How Navy SEAL candidates recover after Hell Week

Some of the most frequent questions I receive about my time as a Navy SEAL involve Hell Week, that well-known and brutal crucible of BUD/S First Phase that all SEALs must successfully pass before one day earning their SEAL Trident. The five-day ordeal includes non-stop physical activity, which ranges in intensity from running to obstacle courses to paddling rubber boats for miles on end. The only rest provided is during meals and on those extremely brief – and rare – occasions when the instructors allow the students to nap.

Those catnap-quality sleep sessions add up, for the week, to anywhere from about 45 minutes for the average student to a maximum of about two hours for those boat crews that might be able to win every race and come first in every evolution. Rarely ever is a block of sleep more than about 20 minutes long. In other words, Hell Week is excruciatingly exhausting, and, at the end, BUD/S students are physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.