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The study at the Colorado Retreat Center yielded promising results. These participants had improved, which shows that attention can stimulate attention in ideal circumstances. But what to say less-of the ideal circumstances? How about less than a month of intense, prolonged meditation in a quiet, remote place? It sounds great to be in an idyllic mountain refuge – but most of us need help with our attention while we are in the middle of our daily lives, under pressure, juggling a million things. And further, meditating 12 hours a day it is hardly realistic for the majority of people. Can attention help the rest of us?
We were considering these issues in the lab when I was called by a professor of security from another university. A veteran who turned to consciousness after experiencing first-hand the difficulties of deployment, she was interested in offering it to other servicemen. As she had no experience in neurology or experimental research, she sought a research associate. Richie Davidson, with whom I kept in touch after his lecture at Penn, offered to try me.
I was intrigued and began to look at existing research on attention and military deployment. I was immediately absorbed and, frankly, quite worried. The military is a population that has had to face extremely sought-after situations all along, and this is clearly reflected. During the pre-deployment, the members of the service trained intensively, simulating scenarios in which life was set all day, every day. Then they unfolded scenarios where there was life in fact pledged.
These powerful forces that we have discussed, which worsen attention, are a constant way of life for servicemen. Add to this other factors that impair attention, such as sleep disturbances, insecurity, extreme temperatures, and the importance of mortality (thinking about one’s own death). And to make things even better, this was in the post-9/11 era of the military upsurge in Iraq. The year was 2007, and as a nation, the United States was at war abroad for six years. The units went back to back. Suicide rates and PTSD among military personnel are rising. Not only did high stress cause warriors to develop psychological disorders, but many suffered from moral harm, struggling with pity, remorse, and guilt when their own reactivity led to behavior that violated their code of ethics.
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