they're coming into the pipeline. They're earlier the better, right? The earlier the better that you can incorporate these things just like physical fitness So say you do this assessment and yeah, you're carrying a lot of tension is I guess what your takeaway is What do you think it's the next step for somebody who's entering this kind of this process of kind of reevaluation? so looking at resources that they have so Maybe if they have someone when it comes down to existing support systems if they're in some type of sport, right? Like we know we have a lot of people that are wrestlers We have a lot of people that are coming in from water polo backgrounds and they have an inherent ready kind of embedded Coaching systems that can talk to their coach about looking at how maybe based upon some with more experience and they kind of see these things All right, so I noticed that I carry a lot of tension and they can talk to the coach about how have they been able to see regarding Mental performance or when it comes down to mind-body medicine or mindfulness or meditation How has that been something that's been applied in their sport? So it's familiar, right? It has something that there's a reference point if let's say I'm a wrestler and I see how it's applied in Wrestling boom, I've been able to see how there's a real-world application Right and probably experience that benefit themselves absolutely Do you think that the awareness is adequate in the NSW community for the benefits of mindfulness and mind-body medicine? Or is it something that needs to grow or I believe that awareness is growing So this was something that we were asked to be able to look at meeting this demand signal So we had floated all sorts of different ideas when it comes down to programmatic development, so we have a for example a Group slash class on sleep right about how to be able to treat insomnia. Yeah We were providing treatment individually, but we developed a class to address that need another need was like Hey, this is something that is emerging and we need to be able to have something That's not just done individually but more on a group basis right and that was done to normalize That was done from the headshed from the leadership at the top level saying we see merit in this We see that there's some type of benefit. So community-wide We definitely see the people that are more seasoned the people that have more years in the teams that they're the ones actually incorporating this and The ones that are younger or you know, they're able to use their youth and their raw talent to be able to have this But what ends up happening is over the course of a person like an operator's lifespan is that they get really proficient at ramping up and The training that they have as well as their experiences in combat They get finally tuned to be able to have that fight-or-flight response The sympathetic nervous system be finally tuned to be able to respond And there's been some research about looking at conventional forces and soft and the differences there But one of the things that there isn't an emphasis in the training pipeline is about how to be able to promote the relaxation response Everyone has this other animals also have the sympathetic nervous system the fight-or-flight response and the parasympathetic nervous system Which is the relaxation response So if you engage in things of this nature when it comes down to mind-body medicine or meditation It actually helps promote that relaxation response And that's something that's needed and especially over let's say 15 to 20 years of a career 30 years in the teams it becomes more and more difficult because your body becomes finally tuned to be able to ramp up But not ramp down. Yeah, that obviously has an impact on sustainability of the force and the individuals And it's a huge way, right? Absolutely. Is that where the kind of need came from? It was like a general awareness that or maybe lack of awareness And then it was like hey There is a way to do this that exists that we're just not really practicing or Was it something that's picked up from people in the teams that are hey, this is what's working for them How did that kind of come about you? Do you know? Yeah, so it was really coming from the operators So we can talk about what the best practices are, right? So we're the subject matter experts So if we have the clinical psychologist or we have other medical disciplines that are explaining these things It's it's great But the proof in the pudding is really when someone's done it and they see the merit, right? So you have operators that have done this and put it into practice and there's like wow This is something that's incredible. This has actually had an impact to my ability to operate What are successful operators doing in this space that you think people should replicate? One of the things that we hear back from operators is it's it's really based upon what they gravitate toward individually So we can kind of see from a trend analysis. What are the most popular but For example for one person it might be like ooh box breathing is definitely what I want, right? That seems to work really well for me And I mean based upon their experiences of let's say when they are doing athletics, right? They're doing on a sports team and they became something that was ready a skill But they were able to finally hone that skill or for another person it might be like, you know what? I really like the idea of looking at Visualization, right? So there's a number of different techniques and for us we try to emphasize Simplicity over trying to be able to have an overly exhaustive list of different skill sets, right? Like we would rather have the Leatherman multi-tool, right? That you can incorporate Because you can be over-learn that it's the same thing that happens when it comes in a certain tactics Gross motor movement versus fine motor movement who'd rather give you a skill that you can start to be able to apply to multiple scenarios That's streamlined as opposed to a plethora of different skills that you can utilize, right? Right, right, right, and so it's different for everyone. It is it is different for everyone But I think again Like the reason why the big four has actually been sustainable is because there's only four of them And you can kind of build up as far as in complexity of each of those four fundamental Mental performance or where your detriment may be personally. Absolutely. Maybe you could speak a little bit about how And when you've incorporated some of these techniques have been really beneficial to you whether it's after stress or before Performance whatever it may be maybe areas and insights that maybe people might not know where to apply these techniques and skills So in the training pipeline, I think there's some great applications, right? So there's multiple points when it comes down to like you're in a high stress environment Because you have people evaluating you right you're evaluating yourself and your performance your peers are evaluating you You're evaluating your peers you have cadre of instructors that are evaluating you So there's some performance anxiety that can happen and I could really start to impact. Let's say when you're When you're doing a run on the house when you're jumping out of a plane There's all these different things that there's a lot of performance anxiety and stuff that you haven't done or you don't do really regularly so being able to put into practice, let's say When you're in a learning environment and you're getting classroom didactics how you can incorporate, let's say visualization Definitely something you can use your right or the breathing right how to be able to have it So you're not taking these short and shallow breaths and Exfixiating right how to be able to control your breathing so that you're able to dial in and making sure that let's say you're doing an aerobic Exercise and you're having to run you can definitely do this So I think that in a training environment, especially with the listeners that are looking at all right I'm gonna do let's say the PST or I'm gonna do some type of physical fitness evolution There is a mental component and how you can get into that optimal zone right before you execute for people that might be experiencing symptoms of whether it's stress Anxiety fill in the blank. What would you tell them for them to know? Hey, I need to Do something beyond self-care here. Is there any indicators that people should be aware of that's hey I can't talk myself down from this level of anxiety or whatever it may be How do you kind of navigate that so I mean ideally they're able to check in with themselves But you know, that's why we have swim buddies in the Navy All right You have people that can hold each other accountable and you have someone that's able like you're just as much in training You're checking that person's gear. They're checking your gear and they're also checking what your performance is So if they see a change in your baseline from your functioning or if you're seeing a change in theirs That's one thing. That's a fidelity check right having that mentor or that coach right that you can they provide you feedback and It's gonna be one of those things that they're gonna be receiving in the training pipeline is right type of feedback right right so even if it's for themselves if they have some blind spots and they don't see where Let's say their performance is starting to be affected There's gonna be people that they need to rely upon proactively and ask for that help And then also if they don't get that then there's definitely instructors that will tell them How are these techniques used to maintain a high level of professionalism and performance in the community? That's a great question so a lot of times When someone thinks about a clinical psychologist in the most traditional setting right they think of like a shay lounge and talking About their mother right and it really seems to be from this model of there's some type of illness. I'm here I have depression. I have anxiety. I have post-traumatic stress and I'm coming here because there's some type of Illness that I need to be able to get treated for and While we do do that. That's one of the rules that we have We also look at how to be able to optimize performance right how can we have someone where let's say they're doing great Their functioning is going well. How can we actually make them more awesome, right? So to speak these interventions when it comes down to mind-body medicine. It does both Right one is it gets left of the bank before it becomes a problem. We equip people with the skills so that they're independently able to self-assess and Being able to put these interventions into place so that we're equipping them with the skills that they can kind of take Care of themselves, right? So that's the first thing and think about what the impact is That person then has a sense of agency that they can take care of the stuff Like they have the tools necessary to be able to look at Improving their performance and being able to address these things. Yeah We're always there as a safety net to be able to talk about with something outside of their control But at the very beginning they're taught you can take care of some of these things Independently and we'll be there to be able to help you through that process And just like if you have to be able to put in a fix-it ticket in the Navy And they give you like a here's the tools that you have to be able to do to install your you know your frames on the wall or whatever it's the same kind of nature and Over the course of time if we establish that at the very beginning of someone's career They have that I understanding then there's an idea of we're looking at De-stigmatizing as far as any type of health care because it's not just because they're there and they're sick And they need to come in to see a professional because they've already seen us in a different capacity So that's really important. Yeah, I think that that's a big key I think that there is this passing hopefully passing stigma behind mental health and seeing your peers as advocates of Awareness mindfulness or fill in the blank. I think or leaders is a is a huge piece of that Absolutely being able to trust the people that are giving you an assessment So we have psychologists that are both active duty We have civilians and there's also this big push for this funding source called preservation of the force and family And aspirationally POTIF or preservation the force and family looks at trying to be able to have more of a whole person concept of addressing not only the operator but also the person's family because there's you know Person has their professional life. They have their personal life and things can bleed over to each other, right? So we have psychologists that are POTIF contractors that across all of the groups We have also GS and active duty that are there So you have some people that are embedded at a garrison level where they're there And you also have people that are psychologists at your duty that actually deploy with the teams So it's that sense of cultural competency of understanding what that's like and of course We're never part of necessarily the tribe so to speak we're there on the fringes We kind of see what it is on the periphery But that understanding looks at how to be able to apply these concepts from the research and the literature And how to make it applicable to the community, right? Mind-body medicine wasn't one of those things that was designed for Anastasia, right? But we've been able to find a way to apply it and make it meaningful based upon the customers needs the clients needs the operator And that's still growing absolutely actively. Thankfully. I've heard the phrase post-traumatic growth. Can you unpack that a little bit for me? yeah, so there's a Mounting amount of newer research that's looking at how a person can be exposed to something traumatic and Have it be something where it's actually not impacting them in a negative light But it can be something where it provides some type of growth so for example you can have Burton Ernie, right and Bert gets exposed to something traumatic and it's really impacting his ability about looking at themes such as safety trust power and control steam Intimacy and he needs to get some help because it's starting to affect him negatively. It's affecting his job It's affecting his ability to Have meaningful relationships, right friendships work relationships romantic relationships So for for Burt a lot of what the older research and the greatest body of research was on post-traumatic stress How's this impacting him negatively? All right Because he's Bert originally and so now there's let's say with Ernie he has the same exact event and He gets exposed to something traumatic But instead of it something impacting him negatively. He starts appreciating life in a different manner and He now the things that Before going to expose this traumatic event that really started like He wants to be able to spend more time with his family. He wants to be able to focus on how His weekends are going to be things that are not just playing video games or watching television and you know Netflix and binge and he's really trying to be able to give back to his community when it comes down to let's say volunteer work He sees that there's something bigger than himself and he wants to contribute to it And it was a course correction that he did based upon this event and both of them can be life-threatening And it can be one of those things that now this new appreciation Means that he wants to lean into life and that's the post-traumatic growth. That's an example. Is that something that's coachable? No, I mean it's you set you set the frame, right as far as making sure that people are aware of it So like that's why it's great that there's more research about it So people aren't just saying like oh my gosh when it comes down to being exposed to combat and deployment You know a lot of times we have family members or spouses of NSW or even when it comes down to family members, right? They see that their children are wanting to pursue this and they think Okay, my son or daughter that's going to go into this community is going to be exposed to this and they're going to be forever Damaged that's the perception right, but the thing that can set the frame is being able to understand that It's not necessarily the case, right? We're looking at incidents of 15 percent when it comes down to looking at You have a hundred people that are exposed the same exact event 15 percent are going to have PTSD versus a hundred percent Wow, right, right. I've seen that in some of the people I've spoke with that I've experienced trauma Either it's kind of a crumbling effect or a reevaluation and kind of new appreciation It's interesting to put a word to that or a phrase to that because I think that's obviously the case for some people being able to walk away from an event having learned a lesson as opposed to being traumatized are two vastly different outcomes and It seems as though through the pipeline The Navy has been able to pull those people to the side and and put them into intense situations I think it's a lot of part of the selection process is seeing those people that have that type of resiliency Absolutely, I mean and they have with both pipelines, right when that Operator wears that swig pin or when it comes down to that operator who's newly anointed wears that that trident on their chest That is a physical reminder of the fact that they've been resilient and have overcome adversity, right, right You hear so much about buds and the rigors and stresses the PST scores all of it How much of it is a mental game versus a physical game a lot of emphasis is placed on the physical demands of buds But obviously the mental demands are just as great if not greater. Can you speak to that a little bit? Absolutely, so we've had for example Olympians medalists that have come through and Physically, they're doing really well. We've had division one athletes collegiate athletes that have come through and Haven't been able to complete the pipeline. There's so much of the mental aspect of what they need to be able to do and And it unfortunately, it's not a sound bite that I can say do x y and z I think there has to be just an understanding that they have to embrace this and that this is something that is a commitment That's gonna be lifelong. They have to look at The mental aspect from not just the training pipeline because I know that perhaps a lot of your listeners here Or want to want to know okay, give me the tools for success, right? Give me the tools for success and I'm gonna be able to crush it And then I'll be able to finish the pipeline but sometimes that tool might just be knowing that they need to learn about the mental game Absolutely, and then and they can't they can't just stop on that like it has to be throughout their career, right? Yeah life skill really absolutely, so it's one of those things that they look at these aspects and we can easily dismiss it, right like How many people brush their teeth, but don't floss right until it becomes gingivitis It's one of those things that people will neglect until it becomes a problem And that's when we see them like we clinically will see people when they're having some issues The people that are able to incorporate these practices They're able to have successful careers, right? And they're able to bounce back from when they experienced adversity and they're able to incorporate being able to have successful ops And they're able to do all these things because of the fact that they've invested the time in these mental skills Do you have general advice for anyone who's gonna be facing adversity or going into a difficult task? Whether it's buds or something else that they need to be maybe more aware of or just kind of remind them of so two things come to mind I think these are Globally applicable for everyone to ensure some type of success So the first one has to do with just being genuine be yourself, right? And that's something that's really important if you're genuine and you're going in this pipeline and Who you are and what your capabilities are and you're someone who's impressionable and is eager to learn and motivated The pipeline including all of the cadre and instructors every single part of the process They're gonna see that that you are that that lump of clay that can be molded All right If you're genuine then you're a good fit for the community and you have to entrust that you being genuine is what you can control and Let the process let the instructors in the pipeline make the determination of like okay This person's continue to maintain the standards and this person should be an operator So just as long as you're being genuine with the whole process then I think that's a great takeaway the second one though has to do with adversity we have a number of candidates that they come in and They were great academically. They're great in sports. They're Multitasking jobs, you know, like they're they have in our flu transfers, right? You're there's a reason why they're commanding officers and CMC's wrote those letters of endorsement and they're here and they want to be able to perform and a lot of them never felt the experience of any type of failure or setback and this is the first time they're experiencing it and The ones that are successful that can continue are able to bounce back from that setback and They're able to continue. So one thing that we see routinely is Let's look at something like Trying to be able to clear a house right you have someone that's trying to be able to clear a house They get some feedback on something they shouldn't have done and they just focus on that one fall Right every single thing as far as all the things we're doing really well in the last few runs You know by the way so falls by the way side They just focus and fixate on the flaw of what happened during this last run and that happens for every physical Evolution that it's it looks physical. There's a mental game to it so I would say one piece of one kernel of advice is For people that are candidates is to look at Experiences they've had not just look at the successes But really do an autopsy on those failures the setbacks that you've had and how to be able to look at the lessons learned How did that make you a better person a stronger person when it comes down to these were certain deficiencies, right? Maybe these are things that I'm always going to have issues with right. I'm gonna have issues with my confidence I'm gonna have issues. Let's say I'm not the strongest swimmer Not only can you find ways to be able to get training or mentorship on those deficiencies? But knowing what they are and playing to your strengths Well, I think that kind of encapsulates a big part of the challenges of getting through the pipeline and having continued a successful career with NSW so thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you Find out more at sealswick.com and join us again for the next NSW podcast