Mastering the Unknown: Neuroscience of Crisis Management & Neuroplasticity Training

Aninder: what is up everyone welcome back to your weekly dose of awesomeness here at paragliding atlas podcast and as you can see this time around we're coming to you guys a little bit out of schedule there's a whole reason behind this and i'm choosing the word reason instead of an excuse because no matter how hard we tried we simply were not able to publish the episode on thursday as planned to put it simply we store our recordings in a cloud instead of on local disks because it's a secure mechanism and it needs a little bit of editing before we hit the publish button and it goes out to you guys on all the streaming platforms that you guys listen

to us on this time around however when i logged in to do that i was met with nothing but an unpleasant surprise The last couple of recordings that we had scheduled for the coming weeks were just simply gone, nowhere to be seen. And of course, this took me aback and I reached out to the support team and I asked them, hey guys, what's going on? This is some critical data that needs to... that needs to be handled well and you know what can we do about this and they said that we understand the gravity of the situation but the most of the guys who can fix this are out vacationing in

summer holidays so the earliest we can do this is sometime next week this was of course a bit of a bummer because after faltering on my release schedule for a little bit in june i was like i promised myself that no matter what happens i will go out and talk to my audience every week as planned and bring out all of this knowledgeable content to you without fail So I basically saw my own plans being shattered. To be honest, the feeling wasn't really good. It was overwhelming. And endless questions were coming to my head. Do I have to book my guests all over again? Do I have to recreate the conversations and everything else that comes around it? And as these emotions were flooding in, like sadness,

Aninder: helplessness, anxiety, and I could just basically see things spiraling out of control, damaging my own routine and repetition. It was just a very... hard to digest feeling. And then I was like, wait a second, this feels a bit familiar. Because this is exactly how we feel a lot of times while flying. And by the way, I'm not talking about paravating by any means, because nature, of course, throws its own things at us, which we accept regardless of how ever prepared we are but on the other end when we are going out and gliding on cross-country trips or chasing the world cup podiums or you know want to be in the lead gaggle those kind of situations where we have plan that needs to be put into

action and when the action happens Some tiny mistakes, some unexpected conditions, something unknown comes around and puts it off track and forces us to rethink our strategy is something very common in flying. And I realized that we don't really resign. We don't just accept the outcome. Instead, we look for the best possible plan B when plan A is flying out of the window. So I was like, you know what, this is a sign. And in case those of you who have been following me for quite a while, I think back in January earlier this year, I said that I'm going to come out with solo episodes. But somehow, and of course, I can blame this on procrastination for a while that I just never got around to getting them

out to you guys because maybe it was a comfort zone of having a guest in front of me and talking to you guys in a tandem manner where it was so much more easier to just have a conversation with someone rather than just find the strength and the courage to speak out on a topic by myself. So I was like, this is basically life telling me that, hey, it's about time that you make this happen. So That is how this episode has come to existence. And the topic of today's episode is managing the unknown when something surprising happens. And the whole idea of bringing out this episode was, instead of picking up something that I already planned and drafted, was to understand the process that goes on in our

brain when an unexpected situation comes around. Because when I was feeling all of these emotions, it was a very weird feeling, something that I was not comfortable with. So I was like, there must be a way to manage these situations better. And I just went up on some reputable websites and started doing my own research that, you know, what kind of chemicals release? What is the brain function when such things are happening? And to be honest, the simplest answer to these questions are being aware of yourself. And I know being aware is a very broad word, but in simpler terms, it's being truthful and being... being knowledgeable about what your shortcomings are. And in paragliding

Aninder: terms, I think being aware can be materialized by airtime. I know that I keep on talking about airtime answers a lot of questions, but the point being that airtime allows us to find the possible shortcomings which we otherwise cannot visualize or otherwise won't be aware of because putting words into practice is the only way to going out and finding out how good you are or how complacent you are for that matter or how much do you even know about it so i'd like to point out a quote here which if you can remember is like a lot of times it is said that when chaos hits the fan or

like when shit hits the fan don't think just do it and trust your training I think this is used in combat situations a lot of times by fighter pilots that when things are going crazy, just trust your training because you have developed a lot of muscle memory, subconscious. And because over a period of time, by doing those tasks repeatedly, you have developed a lot of muscle memory, your subconscious has somehow flexed. figured out a way how to do these actions that you wanted to without taking a lot of thought behind it so I'd like to point out a fact by an Austrian neurologist he was a psychologist and a philosopher as well who goes by the name of Viktor Frankl And he said something very interesting, which

was, between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and freedom. I'm just going to repeat this one more time, a bit more slowly. And it is between the stimuli and the response. So for example, every time there is something that requires us to respond, there is a space, means there's a pause, there's a lag, there's some thinking that our brain has to do. And in that pause, lag, or thinking is the power that we have within ourselves to choose how we respond to that stimuli. And that choosing of our response is where the actual growth and the freedom lies. For example, let's say there's an asymmetric. one response is to

just go the safe way pull a deployment handle and get down to the ground as safely as possible without doing a lot of inputs the other one is take control of the wing do the weight shift go for the opposite brake or whatever depending upon you know the wing that you're flying and the condition that you're in so We always have a choice on how to respond, and how we respond is where we can actually make a difference in understanding the behavior and making life a whole lot better. I don't want to sound too philosophical right now, but another way to put it across is that this whole process is called metacognition. While metacognition might sound like a fancy word, but it has a very simple

meaning, and that is being aware of your thought patterns. So let's say every time there is an asymmetric, you have a certain way of reacting and then being aware of that thought that comes to your mind and then trying to decode it. For example, are you panicking every time you hit an asymmetric or are you like, hey, this is just another day in the park? Or are you just going out and taking it too lightly? I'm pretty sure you get the point I'm saying. So being aware of the thought pattern. For example, in my case, for seven months, I stayed away from putting out solo episodes, no matter how well prepared I was. I'm not saying the reasons, but there was a constant pattern that week after week, month

Aninder: after month, I somehow found comfort in having a guest talk to me and then put out the episodes rather than going out and doing the work that I planned to do. So awareness of the patterns, that is one of the very important things that you really have to realize to get better. And then being aware of the space, the choice of response where we have the option of growing and finding our freedom is the key to becoming a better pilot or a human or just growing generally. And when I was trying to dive deep into this, I was like, what really happens in the brain? What are the

to-do steps that happen so that we can try and make them better? And I found out that there are three key brain areas that are located in the front and center part of our brain, which are mostly useful for handling our emotions, decisions, and a little bit of social stuff. I'm not going to dive deep into it, but just to give you a superficial idea of what we are talking about, we are talking about prefrontal cortex, which, of course, as many of you know, is like the boss of the brain. that plans, decides, and controls our impulses. And then we have anterior cingulate cortex. Sounds a bit complicated, and I don't think a lot of us have heard this before, but this is a part of the brain that is basically

monitoring the whole ecosystem that is going on. So it is the one who spots the mistake. It is the one who manages the emotional conflicts. It is the one who helps us stay motivated. So A lot of feelings are being controlled by the anterior cingulate cortex. And then there's something very important here, which is amygdala. Amygdala is the one which is actually putting our visuals into action. It is like basically an alarm system which exists in our brain. It helps us trigger the fear. It helps us process big emotions. So every time there is an asymmetric, or every time we are falling out of a thermal which has consequences, or every time the lead gaggle is leaving us behind, amygdala is the first

one that raises the alarm and says that, hey, about time we do something about it. So how they team up is that amygdala is the first one which freaks out, and then the cingulate cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, is the one which is like, okay, what's going on? Let me see, let me understand, let me make some sense of it. And then once that sense has been made, the prefrontal cortex is like, all right, guys, calm down. I'm here now. Now let's try and make some actual decisions which will make some smart choices and get our life better. One very important thing here is that brain has a neurotransmitter which floods something known as neuroadrenaline. Neuroadrenaline. It's a bit of a tongue

Aninder: twister. It's kind of similar to the regular adrenaline, but the regular one targets, I think, heart and blood vessels from what I read. And this one is flooding the impulses in the brain. So They kind of work similarly, but I think neuradrenalin is more responsible for sharpening the focus and reaction times and gets us in the zone. So basically, it helps us get in a state of high alert. And in short, this is our real-time crisis management system kicking in. Now, when this happens, I think all of us know that there are two ways to go. The first one, of course, is to calm down while doing some breathing exercises. A lot of us know about box breathing. I think that is where you inhale for

like four seconds, hold it for four and then exhale for four and then do it repeatedly. And then you kind of come back to the normal levels where you can actually start making rational decisions. The other one, which of course is more applicable in flying, is because there's no way in dynamic conditions, like you're coring a thermal or you're having an asymmetric, you can't just say that I'm going to focus on breathing right now because it's action time, it's go time, you actually have to do something. This is where it's especially it's valid for high pace environments where there isn't a lot of time to think. We have something known as neural shortcuts, which kick in. And these neural shortcuts

are based on the scenarios that we have rehearsed over a period of time or practiced again and again, and then gotten better at it. For example, you have done a full stall multiple times. So first time a glider stalls, you'd be scared. You'd be like, oh my God, where did the gravity go? Why don't I feel the feeling of free fall? But over a period of time, when you have gone over that feeling of free fall repeatedly, you have developed a way that your brain knows that what kind of glider pressure will exist or how do I have to handle the brakes? So all of this training that we have

Aninder: done have built up the confidence in our brain to deal with it when it happens. at a subconscious level so that we don't really have to do all of those breathing exercises and get in the zone. Rather, because we have trained it, we have had cognitive ability developed already in a safe environment when we knew that the consequences weren't too hard. We are quick to switch over to operating something known as sensimotor brain. In simpler terms, this is also called a flow state, a state of mind where we can focus on micro-resets, which are replacing the big mindfulness processes. And the science behind this is that we are entering a tunnel vision of some sorts, where we are choosing to direct our focus on things

that really matter. For example, you're going in for the final glide, right? Everybody around you is going on full bar as well, and somehow you get an asymmetric. You don't care if the line that you have chosen is correct or not. Right now, all you care is to get off the bar, get your wing open again, and get back on full bar as quickly as possible. So the idea here being that your brain, based on the practice that you have done over a period of time, build up your muscle memory, build up your subconscious mind, is focusing for you to just pay attention to fixing the asymmetric and then coming back to choosing the lines. So narrowing of attention is something that really happens. And this is a state of

mind when the alertness is super high, the dopamine is flowing in its full flow because there's motivation and reward to be chased. And then the cortisol, which is of course the stress hormone which causes the panic, is in a very controlled level. So in short, this can also be called as the flow state when actions are feeling automatic, precise and timeless. There's not a lot of overthinking, just pure seamless execution based on all the work that you have put in before. so to sum it up when something out of the syllabus comes up and we are confronted to dealing with the uncertainty in life we can of course reset by pausing but while we're out there racing we reset by continuing but with

precision And this is the reason why mindfulness, journaling, reflective practice work, therapy could be anything. As long as you get to train your brain to access the reset switch more easily, over a period of time, your brain will figure out how to reach out for better outcomes. And eventually, our brain figures out a way where it learns a mechanism which makes our future resets a whole lot easier to come. And this whole behavior is also called as neuroplasticity. Now, before we close, I would like to quickly talk about training tips to boost the neuroplasticity in paragliding. In simpler words, this can also be called building the gut feeling or intuition, as some people like to

call it. These two words are very closely related. Intuition is powered by the brain's ability to recognize the patterns from past experiences. And neuroplasticity makes this possible by strengthening those patterns over a period of time. So there are five ways that I've found that allow us to improve on this and be safe every time we go out and practice the out-of-flight. The first one, no-brainer. Practice, simulations, airtime. These three things are actually the real gold out there. Like SIVs, going out there, putting in the work, you know, flying in different conditions, thermaling weak cores, ground handling. Anything which helps you mimic the real world scenario helps you build the subconscious mind. And then we have mindfulness and breathwork. Mindfulness and breathwork are two of the

most important tools that can be applied in vast aspects of life, not just in flying, because they in general help us reduce stress and improve the focus. And eventually, when we are less stressed and we are more focused, our brain absorbs and stores the experiences better. Try waking up first thing in the morning. Instead of picking up your phone and scrolling on social media, try reading a book or try just thinking about some thoughts. This has happened to me where... i somehow feel that my emotions flow or my feelings flow a lot better first thing in the morning because first thing in the morning we are not at all stressed we can totally focus because our brain is completely blank so anyways

moving on visualization Now visualization is a superpower I think a lot less spoken about and we definitely have an episode on visualization coming out which will help you understand that how training to visualize correctly will help you go far. But mentally rehearsing takeoff, mentally rehearsing circling in weak thermals or any other emergency responses because science has time and again shows that visualization activates the same circuits in our brain as the real practice. And then lastly, there are two things which will help you go far. The first one being cross-training. A lot of times I've seen physical fitness is not emphasized upon enough in our sport, just like

it is in conventional sports. But believe it or not, the amount of core usage that we have in paragliding is undermined as compared to other conventional sports. Activities like balance training, yoga, anything which improves your strength will improve the body control and the mind-body connection. So the coordination and everything else becomes a whole lot better. And then finally, journaling. I'm pretty sure a lot of pilots do this already, or I hope they do. And this is being told as soon as you graduate from the school. But this is, I think, where we have some complacency to blame about, and me including, because once we are done with the school, we just forget about making journaling a

part of our flight logging. It's like uploading the flight is more than enough, and we just make a mental map of our flight. But what we don't understand is that every time we write down something, I think there was a study where writing with pen had a direct connection to the mind. I'm not really sure if tapping on a screen or using a keyboard has the same effect or not. But all I'm saying is that reflecting on each flight will help us consolidate the learning and identify patterns in a whole lot better manner. And once you are able to identify your patterns, you're able to learn from your mistakes, which eventually I think is the key to becoming a better version of yourself. So that's all I have for you guys

in this episode. Do let me know how you find this one. Drop in a comment or an email wherever you listen to this and I'll be sure to bring out more awesomeness to you, hopefully as planned next Thursday, as we do usually. Until then, thank you for tuning in and I hope you liked it.