Military personnel are particularly exposed to stressful events, and overexposure to stress is both physically and mentally unhealthy. While stress management programs, such as the Tactics of Optimized Potential (TOP) and Heart Coherence (HC) have been implemented, their efficiency remains to be evaluated. The objective of this randomized control trial was to evaluate the effectiveness of the two programs among a young male population of 180 military fire fighter recruits. Based on two psychological, and one physiological measurement, namely heart rate variability (HRV), we found that both TOP and HC programs significantly increased HRV. This is promising as we know that higher HRV is consistent with better health, in most cases. Moreover, the TOP program significantly reduced perceived stress and negative mood, unlike the HC program. Combining these results, we conclude that while both TOP and HC programs influence physiological measurements, only the TOP modifies psychological evaluations. Finally, we distinguished the effects of the programs on two samples characterized by their HRV level. For the low HRV group, both programs tended to increase their HRV level, while for the high HRV group neither program had a significant effect.

军事人员特别容易受到压力事件的影响，过度暴露于压力下对身心都不健康。虽然压力管理计划，如优化潜能策略 (TOP) 和心脏连贯性 (HC) 已实施，但其效率仍有待评估。这项随机对照试验的目的是评估这两个项目在 180 名新招募的军事消防员的年轻男性人群中的有效性。基于两项心理测量和一项生理测量，即心率变异性 (HRV)，我们发现 TOP 和 HC 计划都显着增加了 HRV。这是很有希望的，因为我们知道在大多数情况下，更高的 HRV 与更好的健康是一致的。此外，与 HC 计划不同，TOP 计划显着减少了感知压力和消极情绪。结合这些结果，我们得出结论，虽然 TOP 和 HC 程序都会影响生理测量，但只有 TOP 会修改心理评估。最后，我们区分了程序对两个以 HRV 水平为特征的样本的影响。对于低 HRV 组，两个项目都倾向于提高 HRV 水平，而对于高 HRV 组，两个项目都没有显着影响。