Biochemistry of the elite soldier

[opurt 0]

I saw this in Newsweek some time ago and have been meaning to post it here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/184156/page/1

"The science that explains why elite military forces bounce back faster than the rest of us.

...

NPY is an abundant amino acid in our bodies that helps regulate our blood pressure, appetite, learning and memory. It also works as a natural tranquilizer, controlling anxiety and buffering the effects of stress hormones like norepenephrine, one of the chemicals that most of us simply call adrenaline. In essence, NPY is one of the fire hoses that your brain uses to extinguish your alarm and fear responses by keeping the frontal-lobe parts of your brain working longer under stress.

...

With so much more NPY in their systems, the Special Forces soldiers were much more clearheaded under interrogation stress and performed better according to the trainers. Special Forces soldiers really are special and different from the rest of the Army. They stay more focused and engaged in a crisis and bounce back faster afterward because their bodies produce massive amounts of natural anti-anxiety chemicals. In the fog of war—and everyday life for that matter—that's a major advantage.

...

At POW camp and dive school, Morgan has discovered a simple and accurate way of predicting who will survive and perform the best under extreme stress. You might call it the telltale heart. It starts with something called heart-rate variability, or HRV, the variations between beats. Healthy people have a lot of variability in the intervals between their beats, with their tickers speeding up and slowing down all the time.

It turns out that the best survivors don't have a lot of heart-rate variability. Instead, they've got "metronomic heartbeats"—their hearts thump steadily like metronomes—with almost no variability between beats."

[LouDiamond 1]

Thats a very brief explanation but adequate for the article I assume. The findings are actually a lot more in depth in explaining how ones entire body chemistry changes in those types of situations. Blood and saliva samples were taken at different intervals during the experiment that was conducted(not positive it was the same one mentioned in the article) and an entire biological and chemical makeup was recorded with interesting results. Long story short, yes, us SF guys did have a better resilience and recovery than our non SF counter parts exposed to the same environment but it does vary from individual to individual. Some people are just more adept to handling situations differently both physically,mentally and biologically.

I do question the heart disease issue though as there are plenty of SF guys well beyond their 50s still walking around today.

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[warpedskydiver 0]

It also should point out that SpecOps types typically get calm under stressful situations that others would tend to start flapping in.


Part is due to training and part of it is inherent.

Then again I am not telling you something you don't already know.