Practicing Stress Management in the Midst of Trauma

10th September, 2011 - Posted by L. John Mason -

My close friend Rodger Ruge recommends 3-part breathing, also known as “Combat Breathing,” when you are in the midst of a life or death traumatic event. Rodger is a retired policeman with “SWAT” training and years of experience as a health trainer for police and law enforcement communities. Rodger is also a martial arts practionner who has been involved in spiritual development and meditation practices. Rodger is an amazing, caring guy. So he teaches a form of “Combat Breathing” to assist emergency responders to cope with very stressful experiences. Rodger teaches this breathing technique and tells of experience from his life where this has really worked. The 3 part breathing techniques is simple but powerful. When in the midst of a traumatic event, you will experience an increased heart rate, rapid shallow breathing, muscle tension, and often a reduced ability to make good decisions (impulsive reactions may take over.) This is related to the physiological response we experience in trauma called the “Flight-Fight Response.” Rodger’s breathing technique tells you to break your breathing down into 3 parts: inhale, pause, and exhale. Since you will probably be breathing more rapidly than normal, you should focus on breathing and working to slow your breath enough to feel as if you are in control of your flight-fight response. To do this you can count as you inhale, 1,2,3, then pause/hold breath, 1,2,3, and then exhale counting, 1,2,3. You may be counting quickly in the beginning but you will gradually be able to reduce the pace of the breath as you continue the counting process and be able to regain more control over your decision making as you slow your breath cycle.

When teaching relaxation in a control environment, I might have people practice breathing more slowly counting 1-4 on the inhale, 1-4 on the pause, and 1-8 on the exhale. The focus on the counting can assist you to slow, and so relax, your physiology. This can also help to reduce heart rate and drop blood pressure. I have taught this as a precursor to a meditation which comes from the Yogic tradition.

Now comes the hard part. The difficulty is to remember to use this breathing technique when you are stressed or worse, in a traumatic situation. It works! A client of mine recently found himself in the emergency room with his wife who was in a great deal of pain due to a physical problem. For most people, the emergency room experience is stressful and my client was watching the procedures with a feeling of helplessness and a lack of control. His heart was racing and he realized that he was slipping into the state of mind where he would more part of the problem than part of the solution. He was almost “freaking out.” It came to his mind that he could try the breathing counting exercise and with little else he could do, that was useful, he began to use combat breathing. Within 5 minutes, he felt that he was calming down enough to feel that he would not become useless or hysterical. Eventually the medical procedures also began to work to reduce his wife’s pain and he was through the worst part of this traumatic experience.

We all will be faced by emotionally traumatic experiences at one time or another. Please consider practicing Rodger’s technique to survive, more gracefully, these anxious times. You can even practice these before you are confronted by trauma and so it become more natural as a useful response to future anxiety.