Bii-Ryu answered Tesshou's question:
"The so-called 'lone wolves' out there, for the most part, tend to be part of that two percent of humans who fit within the realm of psychopathy, which at its simplest form is a near-complete lack of empathy. There are numerous hypotheses as to why this occurs in various individuals, and range from congenital brain malformations of the amygdala to stress hormone exposure in the embroynic stage. Research has also shown that children can be diagnosed with sociopathy as early as age six. We've all been told about someone who knew someone who knew a child who could strangle a puppy without hesitation, or tear the limbs off a frog with glee, and those were probably the more extreme examples of this phenomenon.
"While these individuals are certainly vulnerable to the same spectrum of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety as other people, no real studies have been performed on the specific incidence of PTSD among this population. Your overall sample size would be small, your study would suffer from selection bias, and there is always the problem of obtaining reliable self report from someone who may not wish to cooperate fully in an altruistically-centered effort. I'm sure, however, that as long as any individual can experience fear - and sociopathy is not incompatible with fear - an individual can suffer from PTSD. Perhaps less so, but certainly they're out there.
"In my experience, these individuals often do not make good soldiers. Modern warfare is highly dependent on maintenance of group cohesion in order to successfully implement highly specific strategies with a great deal of flexibility. When you have someone who tends to believe that he or she - and these are most often men - is the only being in the world worth consideration, this cohesion tends to fall apart and endanger the mission. You do not want someone to break rank or disobey an order like you might see in action adventure movies. A maverick is a liability when lives are on the line.
"Many of your questions actually tempt me to launch into a semester-long discussion about the pitfalls and perils of research methodology. Many so-called 'researchers' in the village actually have very little clue about how to conduct scientifically-valid investigation, and thus their results do not stand up to the process of peer-review. Their 'experiments' consist of nothing more than fantasy fiction with the occasional exploded frog. Still, that is something I will have to lecture about next time, not this time."
He sat back on the desk, reached behind it, and produced a standard-issue Lightning Country Army long-bolter. The heavy but elegant weapon stood balanced on its buttstock and propped up on the desk. Its chamber was open for all to see and verify that it was not loaded, however.
"So, the final part of my lecture. What do you do to increase your odds of survival when the metaphorical shit hits the fan, and when you have a hundred of these guys," he motioned at the weapon, "pointed at you?"
"Let's return to physiology for a moment. It's my favorite subject as a Mednin, after all. In combat, your body is inseparable from your mind, and both need to work in unison to maximize your chance of a successful fight. Sometimes that means victory, sometimes that means surviving to fight another day.
"There are, in general, four basic physiologic states in which we live our lives. When you are asleep, or going about your day unfocused and unprepared for anything bad to happen - say, meeting your friends at the ramen shop or having a slice-of-life thread in the village - you are at your lowest level of readiness. This is 'Condition White'. It is a place where you are helpless, vulnerable, and in denial. White is the status in which most 'sheep' exist, and in contrast to the mental readiness expected of a village of trained warriors, I use that term in a pejorative manner.
"When you move up a level of basic alertness and readiness, a place where you are psychologically prepared for combat, you have entered the real of 'Condition Yellow.' Dogs, who are predators by nature, seldom leave Condition Yellow. They are always ready to play, fight, frolic, mate, or run. They are survivors. Warriors, too, must strive to exist in Condition Yellow. A warrior always tries to sit with her back to the wall.
"I promised that this section would be about physiology, and the most basic indicator of physiologic state is one's heartrate, which can be assessed quickly by palpating the radial or carotid arteries, counting beats over a period of fifteen seconds, and multiplying by four. there are no specific heartrates associated with conditions White or Yellow, and these are more psychological than physiological states. However, as the level of arousal increases, we can begin to associate the 'Condition' levels with specific heartrates.
"There is a zone that exists, generally between 115 to 145 beats per minute, or BPM for short, where you are at your optimum survival and combat performance level. This is 'Condition Red.' Your complex motor skills, visual reaction time, and cognitive reaction time are at their peak, but you begin to pay a price. Starting around 115 BPM, your finest motor skills begin to deteriorate. You should not expect to disassemble a pocket-watch at this level, for example.
"Remember that the guidelines for heartrates and Condition are general at best, and are influenced by physical training, fitness, and other factors. Also, these heart rates only apply to survival stress or fear-induced increases. You can do a set of wind sprints and get your heartrate to 200 BPM but the effect of this will not be the same as when fear or stress causes the increase. Thus, 115BPM isn't an absolute, but for most healthy individuals it is a starting point. Shinobi of the deathwatch start to see this happen when they stop a suspicion person at the gates and the person's hands shake so badly they can't produce their Cloud identification. The same is true of people in traffic accidents, who have difficulty scrawling down their contact information.
"What happens when you go over Condition Red? In general, once most individuals tend to hit over 145 BPM, you start to enter a nebulous state called 'Condition Gray', in which cognitive processing deteriorates to the point of impairing rational thought, you lose depth perception, visual acuity, sound perception, and peripheral vision. This is a dangerous zone to be in, although the only good effect here is that your body starts to enter a generalized state of vasoconstriction in which loss of blood from wounds is actually decreased.
"Above 175 BPM, this is called 'Condition Black.' The sympathetic nervous system - the animalistic, lizard-like side of the brain - has taken over. People start to exhibit irrational fight or flight response, or simply freeze up or start to display submissive behavior. You can have trained, hardened warriors curling into a ball and begging for their mothers. Individuals also start to display loss of bowel or bladder control, and gross motor skills take over completely for fine motor skills. An obese, untrained man can lift a broken carriage axle off his loved one's leg, but don't expect him to be able to administer first aid.
"Thus, we usually try to train out warriors to stay in a state that easily shifts between Yellow and Red. Condition Yellow is ideal for assessment of a threat and coming up with a reasonable solution to counter it, whereas Red is ideal for the execution of said plan. But how can we do this? Most professionals tend to devote long hours of practice to ingraining specific actions, protocols, and responses into 'muscle memory' through training and conditioning, and that is some of what the Academy should have taught you. But there is another, easily accessible tool that often gets overlooked. I introduce you to the concept of 'Tactical Breathing.'
"One day you will inevitably find yourself in an extremely stressful situation, under fire, and find yourself entering that dangerous slide into condition Gray, where your thoughts become jumbled, your hands become too shaky to use your weapon or form seals, or when your legs are quivering too much for you to stand. Or, you will be running and gunning in Condition Red, but encounter a situation like an armed hostage-taker where you need to step back and really make sure your aim is true. When you do this, think of the following, and repeat after me.
"Inhale: Breathe...two...three...four... Hold your breath...two...three...four... Exhale...two...three...four...
"Obviously when you're inhaling, holding, or exhaling, you should be counting in your head, not actually speaking. Do this once or twice, and I can almost promise you, you will start to see a change in your body's response, and your mental state. Irrational fear begins to be replaced with rational processing. You will regain the power to stand, run, walk. You will be able to check your weapon and make sure the safety is off and your magazine is loaded. You will be able to calmly aim and take the shot into the hostage-taker's forehead without injuring his victim. You will be able to focus on that test question on that written exam and realize that you know how to solve it - that you were just intimidated by difficult wording or an atypical presentation of your teacher's notes. You will be able to deal with that irate customer in line without raising your voice or giving them further cause to complain.
"Stressful situations can push you into Conditions Gray and Black, or even Red, without your consent. You now have a way of controlling it, and controlling your body's response to it, which in turn controls your mind. The prevailing theory as to why this works is that it essentially forces your parasympathetic system into action through stimulation of the vagus nerve in your thoracic and abdominal cavities, thus overriding the self-perpetuating cascade of the sympathetic nervous system. Your blood pressure goes down, your heartrate goes down, and thus you free your mind.
"Remember the concept of Tactical Breathing next time you prepare for a stressful situation in life. It can be something as complex and physically dangerous as a gunfight, or something as mundane but devastatingly destructive as a family intervention. Or even something that should be pleasurable in theory, like a graduation or a reception when you really don't want to be around people."
Bii-Ryu flashed a knowing eye at the more introverted-looking shinobi present in the room. Everyone had their specific fears and stressors, and not everyone was a warrior in real life.
"Because time is running late, I will cut the lecture short here. Those of you with specific questions may talk to me after class or contact me through the Academy Private Messaging System. For those of you who expect to graduate soon, good luck, and may the Raikage look kindly on your endeavors."
"The so-called 'lone wolves' out there, for the most part, tend to be part of that two percent of humans who fit within the realm of psychopathy, which at its simplest form is a near-complete lack of empathy. There are numerous hypotheses as to why this occurs in various individuals, and range from congenital brain malformations of the amygdala to stress hormone exposure in the embroynic stage. Research has also shown that children can be diagnosed with sociopathy as early as age six. We've all been told about someone who knew someone who knew a child who could strangle a puppy without hesitation, or tear the limbs off a frog with glee, and those were probably the more extreme examples of this phenomenon.
"While these individuals are certainly vulnerable to the same spectrum of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety as other people, no real studies have been performed on the specific incidence of PTSD among this population. Your overall sample size would be small, your study would suffer from selection bias, and there is always the problem of obtaining reliable self report from someone who may not wish to cooperate fully in an altruistically-centered effort. I'm sure, however, that as long as any individual can experience fear - and sociopathy is not incompatible with fear - an individual can suffer from PTSD. Perhaps less so, but certainly they're out there.
"In my experience, these individuals often do not make good soldiers. Modern warfare is highly dependent on maintenance of group cohesion in order to successfully implement highly specific strategies with a great deal of flexibility. When you have someone who tends to believe that he or she - and these are most often men - is the only being in the world worth consideration, this cohesion tends to fall apart and endanger the mission. You do not want someone to break rank or disobey an order like you might see in action adventure movies. A maverick is a liability when lives are on the line.
"Many of your questions actually tempt me to launch into a semester-long discussion about the pitfalls and perils of research methodology. Many so-called 'researchers' in the village actually have very little clue about how to conduct scientifically-valid investigation, and thus their results do not stand up to the process of peer-review. Their 'experiments' consist of nothing more than fantasy fiction with the occasional exploded frog. Still, that is something I will have to lecture about next time, not this time."
He sat back on the desk, reached behind it, and produced a standard-issue Lightning Country Army long-bolter. The heavy but elegant weapon stood balanced on its buttstock and propped up on the desk. Its chamber was open for all to see and verify that it was not loaded, however.
"So, the final part of my lecture. What do you do to increase your odds of survival when the metaphorical shit hits the fan, and when you have a hundred of these guys," he motioned at the weapon, "pointed at you?"
"Let's return to physiology for a moment. It's my favorite subject as a Mednin, after all. In combat, your body is inseparable from your mind, and both need to work in unison to maximize your chance of a successful fight. Sometimes that means victory, sometimes that means surviving to fight another day.
"There are, in general, four basic physiologic states in which we live our lives. When you are asleep, or going about your day unfocused and unprepared for anything bad to happen - say, meeting your friends at the ramen shop or having a slice-of-life thread in the village - you are at your lowest level of readiness. This is 'Condition White'. It is a place where you are helpless, vulnerable, and in denial. White is the status in which most 'sheep' exist, and in contrast to the mental readiness expected of a village of trained warriors, I use that term in a pejorative manner.
"When you move up a level of basic alertness and readiness, a place where you are psychologically prepared for combat, you have entered the real of 'Condition Yellow.' Dogs, who are predators by nature, seldom leave Condition Yellow. They are always ready to play, fight, frolic, mate, or run. They are survivors. Warriors, too, must strive to exist in Condition Yellow. A warrior always tries to sit with her back to the wall.
"I promised that this section would be about physiology, and the most basic indicator of physiologic state is one's heartrate, which can be assessed quickly by palpating the radial or carotid arteries, counting beats over a period of fifteen seconds, and multiplying by four. there are no specific heartrates associated with conditions White or Yellow, and these are more psychological than physiological states. However, as the level of arousal increases, we can begin to associate the 'Condition' levels with specific heartrates.
"There is a zone that exists, generally between 115 to 145 beats per minute, or BPM for short, where you are at your optimum survival and combat performance level. This is 'Condition Red.' Your complex motor skills, visual reaction time, and cognitive reaction time are at their peak, but you begin to pay a price. Starting around 115 BPM, your finest motor skills begin to deteriorate. You should not expect to disassemble a pocket-watch at this level, for example.
"Remember that the guidelines for heartrates and Condition are general at best, and are influenced by physical training, fitness, and other factors. Also, these heart rates only apply to survival stress or fear-induced increases. You can do a set of wind sprints and get your heartrate to 200 BPM but the effect of this will not be the same as when fear or stress causes the increase. Thus, 115BPM isn't an absolute, but for most healthy individuals it is a starting point. Shinobi of the deathwatch start to see this happen when they stop a suspicion person at the gates and the person's hands shake so badly they can't produce their Cloud identification. The same is true of people in traffic accidents, who have difficulty scrawling down their contact information.
"What happens when you go over Condition Red? In general, once most individuals tend to hit over 145 BPM, you start to enter a nebulous state called 'Condition Gray', in which cognitive processing deteriorates to the point of impairing rational thought, you lose depth perception, visual acuity, sound perception, and peripheral vision. This is a dangerous zone to be in, although the only good effect here is that your body starts to enter a generalized state of vasoconstriction in which loss of blood from wounds is actually decreased.
"Above 175 BPM, this is called 'Condition Black.' The sympathetic nervous system - the animalistic, lizard-like side of the brain - has taken over. People start to exhibit irrational fight or flight response, or simply freeze up or start to display submissive behavior. You can have trained, hardened warriors curling into a ball and begging for their mothers. Individuals also start to display loss of bowel or bladder control, and gross motor skills take over completely for fine motor skills. An obese, untrained man can lift a broken carriage axle off his loved one's leg, but don't expect him to be able to administer first aid.
"Thus, we usually try to train out warriors to stay in a state that easily shifts between Yellow and Red. Condition Yellow is ideal for assessment of a threat and coming up with a reasonable solution to counter it, whereas Red is ideal for the execution of said plan. But how can we do this? Most professionals tend to devote long hours of practice to ingraining specific actions, protocols, and responses into 'muscle memory' through training and conditioning, and that is some of what the Academy should have taught you. But there is another, easily accessible tool that often gets overlooked. I introduce you to the concept of 'Tactical Breathing.'
"One day you will inevitably find yourself in an extremely stressful situation, under fire, and find yourself entering that dangerous slide into condition Gray, where your thoughts become jumbled, your hands become too shaky to use your weapon or form seals, or when your legs are quivering too much for you to stand. Or, you will be running and gunning in Condition Red, but encounter a situation like an armed hostage-taker where you need to step back and really make sure your aim is true. When you do this, think of the following, and repeat after me.
"Inhale: Breathe...two...three...four... Hold your breath...two...three...four... Exhale...two...three...four...
"Obviously when you're inhaling, holding, or exhaling, you should be counting in your head, not actually speaking. Do this once or twice, and I can almost promise you, you will start to see a change in your body's response, and your mental state. Irrational fear begins to be replaced with rational processing. You will regain the power to stand, run, walk. You will be able to check your weapon and make sure the safety is off and your magazine is loaded. You will be able to calmly aim and take the shot into the hostage-taker's forehead without injuring his victim. You will be able to focus on that test question on that written exam and realize that you know how to solve it - that you were just intimidated by difficult wording or an atypical presentation of your teacher's notes. You will be able to deal with that irate customer in line without raising your voice or giving them further cause to complain.
"Stressful situations can push you into Conditions Gray and Black, or even Red, without your consent. You now have a way of controlling it, and controlling your body's response to it, which in turn controls your mind. The prevailing theory as to why this works is that it essentially forces your parasympathetic system into action through stimulation of the vagus nerve in your thoracic and abdominal cavities, thus overriding the self-perpetuating cascade of the sympathetic nervous system. Your blood pressure goes down, your heartrate goes down, and thus you free your mind.
"Remember the concept of Tactical Breathing next time you prepare for a stressful situation in life. It can be something as complex and physically dangerous as a gunfight, or something as mundane but devastatingly destructive as a family intervention. Or even something that should be pleasurable in theory, like a graduation or a reception when you really don't want to be around people."
Bii-Ryu flashed a knowing eye at the more introverted-looking shinobi present in the room. Everyone had their specific fears and stressors, and not everyone was a warrior in real life.
"Because time is running late, I will cut the lecture short here. Those of you with specific questions may talk to me after class or contact me through the Academy Private Messaging System. For those of you who expect to graduate soon, good luck, and may the Raikage look kindly on your endeavors."
