Research

How the Chilean miners will cope with rescue ordeal

Published 12 October 2010

The Chilean miners will be under great psychological stress as they travel through a 54cm-wide tunnel to safety, according to Dr Nick Smeeton, senior lecturer in sport and exercise psychology at the University of Brighton.

He said: "In this kind of life threatening situation the individuals typically experience a 'fight or flight' response. Adrenaline and other fight or flight hormones are released to help prepare your body for action.

"Your heart races, you feel sick because blood is being diverted from your stomach to your muscles. Your senses are in a state of high alert and your rational mind leaves you.

"Physically, the miners will be ready to move but, psychologically, they will have to suppress the fight or flight response otherwise they may experience problems when they enter the confined space of the capsule.

"To help prepare them there are a number of psychological strategies that could be used. These strategies help because anxiety often comes from fear of the unknown or worrying about things out of your control – a feeling of helplessness.

"To be most effective, these strategies need to have been used early in the planning stage of the evacuation. Making sure the miners are familiar with what will happen will help reduce fear of the unknown. Also, they may run through 'what if' scenarios so they are prepared if something does not go to plan. This will help to give them some feeling of control and reduce feelings of helplessness.

"During the evacuation, they may be focusing on taking slow deep breaths to try and bring their heart rate down. They should be trying to keep negative thoughts about what might happen under control. Under the circumstance this will be difficult, although one way to do this is to turn those negative thoughts into positive ones. This can help because the physical feelings of nervousness are similar to those experienced in extreme excitement.

"By changing negative thoughts into positive ones you can begin to interpret nervous feelings as excitement. Perhaps focusing on being excited about seeing their loved ones may help them to do this."