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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious if anyone's done real studies on heartrate and other biosensors for trained vs. untrained people, and people who could do something vs. not.

I've certainly felt vastly more calm (whether or not I actually did have a lower heart rate) when I had something to do.

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I was mugged by a gang in Rio and, for a little over a minute, had a knife shoved against the front of my neck and a gun into my back. For me the experience was so bizarrely, intensely focused. The world didn't exist outside gazing into the eyes of the guy holding the knife. We just kept repeating back and forth to each other "não problemas, não problemas" until they left.

I came away wondering if training would have allowed me to think _at all_. It sounds like such a low bar, but I seriously don't think a single thought went through my head the entire time. It was pure experience.

You probably did the right thing. You're not Duke Nukem.

For me it was always things I had zero control over (indirect fire, usually at night, usually single rounds, although terrifyingly close and walking-onto-me a couple times), which scared me when I thought it was effective and totally didn't bother me when I thought it was ineffective.

Except a few other times, where my remembered terror was highest in the incidents where I'd had no real response or control, and really just remember the action in cases where I did have some level of responsibility/control. But that might be a failure of memory.

Training is mostly about making things automatic.

And not getting into bad situations in the first place. Avoidance is the best defence.

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