from our August 2019 issue ZERO THE MIND The military is testing to train the brain so warriors can “zero the mind” for increased , focus, and calm under extreme stress. Mindful journalist Barry Yeoman gets on base with General Walter Piatt and neuroscientist Amishi Jha.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHANIE DIANI

48 mindful August 2019 In early morning before his work day started, Lieutenant General Piatt took time to practice mindfulness in the Memorial Park at Fort Drum, New York. In addition to Virginia Military Institue, Fort Drum is facilitating mindfulness training for warriors— a project championed by General Piatt when he commanded the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division. for more stories like this visit mindful.org neuroscience

he bell rings, and the 21 cadets in Major Matt Jar- man’s leadership class at Virginia Military Institute stand at attention as their Thighest-ranking classmate salutes the professor. Though the weather out- side is mild, the cadets are dressed in their winter uniforms. Black neckties are tied in Windsor knots and tucked between the second and third buttons of their black long-sleeved shirts. Woolen garrison hats sit on the class- room tables next to open laptops. “Today we’re going to do a little introduction to meditation,” says Jarman, an assistant professor of . This is not what future military officers usually hear, so he cautiously probes their receptiveness. “When you hear mindfulness medita- tion, what do you think?” The cadets call out free-association Jarman explains that an emerging “IF YOU’RE MAKING A words: purposeful, tranquility, recali- body of research suggests that mind- brating. One attempts a longer defini- fulness practices might help troops LIFE-OR-DEATH DECISION, tion. “It’s almost like slow motion,” he cope with the rigors of military life, YOU WANT TO BE ABLE says. “You know the next move you’ve particularly as they prepare for com- TO HOLD MORE THINGS got to make. You have to do it quickly. bat. Studies with Army soldiers and IN MIND—TO CONSIDER But in your mind, you slow everything Marines have found that mindfulness MORE OPTIONS, MORE around you, so that you can make that strengthens concentration, short-term decision as efficiently as possible.” memory, and emotional regulation— AVENUES—BEFORE “How often are you guys distracted essential skills under fire. MAKING A DECISION.” or daydreaming?” Jarman asks. “Pre-deployment training is inten- “How often are you stressed?” All the tionally stressful and demanding, Major Matt Jarman, assistant time, the class responds in various right?” Jarman tells his students. “If professor of psychology at forms. Days are regimented at VMI, you look at cognitive function of those Virginia Military Institute a state-supported college that feeds service members at the end of that, it’s into all five US armed forces. Rules depleted, understandably.” Compro- govern everything from how cadets mised thinking causes troubles on the arrange their toiletries to what they battlefield. “If you’re making a life-or- wear to sleep. death decision, you want to be able to hold more things in mind—to consider more options, more avenues—before ABOUT THE AUTHOR making a decision. When you’re Barry Yeoman is an award-winning journalist depleted, it’s literally more difficult to who specializes in narratives about complex do that.” social issues. He has written for The Washington Post, National Wildlife, The Nation, and Talking There are practices that can help Points Memo, among many others. maintain mental capacity under

for more50 stories mindful like August this 2019 visit mindful.org stress, he says. One of them is mind- back to breath requires discipline. It’s Lieutenant General Piatt (left) checks in fulness meditation. like weight-training, he says: “Every with Col. Michael Englis, Cpt. Nathan When Jarman began teaching at time you notice you’re distracted and Held, and 1st Lt. Austin Brown during a VMI in 2015, he worried that cadets bring your mind back, you can think Summit Strike exercise involving rocket fires, ground maneuvers, and airspace would dismiss meditation as a prac- of that as a repetition at the gym.” management. For many service members, tice unbefitting a warrior. He needn’t Then it’s time to practice. The the stresses of active duty contribute have worried. His students see their cadets sit upright, tuck in their chins, to post-traumatic stress. By learning own role models meditating. “I heard and shift their gazes downward. The mindfulness techniques to “zero the mind” LeBron James does it during games,” room falls silent for five minutes. (focus thoughts and emotions on the one young man says of the basketball Afterward, Jarman asks for reactions. present), they can make smarter decisions on the field and suffer less from trauma star. “It makes me think that I should “My mind was really good at when they return home. Above, Spc. probably start doing it.” sneaking getting distracted,” says a Charlotte Carulli (left) and Pvt. Kelvishia Jarman explains that meditation is cadet. “Not just random thoughts, but V. Worth take part in mindfulness training not meant to be fun. Focusing on one’s thinking about the meditation.” with a Resiliency Trainer in the Wellness breathing, observing when the mind “Our minds are very clever,” Jar- Center at Fort Drum. wanders, and returning attention man says. As we try to quiet them, →

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General Piatt kept inspi- returned Stateside. They drank too A PILOT STUDY FOUND rational books, including THAT AMONG MARINES much, beat their spouses, and drove poetry by the Sufi mystic their motorcycles dangerously fast. Rumi, in his office in WHO PRACTICED “It’s like getting off a freeway and Fort Drum, New York, MINDFULNESS AT LEAST getting into an elevator,” he says of where he served before TWELVE MINUTES A those homecomings. “Everything slows becoming Director of the down, but our mind was still in that Army Staff. On the wall DAY, THEY DIDN’T JUST is “Pando Commando,” PRESERVE WORKING combat zone, operating at that level of the unofficial insignia alertness that was no longer required.” of several battalions, MEMORY CAPACITY. THEY The Army’s reintegration training, combining to form what ACTUALLY IMPROVED. designed to ease soldiers back into would become the 10th family life, couldn’t keep pace with Mountain Division, that that depressurization. “We were des- defeated Nazi forces in the Alps during the perate,” says Piatt, who now serves as Second World War. director of the Army Staff. “What we had been doing had not been working.” Through a colleague, Piatt met they manufacture what seem like one of the country’s top scientists critical insights. “That’s the beauty of in the mindfulness arena: Amishi the system: You treat any thought, no Jha, an associate professor of psy- matter the content, the same way. You chology at the University of Miami. notice it, let it pass, return to breath.” Jha and Elizabeth Stanley, an asso- Many of these cadets will join ciate professor of security studies at the armed forces: VMI says 50 to 60 Georgetown University, had earlier percent of its graduates take military conducted a pilot study with Marine commissions, and almost one-fifth reservists preparing to deploy to Iraq. make it their careers. They will enter That study, first published in 2010, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine tested how mindfulness training Corps, and Coast Guard at a time when affected “working memory capacity,” researchers are recommending that the ability to retain and use relevant mindfulness become as integral a part information over short periods of time of training as physical fitness. As evi- without being distracted. dence mounts that practices like med- “I describe working memory as the itation could cultivate a better-skilled mind’s whiteboard, with disappearing fighting force, the military is still ink,” says Jha, a cognitive neurosci- deciding whether to heed the advice. entist. “What we put up there, and write over and over again, moment by moment, makes up our current con- The United States has been send- scious experience. If your whiteboard ing troops into conflict zones for is filled with preoccupations, worries, most of the past two decades, and the random distracting thoughts, and stresses faced by fighting forces can whatever your technology is throwing be crushing. Army Lieutenant Gen- at you, there’s not going to be a lot of eral Walt Piatt discovered in the years room left for you to have access to the following the September 11 attacks information you need to make import- how those stresses bleed over into life ant decisions.” It will also be harder, back home. she says, to regulate your emotions. At the time, Piatt was a brigade Before shipping overseas, troops commander with the 25th Infan- undergo training that includes “stress try Division at Schofield Barracks inoculation,” designed to prepare in Hawaii. He had deployed to Iraq them for the intensity of combat. every other year and watched some of High stress, however, often depletes his soldiers melt down whenever they working memory. The researchers →

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hoped that mindfulness training might help the Marines survive the WORKING WITH pre-deployment period with their cognitive skills intact. The results of the pilot study, Stan- STRESS WARRIORS ley says, exceeded her expectations. Among Marines who practiced mind- Neuroscientist Amishi Jha has been putting fulness at least 12 minutes a day, “they mindfulness to the test with people under didn’t just preserve working memory extreme stress—with life-changing results. capacity,” she says. “They actually improved.” The more they practiced, the more they benefited. BY STEPHANIE DOMET After the pilot study, Jha and Stan- ley wanted to expand their research. “We had a series of grants in the can,” Amishi Jha knew she needed help when her Jha says, “but couldn’t find anyone toddler looked up at her during story time and asked who would take on our project, what a Womp was. Jha had read this same book to because we were asking for quite a bit her son dozens of times, and had been truly looking of time.” forward to spending this time with him. “What is he They found a champion in Piatt. talking about?” she remembers thinking, realizing The general helped them launch a she didn’t have a clue—though she’d been reading study at Schofield Barracks in 2010 about Womps for several pages, and had over suc- that demonstrated that certain types cessive nights. of mindfulness training helped ser- She was in her second year as an assistant profes- vicemembers concentrate better and sor, her husband was starting grad school, and she’d tune out distractions, even as they lost the feeling in her teeth from grinding them so prepared for deployment. Piatt also ferociously. “I was at the point of quitting. I needed to advised Jha and her colleague Scott do something that felt more manageable to me.” Rogers as they developed a program That something turned out to be meditation, and called Mindfulness-Based Attention it became more than just a personal daily practice Training (MBAT), crafted for military for her. A neuroscientist, Jha began to study the populations and designed to be taught effects of mindfulness on people by non-experts. in high-stress cohorts, like med- Working with Piatt, says Jha, has “WE’RE HELPING ical students and nurses. given her “the support of a leader who REAL PEOPLE A tragic story turned her is interested in mindfulness and has IN THEIR REAL attention in another direction. actually started practicing himself.” LIVES FACE THE The perpetrator of a school She also gained an ally who under- shooting near Philadelphia, stands military culture, and how to use CHALLENGES THAT where she then lived, was iden- language to win support. Piatt talks WE AS A NATION tified in early news reports as about mindfulness as “zeroing the ARE ASKING THEM a military veteran. And though mind,” just as a soldier zeroes a weapon TO ENDURE.” it turned out the shooter had by aligning the sight with the target. no connection to the military, “The soldiers will understand it,” Piatt Amishi Jha for Jha, there was a moment of says. “It translates better and then you sharp recognition. reduce that wall of skepticism.” “At that point we were already Jha continues to expand her eight years into this Afghanistan conflict, and I felt research. She’s talking with militaries we were seeding our society with psychosis but in other countries. She’s collaborat- there was nothing being done to protect against ing with VMI’s Jarman on a project that. So my openness to working with military per- looking at mindfulness and leadership sonnel came from: What can I possibly do?” skills. She has worked, too, with mili- As much as Jha may have met with some resis- tary spouses. This year she published → tance from soldiers, she began this work a decade

for more54 stories mindful like August this 2019 visit mindful.org Amishi Jha, Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and associate professor at the University of Miami, has been at the forefront of studying how mindfulness can best serve military service members.

and I asked my brigade surgeon to teach me about mindfulness and I gained an understanding of my mind that helped me not only in my job, but in my marriage.” Jha says, “Obviously that’s not me, that’s the practice, but it does make me feel like the effort that has gone into it—and it is a difficult journey to bring these practices into communities that don’t always feel that they need them—when you hear that it gives people something of their own capacity back, that’s really exciting.” That helicopter pilot isn’t an outlier. Jha says she regularly hears from military personnel who have had mindfulness training that they are able to be in the joyful, human moments of their lives with attention—as well as have tools at their disposal to m reach for in the life-and-death moments they may face in the field. “You want to be there for the joys in your life, but the distractibility, the demand, and A Guided ago with resistance of her own. She didn’t know any- the rumination can just suck you away from those Brain Training one in the military then, and she was raised Hindu, moments, and you don’t know how to get back, and Practice with a strong adherence to nonviolence. “Working what I feel we get the privilege to hear from people with warriors is a really new experience for me, but is: I am able to be attentive and present for these Neuroscientist what I’ve come to understand about many of the precious moments of my life as well. It’s not just the Amishi Jha people I’ve met is peace is more important to them, job, it’s the whole person benefiting from this.” guides you because they’re the front line of having to actually Jha says those benefits apply equally to leaders through a play a role in achieving it.” as they do to soldiers. “It has a positive contagion for mindful cog- For Jha, that makes the work she’s doing all the the entire organization when the leader is informed nitive training more vital, though it brings with it challenges her and able to practice mindfulness,” she says. She exercise, help- peers don’t necessarily face in their labs, where was invited to give a keynote address at a sympo- ing you learn tightly controlled studies are carried out with the sium called Evidence-based Leader Interventions how to sustain participation of volunteer subjects. “I don’t have for Health and Wellness as part of a NATO confer- and strengthen that. I have to work with the timeline military leaders ence in Berlin, Germany, in April. And some military your attention. offer me. I get the visits that I get. But we are helping leaders are already on board. Jha remembers a real people in their real lives be better able to face conversation she had with a former US Surgeon mindful.org/ the challenges that we as a nation are asking them General. “When he left the Army, they did an exit train-brain to endure.” interview with him and asked what is one thing And Jha hears from those real people about the we could have offered you that would have helped impact mindfulness has had on their lives, like the you be an even better leader, and he said, ‘I wish I helicopter pilot who got in touch to say, “Literally, had learned mindfulness earlier in my career.’ That mindfulness saved my life. I heard your podcast, meant a lot to me,” Jha says. “He sees it.”

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people turn that task into a Stanley, who has done inten- shoot/no-shoot version, we sive mindfulness practice in SHOULD can hope they’ll be less likely Myanmar, and whose family to pull the trigger when they has served in the US Army MINDFULNESS shouldn’t.” since the Revolutionary War. Still, some practitioners in “If the nation’s leaders have the Buddhist tradition have decided to send troops into BE TAUGHT TO challenged the premise of harm’s way, those troops’ Jha’s research. In 2014, the hearts, minds, and bodies THE MILITARY? now-defunct journal Inquiring will experience the stressors Minds published a commen- of war—whether they are tary by dharma instructor mindfully paying attention or Ronald Purser, who lamented not,” wrote the former Army Mindfulness, a basic human the reframing of mindful- intelligence officer. “With capability that can be culti- ness as a “decontextualized, mindfulness, however, they vated through meditation, ethically neutral, attention- are more likely to see the envi- has historically been asso- enhancement technique” ronment around them clearly, ciated with various forms rather than a spiritual practice. without being influenced by of Buddhist practice. Some Fundamental to Buddhist unconscious ‘survival brain’ within that community have mindfulness, Purser wrote, is filters that can exaggerate questioned whether it’s “a cardinal prohibition against what’s really there. They are appropriate to use meditation intentionally killing a living more likely to regulate their in secular institutions with being.” That, argued the San hard-wired stress response different values. That’s at the Francisco State University and the reactive impulses this heart of an ongoing debate management professor, makes stress response can create.” over the use of such training it incompatible with military As a result, Stanley wrote, in the military. training. In the armed forces, “they are more likely to pull To neuroscientist Amishi “new recruits are systemati- the trigger only when they Jha, the answer lies in the cally trained to kill, maim, and really need to—when immi- evidence. In lab experiments inflict harm when ordered nent harm to themselves or measuring attention, service through desensitization, those they are protecting members trained in mind- operational conditioning, and actually exists.” fulness make fewer testing denial defense mechanisms.” errors. “They’re less likely to The journal also published —Barry Yeoman press the button when they a counterpoint by George- shouldn’t,” she says. “When town University’s Elizabeth

for more stories like this visit mindful.org an article chronicling her work with 120 members of a US special- operations forces unit. (She can’t say which branch.) That study, pub- lished in the journal Progress in Brain Research, showed that the elite troops gained working memory, and were better able to pay attention, when they took a month-long mindfulness class and practiced the skills daily. Much of Jha’s research today focuses not on proving the value of mindfulness training, but rather on figuring out how to best implement it in a time-constrained military. “What’s a good amount of time that would allow units to take it on, and not so burdensome that they say, ‘Forget it, we can’t do it’?” she asks. Jha’s interaction with the spe- Jha says that she and other Pvt. Kelvishia V. Worth practices mindfulness cial-operations forces highlights the researchers are looking for solutions in the emWave Biofeedback chair—which quandary: “They said, ‘Can you give that are safe and effective, and also displays heart rate variability based on mental states—in the Fort Drum Wellness Center. them this mindfulness training in one realistic within the military’s culture. day?’ They didn’t really understand: “We need to balance the time burden Would you ever train for a marathon of taking minutes away from their in a day?” training calendar with not going so For some of the elite forces, Jha low that it’s not effective,” she says. did try to compress the eight-hour “If it’s a non-starter to offer a 20-hour training into two weeks. She found program, even if in the end it may ular, she’s looking at “collective mind- it considerably less effective than a have some more subtle benefits, I just fulness”: a team’s ability to anticipate four-week program. (Earlier trainings can’t go into that direction. I still have and deal with conflict by remaining were spread over eight weeks.) to meet people where they’re at.” engaged with one another rather than This type of inquiry makes Stanley retreating into individual corners. uneasy, and she has parted company The US military is conducting with Jha over it. “Some military Mindfulness researchers else- its own studies. Thomas Nassif, a leaders were interested in seeing where have had promising results research psychologist at the Walter how low can you go,” she says. That working with submariners in France Reed Army Institute of Research, approach, she worries, could backfire and soldiers in the Israel Defense analyzed survey data from 1,100 if service members don’t receive a Force. Last April, participants at a soldiers returning from Afghanistan. full suite of coping tools. “Mind- NATO-sponsored wellness confer- “You talk about a pretty banged-up fulness alone, without the skills to ence in Berlin heard from Anders population,” he says: Most had dodged re-regulate the mind-body system, Meland, a Norwegian psychologist small-arms fire, witnessed dead may flood someone with heightened who studied a helicopter unit in his bodies, and known others who were attention on their stress, which may country. Meland found that mind- killed or seriously injured. Nassif amplify their stress arousal and its fulness practices reduced stress by found that the most mindful partic- cognitive, emotional, and physiologi- creating a “restful, alert, and flexible ipants—those who noticed, and then cal effects,” she says. Stanley believes state of mind.” let go of, their distressing thoughts— the training must be gradual, taught At City University of London, psy- were less likely to suffer from pain, by experienced instructors, and chologist Jutta Tobias Mortlock has depression, and post-traumatic stress combined with other skills to help been working with the United King- disorder (PTSD). They also engaged soldiers “rewire” how they process dom Ministry of Defence, which she in fewer risky behaviors like driving difficult experiences. She favors a says is trying to build a culture with recklessly, carrying weapons need- 20-hour curriculum. “less command and control.” In partic- lessly, and looking for fights.→

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“THE LEVEL OF SERIOUSNESS TAKEN FOR PHYSICAL TRAINING SHOWS UP IN HOW MUCH TIME IS GIVEN DAILY FOR IT. WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE IS THAT THAT SAME LEVEL OF SERIOUSNESS IS OFFERED TO MENTAL TRAINING.” Amishi Jha, Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and associate professor, University of Miami

Nassif has just conducted a study at Hawaii’s Schofield Barracks to see whether mindfulness training can improve performance in skills like marksmanship, along with health outcomes like sleep quality. He’s cur- rently analyzing the data. More developed is the body of research that shows meditation, yoga, and related practices to be valuable for veterans with PTSD. Anthony King, an assistant professor of psy- chiatry at the , says that mindfulness-based therapies can help those who avoid situations like crowded supermarkets, which might trigger their symptoms. Avoidance, many experts believe, ness, he says, can serve as a gentler invited to just sit with that: to watch helps perpetuate PTSD symptoms. form of exposure therapy. that thought arise, watch it develop, “People don’t get normal environ- “Rather than putting yourself in a watch it pass.” mental extinction of these fear crowded situation that might cause memories because they never go out, panic,” King says, “you’re actually just because they protect themselves exposing yourself to the extempora- With mounting evidence that from coming into contact with things neous contents of your mind—what’s mindfulness practices can produce that remind them of their trauma,” happening that moment. And rather warriors who are more attentive, less King says. Exposure therapy, in than reacting in horror, or trying to distracted, and more emotionally which veterans intentionally visit distract, or turn on the TV, or turn resilient, some researchers argue that safe places that trigger anxiety, is by on the radio, or exercise, or whatever, such training should become routine definition unpleasant. But mindful- in the mindfulness meditation you’re for all troops.

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MINDS AT “The level of seriousness taken for ATTENTION physical training shows up in how much time is given daily for it,” says How can mindfulness practices be adapted for Jha. “What I’d like to see is that that military culture? The University of Miami’s Amishi same level of seriousness is offered to Jha and Scott Rogers, developers of Mindfulness- mental training.” The armed forces are not quick Based Attention and Training (MBAT), created this adopters. Research by Jha and other sample practice. scientists “is slowly gathering the attention of the military in very serious ways,” says General Piatt. This 12-minute drill Next, bring the But there is currently no systemwide aims to bring the mind mind to attention. initiative to incorporate mindfulness into troop training. “Sadly, I haven’t “At Attention” from a ▶ Bring awareness to your been as successful as I would like to seated position, in the posture and to the contact have been,” he says. same way one can be points your body makes with Some of the reason is cultural, says called to the standing the chair and floor. Valerie Rice, a mindfulness researcher at the US Army Research Laboratory position of attention. ▶ Rest your attention on your at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, breath, noticing the natural Texas. “I had a commander tell me, ▶ Sit in an upright and stable flow of the in-breath and the flat out, ‘I don’t want my soldiers to go position. out-breath. to a mindfulness class because after the class they’ll be relaxed and lazy,’” ▶ Keep your head erect and ▶ Direct your attention to she says. That’s why studies matter, facing straight to the front as sensations in the abdomen, or she adds: They help convince military you breathe. where air enters your nose or leaders there’s data to support this new mouth. type of training. “It takes time and it ▶ Keep your arms hanging takes information, and it takes recogni- straight without stiffness, ▶ When you notice that your tion and belief in the results,” she says. allowing your hands to rest mind has wandered, which it Nancy Skopp, a research psy- flat on top of your thighs. will, for it is in the nature of the chologist at the US Department of mind to wander, redeploy your Defense’s Psychological Health Cen- ▶ Slowly and with intention, attention to the breath. ter of Excellence in Falls Church, Vir- bring your heels together, ginia, points to the military’s research toes pointed out at a ▶ Continue this practice investment—its grants to Jha, for 45-degree angle. of attending to the breath, example—as evidence of its serious deliberately escorting your interest. “DoD will fund a project ▶ Relax your heels, noticing attention back to the breath that looks promising, and based on their contact with the ground. when you notice that your those results, then that can influence mind has wandered. policy,” she says. Skopp singles out Jha’s efforts to train non-experts as ▶ Hold the mind At Attention trainers: “If mindfulness nonclini- in this manner for the remain- cians can deliver this, then it can be der of this drill, steady, and disseminated more rapidly.” noticing. Jha isn’t discouraged by the slow pace of adoption. “I am glad that As we conclude this they’re wanting the science to be At Attention Drill, return strong enough before they roll it out,” she says. “Whatever they decide to roll to the At Ease position. out will be interrogated, scrutinized Resume your duty day for evidence base. And now we’ve activities. established the evidence base.” ●

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