Dealing with stress ~ on mindfulness and situational awareness

I hear frequent comments, particularly from inexperienced divers, about feeling stressed and experiencing panic or anxiety.

Usually such comments are met on Scubaboard with a myriad of suggestions to solve the problem, ranging from breathing techniques, suggestions to buy different gear (?!) quotes from the rescue diver manual and running the gauntlet all the way to being told to stop diving altogether.

Most of what I read are suggestions or quick-fixes for the symptoms of stress. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; acute stress needs a direct way out.

This thread approaches this topic; however, from a different perspective. The perspective of prevention.

So what *is* stress? Let’s say for the purpose of this thread that it’s the inability of the diver to respond adequately to a threat, either real or perceived.

And let’s deal with the second part first; perception, or more accurately in this case, imagination -- fantasy.

Our minds are in a constant state of turmoil. Our thoughts (and related emotions) wander constantly in a wash of quickly changing and seemingly random flashes of thinking, observation, interpretation, judgment, planning, etc… often focused on the near future. Some estimates suggest that the average person can only really *focus* their attention fully for about 1.5 seconds before the next thought shoves its way into view and distracts us again.

Why is this important to divers? It’s important because of the nature of those thoughts. If you dive for 60 minutes, you may experience over 2000 thoughts in the time you’re under water. Not all of them will be about pretty fishes. Some may be about wondering if there is a dangerous shark nearby. Some may be about worrying topics such as running out of air or not being able to find your buddy if you need them, or getting lost at sea…. in short, some of the thoughts you will have during a dive can be alarming -- Stress creators.

The part about prevention, then, is about learning to *choose* which thoughts you allow to take the forefront (based on the reality of here-and-now) and which you acknowledge as having “visited” and then release again in order to allow your mind to return to your main focus. This post will become far too long if I try to explain how to go about training this ability but you can look it up yourself on Google using terms like “mindfulness” and “meditation”. The ability to calm your mind – in fact to calm your entire being – and to focus on, and remain in the “right-here-right-now” allows you to simply prevent stress by learning to perceive and respond to (and enjoy) what is *actually* happening, as opposed to what you *fear* will happen.

This is related to, but distinct from what people call “situational awareness”. Situational awareness is the ability to construct a reliable and complete mental picture of what is *actually* happening around you (or will be soon). The link is, of course, that mindfulness, the ability to focus your mind on the "right now", is really the only basis upon which you can learn “situational awareness”. In other words, situational awareness can only really flow if you calm your mind enough to be able to notice the things that need to be noticed, ie the “real” threats, the stressors, events and developments, that are not imagined and must be acted upon or predicted before they occur. If your mind is awash in a chaos of unfocused thinking then how are you going to be able to pick up on the right stimuli at the right time?

This is food for thought and is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe it will start an interesting discussion.

R..

So when people "meditate" or go to their "zen" place are these thoughts slowed or stopped all together?

Yes, but can you sit zazen at depth?

Nice post, although I believe that the whole concept of "right mind" and "mindfulness" is largely misunderstood in modern Buddhism.

Personally, I've found that in addition to reducing stress, meditation can also be of great help in regard to air consumption.

The first thing that came to my mind after reading the original post was the book " The Way of The Peacful Warrior " by Dan Millman. I didn't get a whole lot out of the book but it is worth reading if your into that stuff.

It might be right up the OP's alley.

ringmod65:

Nice post, although I believe that the whole concept of "right mind" and "mindfulness" is largely misunderstood in modern Buddhism.

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I agree that it's widely misunderstood but I don't think by Buddhists. If you google it you'll see hundreds or even thousands of websites proclaiming that Mindfulness is like some kind of tool you can turn on when you need to make a decision or to solve problems at your work. .... Where I think a lot of Buddhists get derailed is in the "attachment" to their rituals. For some reason the human need for ritual is so primal that even Buddhists succumb to it. But I didn't actually write this to get in a discussion about religion

Personally, I've found that in addition to reducing stress, meditation can also be of great help in regard to air consumption.

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Well in the sense that you may be more relaxed, sure. Personally I find being physically fit does more for my air consumption than meditation alone.

R..

LetterBoy:

So when people "meditate" or go to their "zen" place are these thoughts slowed or stopped all together?

Click to expand...

Niether. You let them go and they disappear. It's hard to explain but easy to experience if you try it.

There are some activities, like playing a musical instrument, getting totally involved in reading a book, focusing your entire concentration on fixing your car or whatever where you get in such a "flow" that time flies and you feel completely relaxed and content. If you know this feeling then you know how good it feels.

What if I told you that you can train yourself to live in the moment and have this feeling all the time? Buddhists would tell you that it's not the goal of meditation to "get the benefits", to a buddhist it's a side-effect but a welcome one. For the rest of us slobs it just feels right to have your mind balanced.

R..

I need to be focused on something to control my thought...which is to focus on the issue at hand. Diving alone, after about 100 dives or so doesn't require enough focus for me to only think of diving. I can be underwater cruising along thinking of an old girlfriend, why the shrimp died in Tanks A4....will Obama survive his presidency...
But if I'm spearfishing....that's total focus. Or as you mentioned, playing music. Total focus.

Anyway...what was the question again...?