How does battle fatigue work

It is being republished here in light of current protests involving the murder of George Floyd and to raise awareness and recognize the pressure and exhaustion being felt by Black members of our campus community.

Smith has written extensively about microaggression experienced by Black faculty and students, including being the lead author of a study published in September in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. The study looked at the experiences of Black male students on historically white university and college campuses.

Microaggressions are subtle, cumulative verbal and nonverbal acts ranging from slights to insults and stigmatizations that target race, gender, class, religion, ability, sexual orientation, class and other minority statuses. While such acts may be intentional, often those who engage in these behaviors are unaware of their stereotypical and hurtful nature.

By Sally Satel. To Read the Full Story. Subscribe Sign In. Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership. Like an overused muscle, the brain simply needs to heal from too much exposure to trauma and stress. Here are a few steps you can take to recover:. If you feel as though you are in crisis, or know anyone who is in crisis, please call the Military Crisis Line at , and press 1.

Practice relaxation techniques. You can decrease stress and build resilience by learning how to relax and pay attention to positive things. Do things during the day that you enjoy — listen to music, take a walk, remind yourself of things you are grateful for, and use your sense of humor. Simple breathing exercises can also release stress by relaxing the central nervous system. These findings confirm observations from previous wars. Other baseline stressors which are often cited include lack of information; lack of confidence in leaders, supporting units, or equipment in comparison with the enemy's; and lack of belief in the justness of the war which may reflect lack of support for the effort in the US.

People with these traits were no more likely to become battle fatigue casualties and no less likely to be decorated for valor than were those soldiers who tested as normal. There are good predictors of battle fatigue but individual personality type is not one of them. Anyone may become a battle fatigue casualty if too many high-risk factors occur. However, personality factors may help predict who is less likely to recover quickly after being disabled by battle fatigue.

There are two common themes which interact in varying combinations in most battle fatigue casualties -- loss of confidence and internal conflict of motives. Loss of faith in whether the "cause" is worth suffering and dying for also plays a role. It has been said that soldiers join the military services for patriotism, but they fight and die for their buddies and trusted leaders. Soldiers do not want their comrades or themselves to die for an unjust cause or for other's mistakes. Loss of faith may even spread to a painful loss of belief in the goodness of life and other spiritual and religious values.

The desire for survival and comfort is in conflict with the fears of failure or disgrace and the soldier's loyalty to buddies. Leaders' actions must Simple Fatigue. The simple fatigue or exhaustion form of battle fatigue is normally the most common. It involves tiredness, loss of initiative, indecisiveness, inattention, and, when extreme, general apathy. These cases may show some features of the other forms, especially anxiety and pessimism, but not to the degree that they cannot rest and recover in their own unit duty or in a nonmedical support unit rest.

However, the tactical situation may call for them to rest in medical cots if no other suitable place is practical. The anxious form is naturally one of the most common, given the danger of combat. Symptoms include verbal expressions of fear; marked startle responses which cease to be specific to true threat stimuli and become generalized; tremor; sweating; rapid heartbeat; insomnia with terror dreams, and other symptoms of hyperarousal.

This form is often seen while the soldier is close to the danger and shifts to the exhausted or depressed forms as he is evacuated towards the rear.

The depressed form is also common. It may have the slowed speech and movement of the simple fatigue form or the restlessness and startle responses of the anxious form.

The depressed form also has significant elements of self-doubt, self-blame, hopelessness, and may include grief and bereavement. The soldier may be pessimistic about the chance for victory or survival.

The self-blame and guilt may be about perceived or actual failures in the combat role or mistakes made. It may be related to home front issues. Or it may be relatively pure survivor guilt -- the irrational feeling of a survivor that he should have died with members of his unit or in place of a buddy.

Memory Loss. The memory loss form is usually less common, especially in its extreme versions. Mild forms include inability to remember recent orders and instructions. More serious examples are loss of memory for well-learned skills or discrete loss of memory for an especially traumatic event or period of time. Extreme forms include disorientation and regression to a precombat for example, childhood state.

Total amnesia, or a fugue state in which the soldier leaves the threatening situation altogether, forgets his own past, and is found wandering somewhere else having taken on another superficial identity , can also occur. Physical causes of amnesia such as concussion or substance misuse for example, alcohol must be ruled out in such cases. Physical Function Disturbance.

Disturbance of physical function includes disruptions of motor, sensory, and speech functions. Physical injuries or causes are absent or insufficient to explain the symptoms. These symptoms are triggered by physical events, such as explosions, mild concussion, or simple fatigue. They are magnified when emotions cannot be expressed because of social pressure or heroic self-image. They are, therefore, most often seen in the "elite" units or groups who show few other cases of battle fatigue, such as officers or the airborne and rangers in WWII.

The disability may make the soldier unable to do his job and so relieve him from danger, such as classic "trigger-finger palsy. Symptoms also may be reinforced by receiving the relative luxury of rear area food, hygiene, and sleep.

However, not all cases fit that pattern. Some soldiers with significant loss of function from battle fatigue have continued to perform their missions under great danger.

Medical personnel must be alert to new physical forms of battle fatigue which mimic physical injury, such as might be attributed to lasers, radiation, or chemical agents.

Psychosomatic Forms. These psychosomatic forms of battle fatigue commonly present with physical rather than emotional symptoms due to stress. These include