Identifying Your Thinking Style and Stress Management?

[GDI]

Identifying Your Thinking Style and Stress Management

Following a period of hit and miss scuba instruction in part due to my (soon to be retired from) military service; I am reminded of some of the situations and challenges in dealing with students that I had in the past, my own wife being an example. While the classes which offered little challenges in seeing students through to certification are tales I would use to recruit the next wave of students I must admit it is the classes where students presented challenges that made me the instructor I am noted for. In my thoughts I find that I am able to relate many of the various challenges to the students anxieties, their thinking style and how we worked through them. Diving is an activity where we often do just the opposite of what is instinctual to us, diving instruction must override from what we have learned or perceived about the world under water.

A person's thinking style determines how a person will respond to a specific stress or phobia. Anxiety is a normal human emotion experienced by all of us at some point in our lives be it caused from peer pressure, a preconceived notion or a post traumatic situational event (aka PTSD). The possible potential result could lead us to a "fight or flee" conundrum

As a individual I have developed methodologies to work through these challenges and provide to the student hopefully the confidence to move forward. It is because of my own life experiences and recording of many lessons learned that I have a tool box which allows me to succeed. I find with (no insult intended) that many instructors are uncomfortable and/ or ill equipped to teach anxious students. because they lack the knowledge or skill set, tools, personality or thinking style to work through the psychological domain of the student. How if the instructor's thinking style is incompatible in dealing with a student's anxiety can the instructor develop in the student a thought process of stress management and problem solving thus reducing potential drownees and class dropouts?

I pondered if I should have placed this post in the instructors only section, but then I was thinking it would best generate discussion in the basic questions section and hope that it would help other divers in developing methods to better handling stress and anxiety, problem solving in a word, so here we are.

First lets look at what is called "Thinking Style": Having done some research on this I see 4 basic styles of thinking, none any better suited to diving stress management than the other:

Concrete Sequential Thinkers tend to be based in reality. They process information in an ordered, sequential, linear way.
Concrete Random Thinkers are experimenters.
Abstract Random Thinkers organize information through reflection, and thrive in unstructured, people-oriented environments.
Abstract Sequential Thinkers love the world of theory and abstract thought.

Each thinking style can be effective in its own right. It is important that you become more aware of which thinking style works best for you. Once you know your own style you can then analyze the others. allowing you to understand other people better, making you more flexible and perhaps even a better diving buddy or instructor. As a buddy you critique the dive with the aim to improve your overall skills, a critique that should involve some discussion of problem (s) that occurred during the dive- recording lessons learnt. As a instructor you are for the student a diving buddy at some point in the process of learning..

A diver's anxiety is recognized as either physiological or psychological, real or perceived .How the diver thinks through the problem will determine how the outcome of the results are achieved, hopefully successfully. As a instructor we have the first opportunity to deal with and address these issues from the onset of scuba training, as a dive buddy we are better serving our dive partner by openly, sincerely and to the best of our abilities discussing ours and our buddy's anxieties and stresses. Examples of some forms of diver stress are:

Physical Causes of Stress:
Overloading:
Sensory Deprivation:
Time Pressure:
Equipment: Depth
Water Temperature:
Fitness/Swimming Ability
Water Conditions
Dangerous Marine Life

Psychological Causes of Stress
Peer Pressure
Ego
Unknown factors
Performance and evaluation

Pre-Dive Physiological Signs:
Increased Heart Rate
Rapid Respiration
Muscle Tension
Frequent Urination
Increased Perspiration
Voice Changes
Decrease in Skin Temperature

Pre and Post-Dive Behavioural Signs:
Introversion and Extroversion
Tardiness
Mental Errors
Emotional Stability

In-Water Symptoms:
Rapid Respiration
The "Wide-Eyed" Look
Inefficient Swimming
Clinging and Clambering
Fixation and Perceptual Narrowing
Sudden Surfacing
High Treading/Trashing
Equipment Rejection

The reasons why an individual desires to take up scuba diving at any level varies. As the instructor it is important to understand these reasons and as a dive buddy to sustain the skills learned during diving lessons and build upon those skills to reduce diver anxiety. Be truthful to yourself and your physical and psychological limitations - progress comfortably and confidently knowing your equipment and skill levels. Be respectful to the diver team as a whole and dive to the "weakest link" The weakest link is the highest anxiety- risk assessed and accepted level of any diver of the team. Remember a thumbs up to end the dive can be called for any reason at any time and that means before and during any dive.

Understanding a diver's "Thinking Style" beginning the moment we first meet the diver and develops as we come to know that diver . Obviously a long standing buddy should know each other but until we have experienced a stressful situation we may not know their limitation and thought processes or character traits to handling, masking or resolving the anxiety and under what conditions that anxiety manifests itself. A few simple questions and learning to better observe a diving student or dive buddy can lead the way to address the concern before we get to the water.

Each diver will handle stress differently and do so under different conditions, how to resolve the stress is based on the divers "Thinking Style", understanding this may help better prepare the diver in dealing with that anxiety be it physical and/or psychological, real or perceived, suddenly unexpected or built up.. To learn a individual's thinking style is why I first ask a student in the training phase and during post dive critique with my diving buddies "How would you to handle that? or "What brought you to that conclusion?"

 

[TSandM]

So, a concrete thinker's anxiety might be best dealt with by using specific examples of dives where that issue has come up, whereas the abstract person might love the charts that take you through the 9 failures?

I will confess that I am patient with and enjoy working with students who are clumsy or slow, but I have a lot of trouble working with students who are scared, because fear in diving is something I just don't relate to. How do you work with the student whose anxiety interferes with their ability to perform required skills? (For example, the student who is terrified of water on his face, who won't take his mask off?)

 

[GDI]

......... How do you work with the student whose anxiety interferes with their ability to perform required skills? (For example, the student who is terrified of water on his face, who won't take his mask off?)

I start the very first skill of the first class by having them stand waist deep in the pool, their mask on the back of the head and their snorkel in their mouth. They lean forward with their face in the water and instructed to breath only by the snorkel. Some will try to keep the nose above water. I encourage them to lower their face until fully submerged . I have them do this for more then a minute. What I observed is that the sound and tone of my voice makes a big difference. I sound confident and reassuring. A gentle touch is sometimes needed, as humans a reassuring touch can mean a lot. Secondly "peer pressure" and the fear of "evaluation" can work for you as a instructor. ( be careful how you apply this) I have them do this skill en mass but will work them as a individual id needed away from the others. Thirdly repetition of a skill will override their fears and build confidence. I repeat the same skill when I introduce the reg to them. As one student commented to me having them stand in the pool doing this keeps with them a sense of a safety net which I slowly and progressively breakdown until they don't need it. Eventually the skills are completed on request and without apprehension.
Once they have rationalized the fear they can begin to take control of it because their thinking style see the solution, you only facilitated the process.

Think of the process like this. The first time you ever wore a wrist watch it bothered your wrist, it was a weight and moved around. Now having worn it, it is a weight that you feel something is missing if you do not have it on ( conditioning of the habit via repetition), Secondly when you are asked the time you - by first instinct you only need turn your wrist to see what the time is. You have through repetition learned to wear the watch and respond automatically to read the time on request or as desired with no discomfort