Mindfulness as a Predictor for PTSD Improvement

Health care that addresses the beneficial (salutogenic) resources (referring to a bio-psychosocial-spiritual model of health care) of individuals confronted with acute and chronic daily stress may contribute to their improvement and recovery. In line, the French Army has developed a practical tool using different easy techniques of mental skill in order to improve regulation of emotions for individuals confronted with hard operations. This psychophysiological training, called “Techniques d’Optimisation du Potentiel (TOP)”, consists of several mental activities as breathing, relaxation, visualization (Users vividly imagine themselves performing a task, repeatedly imagining every movement and how it would feel your five body senses), positive emotion recalls, which are adapted to be used before, during and after the action. We intended to design a small pilot study among military fire fighters (FF) (i) to explore the association between beneficial internal resources and health related variables, and (ii) to better understand better the predictors of transformation after a stress program intervention.