JohnP
07-09-2009, 02:19 PM
Study: No best way to deal with stress
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 7, 2009 16:59:12 EDT
After several studies showed that people who react emotionally during a stressful event are more likely to develop symptoms for post-traumatic stress disorder later, researchers wanted to see whether the obverse was true: Are people who react to a stressful situation by problem-solving, rather than by becoming numb or feeling as if they’re in a daze, less likely to develop acute stress symptoms that could lead to PTSD?
The logical answer might seem to be yes. But researchers were surprised to find that’s not necessarily the case.
Researchers from the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego tried to figure out how much the way a person interacts with his environment can affect his mental health. They also wondered whether behavior during stressful training situations might be a possible predictor for PTSD.
“A central premise of leading theories of human stress is that the stress response results from a complex interaction of the human with his or her environment,” lead researcher Marcus Taylor wrote in a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
“It was hypothesized that perceived stress as well as passive and emotion-focused coping styles reported prior to survival training would associate with higher acute stress symptoms in response to stress training,” Taylor wrote. “By contrast, it was expected that active and problem-focused coping styles would predict lower acute stress symptoms.”
The researchers looked at one of the most stressful environments they could find: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. They already knew that 96 percent of service members going through the training experience peritraumatic dissociative symptoms — they become emotionally numb, unaware of their surroundings or feel as if they were watching the event from outside themselves.
First, researchers asked 35 healthy sailors who participated in the study about recent stressful situations in their recent past and how they reacted to it: Did they feel as if they could do nothing because the situation was out of their control? Or did they try to come up with solutions, such as cutting up credit cards to help fight financial woes or going for counseling to deal with marriage troubles? Did they see stressful events as a challenge to be overcome or a difficulty only time could heal?
Researchers also asked how often the sailors felt nervous or stressed, as well as how often they felt upset when something unexpected happened.
After the mock captivity portion of the training — when service members are taken prisoner by “enemy” forces and then expected to escape — researchers questioned the sailors about how they felt during the exercise: “Did you feel as if you were watching the situation as an observer or spectator? Did you space out or in some way lose track of what is going on?”
They found that there was, as prior research has shown, a strong correlation between passive, emotion-based reactions to perceived stress in a sailor’s life and acute stress symptoms during the SERE training.
But they were surprised to find that those who normally deal with stress by actively trying to problem-solve were all over the board when it came to whether they had acute stress symptoms during SERE training.
“We have shown that higher levels of perceived stress and use of passive and emotion-focused coping styles prior to survival training are associated with higher levels of acute stress symptoms in response to survival training,” Taylor wrote. “However, we further expected that active and problem-focused coping would associate with lower acute stress symptoms during survival training.
“But this hypothesis was not supported.”
The researchers did not ask long-term follow-up questions of the sailors, so they do not know to what extent, if at all, problem-solving skills protect against PTSD, but they intend to explore that question further.
“More research is needed to clarify the role of task-oriented, problem-focused and active coping on the human response to acute stress,” Taylor wrote.
During my times in survival school, I preferred the out of body experiences. I thought it was better to react and cope with the situation as a 3rd person and not as an active participant. (For the record, my camel and I escaped from Fairchild for about 2 hours before being caught again.) :D
PTSD is a situation that needs to be dealt with more attention that what’s being given now. My symptoms are a lot less than others for several reasons:
1. I have a great support system of close friends and family who’ve BTDT and can relate to me.
2. I haven’t been in as much sh** at others and I had a he11 of a lot more training than others rior to going into the show.
3. I've realized I was a 4 tier volunteer for the programs that I was in.
How about you guys who have been in the Sand Box for numerous occasions?
Have you seen the symptoms in yourself or comrades?
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 7, 2009 16:59:12 EDT
After several studies showed that people who react emotionally during a stressful event are more likely to develop symptoms for post-traumatic stress disorder later, researchers wanted to see whether the obverse was true: Are people who react to a stressful situation by problem-solving, rather than by becoming numb or feeling as if they’re in a daze, less likely to develop acute stress symptoms that could lead to PTSD?
The logical answer might seem to be yes. But researchers were surprised to find that’s not necessarily the case.
Researchers from the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego tried to figure out how much the way a person interacts with his environment can affect his mental health. They also wondered whether behavior during stressful training situations might be a possible predictor for PTSD.
“A central premise of leading theories of human stress is that the stress response results from a complex interaction of the human with his or her environment,” lead researcher Marcus Taylor wrote in a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
“It was hypothesized that perceived stress as well as passive and emotion-focused coping styles reported prior to survival training would associate with higher acute stress symptoms in response to stress training,” Taylor wrote. “By contrast, it was expected that active and problem-focused coping styles would predict lower acute stress symptoms.”
The researchers looked at one of the most stressful environments they could find: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. They already knew that 96 percent of service members going through the training experience peritraumatic dissociative symptoms — they become emotionally numb, unaware of their surroundings or feel as if they were watching the event from outside themselves.
First, researchers asked 35 healthy sailors who participated in the study about recent stressful situations in their recent past and how they reacted to it: Did they feel as if they could do nothing because the situation was out of their control? Or did they try to come up with solutions, such as cutting up credit cards to help fight financial woes or going for counseling to deal with marriage troubles? Did they see stressful events as a challenge to be overcome or a difficulty only time could heal?
Researchers also asked how often the sailors felt nervous or stressed, as well as how often they felt upset when something unexpected happened.
After the mock captivity portion of the training — when service members are taken prisoner by “enemy” forces and then expected to escape — researchers questioned the sailors about how they felt during the exercise: “Did you feel as if you were watching the situation as an observer or spectator? Did you space out or in some way lose track of what is going on?”
They found that there was, as prior research has shown, a strong correlation between passive, emotion-based reactions to perceived stress in a sailor’s life and acute stress symptoms during the SERE training.
But they were surprised to find that those who normally deal with stress by actively trying to problem-solve were all over the board when it came to whether they had acute stress symptoms during SERE training.
“We have shown that higher levels of perceived stress and use of passive and emotion-focused coping styles prior to survival training are associated with higher levels of acute stress symptoms in response to survival training,” Taylor wrote. “However, we further expected that active and problem-focused coping would associate with lower acute stress symptoms during survival training.
“But this hypothesis was not supported.”
The researchers did not ask long-term follow-up questions of the sailors, so they do not know to what extent, if at all, problem-solving skills protect against PTSD, but they intend to explore that question further.
“More research is needed to clarify the role of task-oriented, problem-focused and active coping on the human response to acute stress,” Taylor wrote.
During my times in survival school, I preferred the out of body experiences. I thought it was better to react and cope with the situation as a 3rd person and not as an active participant. (For the record, my camel and I escaped from Fairchild for about 2 hours before being caught again.) :D
PTSD is a situation that needs to be dealt with more attention that what’s being given now. My symptoms are a lot less than others for several reasons:
1. I have a great support system of close friends and family who’ve BTDT and can relate to me.
2. I haven’t been in as much sh** at others and I had a he11 of a lot more training than others rior to going into the show.
3. I've realized I was a 4 tier volunteer for the programs that I was in.
How about you guys who have been in the Sand Box for numerous occasions?
Have you seen the symptoms in yourself or comrades?