Updated 12/1/2020
The United States Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land teams (SEALs) have discovered how to make their candidates more successful at completing the mythically-tough BUD/S training and actually become U.S. Navy SEALs.
They teach BUD/S trainees stress control techniques that may be responsible for helping to boost the number of successful passing candidates from one fourth of each class to one third of each class. That means almost 10 percent more of the BUD/S candidates go on to become Navy SEALs.
Amazingly, these stress control techniques are very similar to what I’ve been teaching my students for years. No magic here. What I teach comes directly out of good psychological research, and the SEALs do their homework!
According to a History Channel documentary on brain science, SEAL trainees are taught four key stress control techniques that allow them to perform better even during the grinding SEAL’s Hell Week.
The four keys?
- Goal Setting
- Mental Rehearsal
- Self Talk
- Arousal Control
I normally teach these techniques in my GRE prep course to help students cope with test anxiety and daunting study schedules.
Check back tomorrow as we look at how the SEALs use goal setting to overcome stress and how you can use it to excel during finals!
From the Series “Better Test Performance The Navy SEALs Way”
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
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