How do you calm yourself in high pressure?

In Jim Cirillo's book he talks about the stakeout squad and choosing members for it. Trying to find people who would perform well under pressure was key but there wasn't a good recipe for it--so they came up with one.

Remember, this wasn't a list of things to DO in order to be on the squad, this is a list of things they looked for in candidates. So clearly he wasn't saying that people should go out and get married and have kids to be able to perform better under pressure, only noting that they believed that picking people with these characteristics helped insure they got people who could perform well under the extreme pressure of a gunfight.

Here's the list from Cirillo's book "Guns, Bullets and Gunfights". You can draw your own conclusions. Note that although it is presented as an 8 item list, as in the book, there are actually 12 questions. He said that 7 'yes' answers was good, 'yes' to everything was better. He also said that even with a good "score", 2 hours of training per week under time limits and pressure with someone else scoring/monitoring/setting up unknown challenges was a necessity.

1. Are you a competitive shooter?
2. Have you competed in major matches and placed and won awards?
3. Can you perform well under pressure or fear?
4. Are you a hunter? Have you shot big game?
5. Do you like outdoor physical sports?
6. Do you collect firearms? Do you reload ammo?
7. If you are over 28, are you married? Do you have children?
8. Do you like people? Do you attend civic affairs?

My 2 cents.

It's easier to be calm when things are crazy if:

1. You have the skills to deal with the problems and those skills can be applied without having to think through each step of the process. Imagine trying to avoid a car accident if you have to think: "There's an object in front to the right. Ok, move right foot from accelerator to brake and press down. Move right hand upward and left hand downward to steer to the left." You'd never make it. You need to be able to react without having to think through each of the steps in the process.

2. You have a plan to deal with the situation--this also involves being AWARE of the situation so you know what plan to implement. I'm not talking about a detailed plan with a step-by-step process, I'm talking about having considered various possibilities in advance and come up with some general ideas on how to react. This is very simple and very important. Imagine driving down a road on a dark night and seeing something at the last minute in front of you. Do you want to spend time trying to figure out if it's a large piece of cardboard or a large piece of steel so you can then decide if you should try to avoid it or not? No, there's no time for that. Decide in advance that you will ALWAYS avoid hitting unknown objects of significant size if you can do so safely and that if you can't, just slow down as much as you can before impact. This also means being aware of the situation--seeing the object, knowing whether or not you can swerve into the lane next to you without hitting another vehicle, so that's why situational awareness comes in on this point.

3. You have the knowledge necessary to make good decisions. If you can immediately start applying your knowledge and see that it's applicable, you won't have time to let your mind start telling you that "all is lost, time to run in circles, screaming and shouting".

4. You don't waste time aligning your mindset to reality. If you stand there telling yourself that you can't believe it's really happening to you, you are wasting time you may not have. That puts you farther behind the curve and it also is not a productive mindset. You need to immediately assess and start working through your toolkit to see what you have that is applicable to the problem you need to solve. The quicker you start doing something constructive, the less likely you are to panic.

5. You maintain a "can do" attitude. If you "internally give up" that puts you at a serious disadvantage and makes it much harder for you to work through the problem. Once you start thinking you can't get it done, you're more likely to panic.

Stress inoculation training. Competitive shooting is great but it doesn't really place you under the same kind of stress a deadly force encounter will. There is a reason the military uses things like the high obstacles on the confidence course (note that it's called the confidence course and not the obstacle course). The Army uses training events like the confidence course, the 200 foot night rappel in Ranger School, the stress exercises in the pool in the combat diver course etc. There is very little call for a SWAT team to rappel down the side of a building to make a dynamic entry, yet rope work is (or was when I went through) most SWAT, Emergency Service Team training. Why to put people in a position where they are actually in fear for their life in a controlled environment so they can learn to deal with the fear.

When I took my basic scuba course way back in the early 80s, the guy who had the contract with the local YMCAs was a retired Navy salvage diver. The class was 4 hours a night once a week for 6 weeks. 2 hours classroom and 2 hours pool with an open water dive at the end. The pool time was mostly stress exercises. Might start the session with 10 laps buddy breathing snorkels without masks. I later taught that class (he staffed the basic classes with students from the advanced class). His philosophy was that he would not certify anyone who might panic in the water where panic is often fatal.

Try some adventure sports. Skydiving (not the carnival ride tandem jumps they do now), scuba, climbing etc. They are all pretty safe if done with the proper instruction but they will teach you that you can function through your fear

Another technique you can use is what's called "combat breathing" which is simply slow and deliberate breathing to get your heart rate down.