A prestigious private military school is providing coloring books for cadets to deal with stress.
The Virginia Military Institute, the first state-sponsored military college in the country founded in 1839, offers a “stress busters” program to provide students with yoga classes to “unwind and relax…”
“This is an opportunity for cadets to unwind and relax before studying for finals. This event often includes stress reduction activities such as yoga, therapy dogs, coloring book stations, card/game stations, and grab-and-go snacks to take with you on your way to study!”
This is a sign in two ways. First it is a sign of r-ification, somewhere. Either the leadership sees stress as something to be actively relieved, or the kids need it. I have no idea which.
The second way it is a sign, is that stress is increasing, and no longer easily tolerated by amygdalae, to the point that now people are looking for ways to try and defuse it. That is amygdala activation, and the amygdalae involved are growing in response to the stress. They’d grow faster without the coloring books, but still, K approaches, and Trump’s election was no accident.
The coloring book is an interesting example of how the amygdala works. A while back I was amazed to see some adult coloring book had sold over a million copies. Looking at r/K’s paltry sales, I was just blown away.
Notice that left to its own devices, the amygdala looks for negativity and focuses on it to produce aversive stimulus. When these people color, their amygdala focuses on keeping them within the lines. It is entirely focused on that, and since the amygdala is not good at multitasking focus, the focus on the coloring distracts from negative stimuli. Simultaneously, it probably also triggers some dopamine, due to the bright colors, and the pretty, intricate images as they take shape.
My own belief is that if you have some uncomfortable stress, coloring is probably the worst thing you can do because it conditions the amygdala to normalize the blank, dreamy, worry-free state as a baseline, as it encourages you to ignore the stress, and what is causing it. Stop coloring, and when the world’s stresses re-intrude, they will seem that much more unbearable compared to what you just experienced. You need to work to resolve stresses and mold your reality, such that your world naturally makes you feel like coloring a book would. Easier said than done sometimes, but always worth aspiring to, because that will produce true happiness.
Of course for those that choose coloring, once addicted to the easy, dreamy state of coloring, finishing a book and returning to a reality you are not conditioned for will drive you right back to a new coloring book. It is not necessarily a bad business model. I’ve long suspected the smartphone games like candy crush are probably quite similar, which explains why they can make $600 million dollars, or whatever obscene amount of money it was which that silly little game took in.
There is great money in amygdala-relaxation, but I am not sure it is time well spent, if you have a path toward a world which will produce the same bliss – by merely glancing at reality.
[…] Virginia Military Institute Issues Coloring Books For Stress […]
have you considered building an rk game that develops the amygdala????
Interesting idea. I’d have to think about that.
I don’t know about coloring books because I didn’t get any when I was there, but this “stress buster” event takes place the day before exams, which stangely is the least stressful time period at VMI.
The article blows this out of proportion suggesting, wrongly, that VMI does this year round.
That said, there are ton of indicators of an increasingly r environment, and in a sense VMI gives a good preview of what it’s like to live in a surveilance state. The “coloring book incident” is minor compared to the real r offenses, that the author of that post will gladly ignore (softening of the ratline, political correctness, forcing VMI to accept female attendees).
Fun fact: At VMI you can’t make a rat (freshman) do more than 20+3 push ups in a single sitting.
However, at basic training, a Drill Sgt. can’t make a basic trainee do more than 5 push ups in a single sitting.
Discuss.
W
Testing
So is America’s new military strategy to try and make the Russians laugh themselves to death?
Insane. VMI is rightly known as one of the finest officer training schools in the world. It’s men go on to lead men into battle. In one famous Civil War battle the cadets themselves formed up and delayed a Northern force long enough for regulars to arrive.
This is disastrous. I hope like hell there is an external agent forcing this on VMI, as it is a Virginia state related insititution and beholden to the odious governour Macaulif.
It is being pushed on VMI by government, as it is a state run, public college. They were forced to take girls because when VMI alumni argued they’d make VMI go private. US Gov’t then threatened to take away VMI’s ability to commission officers – that’s when the end of VMI resistance began.
VMI now has a retention problem…it has too many keydets and not enough space, because of the softening ratline.
Wald
Very sad indeed. In hindsight they may have been better off going private. Graduates could have entered the service through OCS programs. One can only hope VMI can return to their former status. 20 Jan 2017 may provide them the path of that return. The other good news is that Gov Mcalliffe is only a One termer.
As Sigma mentioned, VMI cadets fought successfully against US army regulars at the battle of Newmarket in 1864. Some of the cadets were as young as 15. Taking up arms and fighting a trained army is “stress.” Anything less than that is probably just a temporary annoyance. But I guess that is enough to require a coloring book nowadays.
Stress is part of life. Colleges are doing their students no favors by not allowing their students to deal with their stress in their own manner.Coddling them will be counter productive. Very dissapointef to see prestigious VMI become involved in such a program.