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2019-08-08

Effects of War on Soldiers

Soldiers do not only suffer during wars, but their suffering can also continue afterwards. Therefore, they require attention and care for a long time, because of the psychological and physical impact caused by the war, in addition to the spread of diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB), which is known to spread easily among people. Wars cause a lot of health problems, such as: heart disease, asthma, and foot injuries as a result of exposure to cold weather, humidity, and unhealthy conditions.

Modern armies have become aware of the psychological traumas suffered by fighters in wars. These psychological traumas have effects that are similar to physical injuries and disabilities. Studies of fighting soldiers were carried out and followed by operational plans that aim to maintain the psychological well-being and morale of the personnel. The most important of these plans have been included in studies of international writers who visited battlefields in several regions and learned how to apply practical and rapid psychological protection techniques.

Needless to say that the ancient generations assessed the losses of wars from the perspective of material losses and the number of dead and wounded soldiers, without taking into account the psychological disabilities that may occur to entire regiments due to shocks or unexpected incidents. The psychological impact that such shocks may have on the fighters may be far worse than physical injuries, because it can paralyse entire groups. Hence, it is necessary to pay attention to these obstacles and handicaps and address their complications through modern scientific methods. However, the awareness of the effects of psychological stress, caused by wars, dates back. This was pointed out in manuscripts dealing with the wars of the Greeks. However, the actual realisation of these risks only crystallised in the early 17th century when doctors and leaders in the Swiss Army were alerted to the diminished ability of the military to fight during one of the battles because of their negative thinking and lack of motivation. This condition was known as the “Swiss disease”, which was described as a stress-induced disease characterised by anxiety and fear of disability or death. Later, this phenomenon was known by various names, such as “nostalgia for the home”, “battle fatigue” and other phrases that translate the effects of negative war pressures.

Psychologists emphasise the fact that the pressures of war begin and intensify when a fighter encounters an emergency condition that forces him to make an immediate change in his behaviour and thinking in order to cope with emergency requirements. It is a change that poses cognitive, behavioural and emotional challenges. This type of pressure is natural and predictable for the trained military who are supposed to overcome it effectively and successfully. It has been scientifically proven that the combat capabilities and incentives of the majority of combatants in war increase in the face of high pressure. However, certain conditions, such as the lightning attacks imposed by some battles, expose fighters to shocks and traumas that may undermine their tolerance or ability to pursue their tasks. They may develop a state of grief and panic, their behaviour and thinking may become unstable and they become depressed or hostile.

These symptoms are classified as “post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD), a term used by psychiatrists to describe the reaction of some individuals to emergent events. The pressure and stress which fighters are trained to face do not cause negative reactions. Rather, they may be a catalyst for more steadfastness and sacrifices. Nevertheless, individual growth or upbringing, DNA fingerprinting and other personal factors may play an important role in the level of personal reaction to pressures and surprises. Military units are provided with psychologists to serve as emergency teams that provide rapid psychological care when needed. These teams employ drug therapy as well as rapid behavioural psychotherapy based on applying modern scientific methods to change the negative thinking and troubled behaviour of those who suffer from such disorders.

Understanding PTSD

PTSD is also sometimes known as shell shock or combat stress and occurs after you experience severe trauma or a life-threatening event. It is normal for your mind and body to be in shock after such an event, but this normal response becomes PTSD when your nervous system gets “stuck.” Your nervous system has two automatic or reflexive ways of responding to stressful events.

Mobilisation, or fight-or-flight, occurs when you need to defend yourself or survive the danger of a combat situation. Your heart pounds faster, your blood pressure rises, and your muscles tighten, increasing your strength and reaction speed. Once the danger has passed, your nervous system calms your body, lowering your heart rate and blood pressure, and winding back down to its normal balance.

Immobilisation occurs when you have experienced too much stress in a situation and even though the danger has passed, you find yourself “stuck.” Your nervous system is unable to return to its normal state of balance and you are unable to move on from the event. This is PTSD.

Recovering from PTSD involves transitioning out of the mental and emotional war zone you are still living in and helping your nervous system become “unstuck.”

Symptoms to Look Out for

While you can develop symptoms of PTSD in the hours or days following a traumatic event, sometimes symptoms don’t surface for months or even years after you return from deployment. While PTSD develops differently in each veteran, there are symptom clusters:

Recurrent, intrusive reminders of the traumatic event, including distressing thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks where you feel like the event is happening again. You may experience extreme emotional and physical reactions to reminders of the trauma such as panic attacks, uncontrollable shaking, and heart palpitations.

Extreme avoidance of things that remind you of the traumatic event, including people, places, thoughts, or situations you associate with the bad memories. This includes withdrawing from friends and family and losing interest in everyday activities.

Combating PTSD

Get moving: Getting regular exercise has always been key for veterans with PTSD. As well as helping to burn off adrenaline, exercise can release endorphins and improve your mood. Moreover, by really focusing on your body and how it feels as you exercise, you can even help your nervous system become “unstuck” and move out of the immobilisation stress response. Exercise that is rhythmic and engages both your arms and legs—such as running, swimming, basketball, or even dancing—works well if, instead of continuing to focus on your thoughts as you move, you focus on how your body feels.

Try to notice the sensation of your feet hitting the ground, for example, or the rhythm of your breathing, or the feeling of the wind on your skin. Many veterans with PTSD find that sports such as rock climbing, boxing, weight training, and martial arts make it easier to focus on your body movements—after all, if you do not, you could injure yourself. Whatever exercise you choose, try to work out for 30 minutes or more each day—or if it’s easier, three 10-minute spurts of exercise are just as beneficial.

Pursuing outdoor activities in nature like hiking, camping, mountain biking, rock climbing, white water rafting, and skiing can help challenge your sense of vulnerability and help you transition back into normalcy.

Self-regulate Your Nervous System

PTSD can leave you feeling vulnerable and helpless. Nevertheless, you have more control over your nervous system than you may realise. When you feel agitated, anxious, or out of control, these tips can help you change your arousal system and calm yourself.

Mindful breathing: To quickly calm yourself in any situation, simply take 60 breaths, focusing your attention on each ‘out’ breath.

Sensory input: Just as loud noises, certain smells, or the feel of sand in your clothes can instantly transport you back to the combat zone, so too can sensory input quickly calm you. Everyone responds a little differently, so experiment to find what works best for you. Think back to your time on deployment: what brought you comfort at the end of the day? Perhaps it was looking at photos of your family. Alternatively, listening to a favourite song, or smelling a certain brand of soap? Or maybe petting an animal quickly makes you feel calm?

Reconnect emotionally: By reconnecting to uncomfortable emotions without becoming overwhelmed, you can make a huge difference in your ability to manage stress, balance your moods, and take back control of your life.

Connect with People

Connecting with others face to face does not have to include a lot of talking. For anyone with PTSD, it’s important to find someone who will listen without judging when you want to talk, or just hang out with you when you don’t. That person may be your significant other, a family member, one of your friends from the service, or a civilian friend.

Take Care of Your Body

The symptoms of PTSD, such as insomnia, anger, concentration problems, and jumpiness, can be hard on your body and eventually take a toll on your overall health. That’s why it’s so important to take care of yourself.

You may be drawn to activities and behaviours that pump up adrenaline, whether it is caffeine, violent video games, driving recklessly, or daredevil sports. After being in a combat zone, that is what feels normal. Nevertheless, if you recognise these urges for what they are, you can make better choices that will calm and protect your body—and your mind.

Take time to relax: Relaxation techniques such as massage, meditation, or yoga can reduce stress, ease the symptoms of anxiety and depression, help you sleep better, and increase feelings of peace and well-being.

Find safe ways to blow off steam: Pound on a punching bag, pummel a pillow, go for a hard run, sing along to loud music, or find a secluded place to scream at the top of your lungs.

Support your body with a healthy diet: Omega-3s play a vital role in emotional health so incorporate foods such as fatty fish, flaxseed, and walnuts into your diet. Limit processed and fried food, sugars, and refined carbs, which can exacerbate mood swings and energy fluctuations.

Get plenty of sleep: Sleep deprivation exacerbates anger, irritability, and moodiness. Aim for 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep each night.

Dealing with Flashbacks

For those with PTSD, flashbacks usually involve visual and auditory memories of combat. It feels as if it is happening all over again so it is vital to reassure yourself that the experience is not occurring in the present. Trauma specialists call this “dual awareness.”

Dual awareness is the recognition that there is a difference between your “experiencing self” and your “observing self.” On the one hand, there is your internal emotional reality: you feel as if the trauma is currently happening. On the other hand, you can look to your external environment and recognise that you are safe. You are aware that despite what you are experiencing, the trauma happened in the past. It is not happening now. If you are starting to disassociate or experience a flashback, try using your senses to bring you back to the present and “ground” yourself. Experiment to find what works best for you.

Survivor’s Guilt

Feelings of guilt are very common among veterans with PTSD. You may have seen people injured or killed, often your friends and comrades. In the heat of the moment, you don’t have time to fully process these events as they happen. However, later—often when you have returned home—these experiences come back to haunt you.

Honestly assessing your responsibility and role can free you to move on and grieve your losses. Even if you continue to feel some guilt, instead of punishing yourself, you can redirect your energy into honouring those you lost and finding ways to keep their memory alive. For example, you could volunteer for a cause that is connected in some way to one of the friends you lost. The goal is to put your guilt to positive use and thus transform a tragedy, even in a small way, into something worthwhile.

Seek Professional Treatment

You do not have to try to handle the burden of PTSD on your own. PTSD treatment can help you regain a sense of control over your life. The primary treatment is psychotherapy but can also include medication. Combining these treatments can help improve your symptoms.

Psychotherapy

Several types of psychotherapy, also called talk therapy, may be used to treat children and adults with PTSD. Some types of psychotherapy used in PTSD treatment include:

Cognitive therapy: This type of talk therapy helps you recognise the ways of thinking (cognitive patterns) that are keeping you stuck — for example, negative beliefs about yourself and the risk of traumatic things happening again. For PTSD, cognitive therapy often is used along with exposure therapy.

Exposure therapy: This behavioural therapy helps you safely face both situations and memories that you find frightening so that you can learn to cope with them effectively. Exposure therapy can be particularly helpful for flashbacks and nightmares. One approach uses virtual reality programmes that allow you to re-enter the setting in which you experienced trauma.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR combines exposure therapy with a series of guided eye movements that help you process traumatic memories and change how you react to them.

All these approaches can help you gain control of lasting fear after a traumatic event. You and your mental health professional can discuss what type of therapy or combination of therapies may best meet your needs. You may try individual therapy, group therapy or both. Group therapy can offer a way to connect with others going through similar experiences.

Medications

Several types of medications can help improve symptoms of PTSD:

Antidepressants: These medications can help symptoms of depression and anxiety. They can also help improve sleep problems and concentration.

Anti-anxiety medications: These drugs can relieve severe anxiety and related problems. Some anti-anxiety medications have the potential for abuse, so they are generally used only for a short time.

Preventing Long-Term Effects

Psychological support teams in wars also provide protection from psychological disorders, and contribute effectively to maintaining high morale by providing soldiers with positive thinking. In order to prevent the aggravation of the psychological disorder, if any, troubled persons are kept in their positions in the front line close to their unit, and are not moved to the back lines. This theory of psychology was learned from the experiences of World War I, where it was then proven that the soldiers who were transferred to the rear rows to calm them were unable to regain their mental health and re-join their units. However, it was observed that those soldiers who were treated in combat positions improved rapidly and managed to return to service.

The pressures of war have a negative impact on the military in general that cannot be ignored. However, taking into account the complications of this impact and the magnitude of the losses it can cause, helps to remedy them and prevent their long-term effects. Fortunately, modern armies are deeply aware of the importance of providing psychological protection to their personnel.

Reference Text/Photo:www.army.mil

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