10/10/2022
Celebrating World Mental Health Day!
Today, October 10th, we celebrate World Mental Health Day!
As a breathing coach, Patrick works with elite military quite often and as part of this work he learned about COSC, an initiative from the US Navy to prevent, identify, and reduce stress issues in servicemen as early as possible.
COSC stands for Combat and Operational Stress Control and has also been adopted by the Swedish armed forces. It is a concept that divides mental health into four areas:
1. The Green Zone: This is where you’re “supposed” to be, when you’re ready to go out and face anything.
2. The Yellow Zone: You have been exposed to some kind of stress or load that makes you a bit stressed, but, with the right rest and recuperation you will get back into the green zone.
3. The Orange Zone: This zone is labelled as the “injury zone”. Soldiers in the orange zone have some kind of problem that might require external support for them to handle.
4. The Red Zone: This is when something traumatic has happened. The soldier has been subjected to traumatic stress. The red zone includes PTSD, burnout, and depression. The red zone is clinically significant, meaning the COSC concept works with the first 3 zones.
The concept’s main emphasis is self-awareness. Once you know how to identify where you are on the stress scale, you can see when you need to do something to get back into the green zone.
If you are looking for help with your breathing techniques for stress, check out the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df3OR_NdsdY&t=7s
