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How do you cool your adrenaline rush down and keep it at bay during a high alert situation, such as a burglar entering into your home?

I used to be a firefighter and I had this problem with calls. I could feel my heart thumping so hard it felt like it was coming out of my chest.. Well, that's been 15 yrs now and yesterday I got that same feeling. Stopped by my moms house and they were gone, I hit the restroom real quick before I left. While in the restroom I hear a quick knock and I think great a neighbor kid looking for my son, then the next thing I know the door flies open and I hear someone rushing around in the living room..

I thought to myself, you have got to be kidding me and I immediately got ready for someone to kick in the bathroom door. All the lights were off except mine so I know they know someone is in there. I was off to the side and distant from the door waiting for a minute and decided I needed to go offensive mode but my adrenaline was pounding so hard, eyes were red, etc.. It took a good minute for me to prepare to even have good breathing before I made my exit and quickly cleared the house first around the restroom area and moved down the hall until I cleared the entire house.. Intruder was gone and that will be another thread..

Ericstac wrote:How do you cool your adrenaline rush down and keep it at bay during a high alert situation, such as a burglar entering into your home?

I used to be a firefighter and I had this problem with calls. I could feel my heart thumping so hard it felt like it was coming out of my chest.. Well, that's been 15 yrs now and yesterday I got that same feeling. Stopped by my moms house and they were gone, I hit the restroom real quick before I left. While in the restroom I hear a quick knock and I think great a neighbor kid looking for my son, then the next thing I know the door flies open and I hear someone rushing around in the living room..

I thought to myself, you have got to be kidding me and I immediately got ready for someone to kick in the bathroom door. All the lights were off except mine so I know they know someone is in there. I was off to the side and distant from the door waiting for a minute and decided I needed to go offensive mode but my adrenaline was pounding so hard, eyes were red, etc.. It took a good minute for me to prepare to even have good breathing before I made my exit and quickly cleared the house first around the restroom area and moved down the hall until I cleared the entire house.. Intruder was gone and that will be another thread..

You can control your heart rate and many of the other effects of a high stress situation by deliberately regulating your breathing in a particular pattern. The technique is described in the book "On Combat".

That's how I finally did it was with nice deep controlled breathe but it seemed like it took forever to control, I will read into it, maybe the best thing is to control breathing from the very beginning.

Back in my paramedic days, I used to could taste the adrenaline during those critical stress dumps.

I always focused on my training. Concentrate on the task at hand. Take care of the important things in the proper order. That is what training is for and why we even trained between calls.

Worked for me.

Anygunanywhere

Ericstac wrote:That's how I finally did it was with nice deep controlled breathe but it seemed like it took forever to control, I will read into it, maybe the best thing is to control breathing from the very beginning.

That's correct, and it's not just taking deep breaths - it involves breathing in a particular pattern to influence heart rate.

You can find the details on tactical breathing here.

It helps to know what you are going to do.

Pilots eventually encounter a serious problem while flying, engine out, engine problem, weather a lot worse than expected, electrical problems, and more besides.

If you panic, you might as well point the nose at the ground and get it over with. John Kennedy, Jr. is an example of what happens.

When confronted with a situation, your training kicks in, usually, hopefully, and you know what needs to be done to handle it as best you can, and remaining calm is the first order of business. If you don't know what to do, panic is the only remaining response.

In the ~100,000 minutes I have in my logbook, there were only 6-10 minutes where I thought I was going to die. Flying too close to a thunderstorm, a night, raining, gusting variable quartering tail wind ILS approach and landing, sudden instrument outages, loss of all electrical power, etc. I am here to recount these episodes only because of good training. If I had not had training and been confident of that training to remain calm and do what the training had taught, panic would have ensured with certain results.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.", says Mark twain.

JALLEN wrote:
In the ~100,000 minutes I have in my logbook, there were only 6-10 minutes where I thought I was going to die. Flying too close to a thunderstorm, a night, raining, gusting variable quartering tail wind ILS approach and landing, sudden instrument outages, loss of all electrical power, etc.

An aviation career is often described as, "hours and hours of sheer boredom, punctuated by moments of stark terror."

G26ster wrote:

JALLEN wrote:
In the ~100,000 minutes I have in my logbook, there were only 6-10 minutes where I thought I was going to die. Flying too close to a thunderstorm, a night, raining, gusting variable quartering tail wind ILS approach and landing, sudden instrument outages, loss of all electrical power, etc.

An aviation career is often described as, "hours and hours of sheer boredom, punctuated by moments of stark terror."

Yeah, but I thought those were just the carrier shots and traps. It turns out there's a lot more besides. I often wondered why the instructor pilot kept yammering on about the beauty of experience is that it enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Now, I know why.

Excaliber wrote:

Ericstac wrote:That's how I finally did it was with nice deep controlled breathe but it seemed like it took forever to control, I will read into it, maybe the best thing is to control breathing from the very beginning.

That's correct, and it's not just taking deep breaths - it involves breathing in a particular pattern to influence heart rate.

You can find the details on tactical breathing here.

Thank you!

I struggle with this same issue, sometimes even for seemingly minor things my brain will do an adrenaline dump and it becomes very difficult to control my breathing, heart rate, and voice. This breathing technique sounds like it might help a lot.

There are a couple of things that may help you.
1) Have a home defense plan that includes your family. Make sure to have several scenarios. Practice regularly.
2) Go to some sort of a "real world" active shooter competition such as IDPA. Shoot in it as often as possible. Even though ammo is hard to come by, it will be well worth the time and money

Nothing will stop the flow od adrenilin but maybe this will slow it down some for you.

All the above and conditioning/training by getting into a shooting competition. Even though you know the competition is not life threatening it will get your heart rate up and to get better you will have to learn to control all those same things to stay calm and improve your performance.

You can't stop your nervous system from reacting, and aside from experience (exposure to the stimulus on a regular basis), there's not much you can do other than try and find a technique that claims to help, and you won't know if it does until you are on a situation.

I think in a self defense situation, the best thing you can do is be confident in the use of your gun, and being able to recognize a threat.

knotquiteawake wrote:

Excaliber wrote:

Ericstac wrote:That's how I finally did it was with nice deep controlled breathe but it seemed like it took forever to control, I will read into it, maybe the best thing is to control breathing from the very beginning.

That's correct, and it's not just taking deep breaths - it involves breathing in a particular pattern to influence heart rate.

You can find the details on tactical breathing here.

Thank you!

I struggle with this same issue, sometimes even for seemingly minor things my brain will do an adrenaline dump and it becomes very difficult to control my breathing, heart rate, and voice. This breathing technique sounds like it might help a lot.

It can help with any stressful situation (job interview, conflict at work, etc.) and even works to help you get back to sleep when you find yourself staring at the ceiling at 02:00.

As a 25 year firefighter with a majority of that having been a paramedic, I have had occasion to get adrenaline flooded. I have seen guys in good shape run out of air because of this. I used to, and anytime since when under stress, use passive refill breathing. That is to say, forcefully exhale and let the ambient air pressure refill your lungs. It takes a little practice but not much.

Even as I got older and fatter, I would outlast some of these young guys on bottled air.

Xanax can help as well.