Automatic responses cost little in energy and strongly resist stress — Page 143, Lesson 221

I want to walk you through the topic of stress management — both on the flight deck and away from it. This is a critical area for you as a professional pilot, because stress doesn't just affect how you feel; it directly impacts your decision-making, your reaction times, and ultimately the safety of the flight. Let's start with what you as an individual can do. The key idea here is that you need to learn and acquire experience so that your responses become automatic. Automatic responses cost little in energy and strongly resist stress. That's a crucial point — when you're under stress, you don't have spare mental energy to figure things out from scratch. You need responses that are already wired in. So how do you build those automatic responses? First, a thoroughly professional approach to training will increase the range of responses available to you and will reduce the chances of meeting unknown situations. That's why there's such an emphasis on regular simulator flights — in the simulator, any emergency can be practised in a safe environment. You get to rehearse the unexpected without real-world consequences. Second, you should learn from the past, including the experience of others. You don't have to make every mistake yourself — you can benefit from the lessons learned by other pilots before you. Third, thorough preflight briefing and preparation will allow you to anticipate events. The pilot must be prepared for all incidents which could, plausibly, arise during the flight. If you've already thought about what could go wrong and what you'd do, you're not caught off guard when it happens. Now, you're not alone on the flight deck. Crew Resource Management — CRM — will teach you techniques for sharing and allocating tasks to prevent any one individual becoming overloaded. CRM also highlights the effective use of all members' knowledge to increase the range of possible responses. It should improve everyone's awareness of the situation, and by combined efforts, allow for the creation of new ideas. So when one person's mental resources are stretched, the rest of the crew can step in. A good atmosphere on the flight deck is a great help in a stressful situation. And humour can be an effective antidote to stress. That's not about being unprofessional — it's about using a natural human tool to keep tension manageable. There are five major guidelines to prevent stress affecting safety. I want you to remember these clearly. Number one: keep it simple and basic — fly the aircraft. When things get complicated, don't let the distractions pull you away from the fundamental task of controlling the aeroplane. Number two: accept the situation — do not attempt to conceal the facts or danger. Denial is dangerous. Number three: use all crew resources — that's group support. Number four: the captain, unless incapacitated, must make the decisions and control the situation. That's not about ego; it's about clear command and control. Number five: never give up — there is always a suitable response. Even when things look hopeless, there is something you can do. Now let's move to stress management away from the flight deck. The success of any stress management programme will be determined by your willingness to recognize the source of your stress and your determination to do something about it. You have to be honest with yourself about what's causing the pressure. A good stress management programme should be both preventative and curative. Preventative means finding ways to keep stress levels to a minimum in the first place. Curative means providing ways of reducing existing levels of stress — dealing with it once it's already there. What techniques can help? First, health and fitness programmes. Regular physical exercise reduces tension and anxiety and makes it much easier to withstand fatigue. Physical fitness also improves cognitive function — that's your thinking ability — and improves reaction times. So staying fit isn't just about your body; it directly helps your performance as a pilot. Second, relaxation techniques. These include meditation, self-hypnosis, yoga, and biofeedback. All of these can help to reduce tension by mental and physical relaxation — that means muscle relaxation — or by control of heart rate and blood pressure. These are practical tools you can learn and use to bring your stress levels down. So to summarise: on the flight deck, build automatic responses through professional training, learning from others, and thorough preparation. Use CRM to share the load. Maintain a good atmosphere. Follow those five guidelines. And away from the flight deck, take a preventative and curative approach — stay physically fit, and use relaxation techniques to manage the stress that builds up.