We all have our fair share of stressful situations but when you live stress 24/7 like elite snipers do, burning out is a daily event. And these guys know the best ways to destress and reduce anxiety. The best part is that none includes meditation. If you wanna learn how tough guys do it, read on!
None of us is designed to live under the stress without consequences. High dynamics of our contemporary lives is unnatural and self-enforced. So it’s no wonder why even those with the nerves of steel have to take a pause for the cause. And, as you’ll learn, they have some peculiar ways to destress and reduce anxiety.
For example, high-end executives and politicians are frequent clients of specialized brothels filled with professional “dominae” and “slaves.”
- If he is being mentally fucked in the office, he will take it out on a poor woman – for a juicy monetary compensation, of course.
- On the other hand, if he is feeling too pressured with keeping all the strings in his hands, delegating and yelling on his subordinates, he will spend an hour or so with a sexy domina in a leather outfit and with a whip in her hand.
It makes perfect sense because sex is the most powerful activity to restore chemical balance.
Nothing has the power to shake our bodies like a round of great sex!
But how does a professional silent killer recharge? What are their ways to destress?
We talked to Brian, a veteran marine sniper, who spends the most of his “working day” behind enemy lines where he is the most wanted target.
Nobody really likes snipers because of their cunning and stealthy behavior that usually ends with a bullet hole in a skull. If they are caught, they suffer some of the most brutal torture that most commonly ends with horrible death.
Imagine how that reflects on a person’s well-being and stress level?
So Brian, how do you recharge when you return from the mission? Tell us some great ways to destress. And please, don’t say that you just waste yourself with buddies in a local pub.
[he smiles loudly] No Hawk, far from that. Yes, of course, I have nothing against that sudden surge of endorphins when you finally relax a bit on the safe ground, but that’s not essentially recharging. It’s more like a momentary fix that won’t hold for a long.I do 3 different things, depending on how I feel.
Brothels?
Good one. No. Never.
Once a month, I pack my backpack and disappear into the wilderness. I carry only my hunting knife with me. No guns. No rifles. And, I don’t carry any food with me.
The point is to connect with your most primitive instincts. Those of that ancient hunter who didn’t have the privilege to place the bait and then aim at the unaware game with the powerful sniper rifle.
How’s that helping you? It seems like a hard thing to do. In fact, people might get the feeling that it would only increase the stress and further deplete energy levels.
Well, maybe those who never actually tried it might get that feeling but it’s more adrenaline than cortisol and stress.
As you know, when you find yourself isolated from the others and civilization itself you switch in more primordial mode and completely forget about your modern ordeals. There’s only that primitive survival on your mind while being surrounded by nature.
We do not recommend going alone, without supplies and unarmed if you are not an experienced survivalist.
How long do you “camp”?
3 days max.
Even if I would have more free time, I would still get back home in 72 hours. I found that timeframe to be just the perfect length for such a trip to recharge my batteries.
That exposure to sounds and senses of nature and self-dependence have this strange calming effect on a man. I know it sounds odd but you have to try it to understand what I’m saying.
And when you are not playing Tarzan?
This might sound strange but I take off to the spa with my lady and spend two to three days in saunas and jacuzzi. She enjoys massages, I don’t. Hate that crap. But I do wrinkle like a little kid in a bathtub.
How often? For how long?
Again, 3 days max. Otherwise, I’m afraid that it would lose its magic.
We made a deal to go to the spa at least once every two months.
I know for a fact that you prefer solitude rather than being surrounded by the crowd. How’s that helping you?
It’s not for me as much as it is for my wife to relax.
As you know, the atmosphere in your home will inevitably reflect on your performance. So in order to compensate for my absence and her fear for my life, I take her away and then spend every single minute with her.
By “recharging” her batteries, I’m effectively helping myself.
And this is something I discovered only most recently.
In the past, I had to induce tremendous discipline and willpower to put aside the fight we had just a minute before my departure. You really don’t want to be burdened with your personal life when you have a whole party of angry and armed soldiers chasing you.
So by “relaxing” the home atmosphere, which predominantly implies your partner, you relax and recharge yourself. Neat, right?
Yeah, you are right about that. The pissed off wife can really act as that final nail in a casket when you finally arrive home after spending weeks and even months on the battlefield.
What’s that third thing you do to destress?
[Brian got up and signaled me to follow him. We went out and walked to his garage.]I make these, with my own pair of hands and few necessary tools.
[Mounted on the west wall of Brian’s garage, there was this collection of different bows and arrows. The rest of the space was filled with chisels, saws, drillers, and sandpaper.]I enjoy making replicas of bows and arrows that were used throughout the past. This here [he’s pointing in a peculiar type of bow on the wall, a bit separated from the rest of the collection] is the type of a bow used by Mongol horsemen. The special design allowed the arrows to reach the speed of 150 mph. That’s equivalent to the speed of some bullets. And they were shooting them while riding their horses at the full speed. That’s skill.
What’s the catch?
It’s connected with that wilderness thing I practice.
God has given us these opposable thumbs, long arms and legs, huge lungs, and advanced brains for a reason. He wanted us to use that powerful arsenal.
So every time I use my own pair of hands to build a weapon from natural materials, I feel great about myself.
In those moments, I’m forgetting about everything and focusing only on making the weapon.
And when I fire that first arrow, I feel this sudden surge of dopamine and serotonin. In other words, I feel like I’m on the top of the world.
Who would have thought that making of a simple self-bow holds such a powerful recharging potential, right?
Well, Brian’s got that one right, no argue about that.
It’s easy to see how making things perfectly resonates with man’s neuronal network. After all, it’s who we are. And our contemporary lives often deprive us of building physical shapes.
Maybe that’s the biggest problem we have these days. Everything around us is virtual. Not tangible. And yet, every time you talk to a blacksmith or a woodcrafter, you can sense how satisfied and relaxed they are.
The bottom line is that the physical labor you invest in the making of some useful item will eliminate all the negative effects of the emotional stress you are experiencing day after day.
The fact that you are not using your hands in building something that can actually be touched, is wreaking havoc inside your neuronal network because that’s not how you are originally wired.
You are the Earth’s most powerful predator. A creature, so advanced and so different from anything that has ever existed on this planet.
That brain and those opposable thumbs are making all the difference.
So find yourself an hour or two every now and then and employ those fingers. Build something and you’ll immediately feel better about yourself which will result in a peak of performance the next day.
That’s how simple it is to recharge after burning out!
Give it a shot. What you have to lose anyway?
