At lower levels, stress enhances performance.  However, as stress increases, it causes activation in the body and mind that eventually degrades performance.  With mind fitness, we can increase our tolerance to the activation of the stress response and thereby extend the range of optimal performance.

Research shows that individuals vary in their physiological and psychological stress response.  This stress response is malleable and can be reduced with training.  Most organizations that operate in extreme stress environments understand this fact.  They prepare their members through “stress inoculation training” that exposes and habituates them to the kinds of stressors that they will likely face in real-world situations. The goal of stress inoculation training is to help individuals perceive stressors as more familiar, more predictable, and more controllable – which in turn reduces the stress response they experience. Paradoxically, however, stress inoculation training can undermine long-term resilience if individuals do not effectively recover after exposure to the training’s stressors.  Stress inoculation training can also cause cognitive degradation, such as memory loss, problem-solving deficits, and difficulties with concentration.  

MMFT can complement stress inoculation training in three ways: 

First, MMFT provides fundamental skills for ensuring that stress inoculation results in increased resilience.  By exposing individuals to stressors, stress inoculation training purposefully pushes participants out of balance.  The feeling of being “stressed out” is caused by an activated state in the body’s autonomic nervous system.  Ideally, when the challenge has passed, the nervous system returns to balance and the stress activation cycle is complete.  It is the movement into a stressed state followed by the completion of the stress activation cycle that builds resilience.  However, if the stress activation cycle is not completed effectively, resilience is actually compromised.  Stress inoculation training that does not ensure full recovery may be habituating individuals to stress, but it is not building resilience.  MMFT helps build resilience by conditioning the body and mind to complete the stress activation cycle and return to balance.

Second, MMFT skills can counteract the cognitive degradation that research has shown often accompanies stress inoculation training.  Among participants who engage in MMFT exercises on a regular basis, MMFT has been shown to build working memory capacity – the mental capacity that allows us to focus on demanding cognitive tasks and/or emotionally challenging situations.  Improved working memory capacity is a foundational, general-purpose cognitive ability that can allow individuals to absorb other training more effectively. (For more information:  MMFT pilot study results.)