It’s been demonstrated time and time again that in the face of any disaster, a healthy mental state is perhaps the single most important key to personal survival. When and if SHTF, many people are likely to succumb to fear, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, despair, paranoia – the list goes on…
How do you guard yourself against the deterioration of morale in the duration of an extremely challenging ordeal – one which could easily cause the average human to give up or lose his or her wits?
If surrounded by death, destruction and the loss of almost everything you held dear, how do you cope – especially if the crisis drags on for months, or even years?
It’s impossible to predict exactly what challenges you will be forced to endure, but the shock of having one’s life turned upside down is enough to test anyone’s resolve. You might, for instance, find yourself in such deep despair that life seems hardly worth living, especially if you have to witness the deaths of others – perhaps even someone close to you.
You may find yourself feeling isolated or fearful – or you may simply find it very difficult to accept the realization that things will never return to “normal”. Even dealing with boredom may be an issue – especially for children. Without all the distractions and sources of entertainment we take for granted, daily life may seem quite tedious once things settle after the initial collapse.
Is there anything you can do now to prepare yourself and your family for the inevitable psychological strain that a prolonged disaster scenario will bring?
If we examine the strategies others have used to “keep their chins up” during extreme crisis situations, a few basic common factors become apparent. Some of these may seem rather obvious or even insignificant, but all are worth considering (and reconsidering) in advance.
When dealing with prolonged privation and hardship, little things can mean a lot and a small amount of preparation can prove to be crucial to maintaining a sense of well-being and overall mental health. Here are five strategies which will help you and your family get through even the hardest of times.
Related article: After The Collapse Series: Terrible Inconvenient Facts About TEOTWAWKI
1. Creature Comforts
When most of us prepare our bug-out bags and stockpiles, we inevitably think in terms of the basics needed for mere survival. Of course, it’s crucial to have the essentials covered – nonperishable food supplies, water, weapons, etc. – but it’s also important to have non-essential things on hand which help maintain a sense of normalcy and provides small pleasure.
A small piece of candy, for instance, will be a welcome daily addition to whatever boring staple foods you may be forced to eat on a regular basis.
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2. Diversions
If the grid goes down and you don’t have a way of generating electricity, most of our modern day electronic entertainment options will no longer be available.
Books, games, cards, puzzles – anything that doesn’t require power and which provides a way to pass the hours while diverting attention from grim realities will be much appreciated by the entire family – especially the kids.
3. Exercise
One of the best ways to fight depression and anxiety is through daily exercise. Strenuous exercise releases endorphins into the body’s system – endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers and they have an anti-depressant effect on our psyches, as well. And of course, the physical benefits of daily exercise are important as well. Surviving a crisis requires both a sound body and mind.
4. Daily Routines
Maintaining one’s sanity in traumatic circumstances requires preserving a sense of normalcy. People forced to endure extreme hardships – such as prisoners of war – have often found that sticking to one small daily routine helped them to stay sane and focused on survival.
Routines such as daily shaving for men or applying makeup for women may seem unnecessary (or even absurd) in a disaster situation, but these seemingly trivial acts can have real benefits regarding one’s mental health and well-being.
5. Service To Others
This is perhaps the most important key to maintaining one’s morale and sense of purpose in a crisis. As the saying goes: “Virtue is its own reward.” Selfless dedication to helping others has consistently proven to be one of the most effective means of fighting depression and despair. It’s the cornerstone of most spiritual doctrines, but even if you’re not a fan of organized religions you are sure to find that service to humanity is the secret to happiness.
Giving assistance to someone worse off than yourself will restore your perspective and give you the strength to carry on. And when TSHTF, there’s sure to be no shortage of opportunities to do so.
How To Defeat Your Fear When SHTF
Fear, when harnessed properly, is an incredible survival tool. When you’re scared, your senses are heightened and your adrenaline is flowing. You’re more sensitive to sights and sounds. You’re a little bit stronger and a little bit faster than you may otherwise be, and these are excellent tools to have. The key is to manage your fear in order to use these tools to your advantage.
Just like every other step to survival, managing your fear is a just a matter of being properly prepared for it. Throughout the following paragraphs, we’re going to discuss ways to defeat your fear when SHTF instead of letting your fear defeat you.
The Downside of Fear
Survival depends almost entirely upon your mental state: it doesn’t matter how much food you have or how good your weapons supply is if you let your fear paralyze you. In a true SHTF scenario, you’re going to be scared; it’s almost a guarantee. Fear is a natural survival response to a threatening situation, so expect it. The key to survival, though, isn’t going to be who isn’t frightened but rather who manages their fear well enough to think around it.
In addition to the advantages of fear that we mentioned above, unmanaged fear can also cause several undesirable side effects that can get you killed. It’s these side effects that make it imperative for you to prepare yourself to defeat your fear and use it to your advantage. Fear can cause:
- Fight or Flight Response: this is survival 101 for our brain but can be lethal if you let the impulse control you blindly. Running or fighting are going to be your brain’s immediate responses to any extreme threat so be ready to manage this response.
- Paralysis: this is another ingrained response to an extreme threat that your brain uses to make you “invisible” to the threat. Freezing up, both physically and mentally, can be prevented, or at least minimized, by good preparedness.
- Automatic Response: reacting blindly without thinking is an extension of fight or flight. You want to act, not react. Again, practicing and preparing for different situations will help re-train your brain to think before you act.
- Tunnel Vision: your brain automatically focuses on the threat to the exclusion of everything else in an attempt to determine the best route to survival. Unfortunately, in a SHTF scenario, there will most likely be numerous threats at once. Training your brain to remain focused on the big picture will save your life.
Low-Cost Root Cellar/Bunker
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Now that you know what instinctive responses to expect, let’s talk about some of the tactics that you should use to train your brain to manage your fear.
Have a Plan and Practice It
One of the best ways to retrain your brain to react promptly and efficiently in an SHTF situation is to have a plan and to practice it. Muscle memory can help keep you moving in the right direction even when you’re under extreme mental duress.
This is the reason that military units do drills: when you’re already prepared to react in a certain way in a given situation, fear isn’t as likely to paralyze you.
- Have Specific, Varied Plans of Action. Don’t just plan a general escape route that applies to all situations because every situation is going to be different. Have different escape routes based on some exits being blocked. Practice defensive drills in case escape are impossible.
- Practice each Plan. You can’t expect your body or your brain to react seamlessly if you don’t actually physically practice each plan. Also, if you don’t practice, you won’t find any glitches in your plans. Practice every plan until it feels automatic and natural to you.
- Include Your Family in the Drills. By doing this, your brain will be assured that they are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and you can focus on doing your part to ensure survival for all of you.
Know Your Environment
Being intimately familiar with your environment will help your brain to process information and map out a new plan should your original plans go awry. Also, knowing your environment will help you plan for weak spots and will also give you an advantage over any threat because they likely won’t have the knowledge that you do.
- Know every entrance and exit
- Know weak spots such as creaky floorboards, broken elevators, doors that tend to stick, or windy or sun-blind spots that may affect action in the case of attack.
Know where rivers or creeks may swell, where trees may fall, or which roads may be impossible so that you can quickly evaluate which escape route will be best based on the SHTF situation.
Knowing your environment will help your brain to function instead of allowing panic to set in.
3 Superfoods That Cost Almost Nothing To Make And Will Keep You And Your Family Well Fed No Matter What Happens.
One was praised as the great depression “food miracle”. The people that knew about it banished hunger for good…while the rest where starving and tightening their belts! Not only that you will learn the exact process of making it the right way, but you’ll use it to preserve meat in it and create one of the most finger-licking, mouth-watering tastiest foods you’ll ever eat. And the best part? It lasts up to two whole years without refrigeration.
The other food was also long-lasting. Invented by one of the most vicious samurais in history, it was born out of war and necessity. So don’t expect a gourmet meal here – but do expect this “samurai superfood” to be so nutrient rich and probiotic-packed that you and your entire family won’t need anything else for months on end.
With these 3 superfoods alone, you’ll probably have a complete stockpile in your group and you’ll never need to depend on anyone else in times of crisis. Watch the video below and learn more.
Practice Relaxation Techniques
Simple relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga can help strengthen your control over your emotions. If you feel panic setting in, a few deep, controlled breaths may mean the difference between life and death. Make this part of your daily lifestyle and when you need them, they’ll be a natural tool that you can use to defeat your fear in an SHTF situation.
Educate Yourself
Knowledge is power. Learn survival techniques including first aid, herbal therapies, outdoor cooking, natural sources of food and water, weapons training, and local procedures so that you know how to survive in your environment. If you’re already confident that you can survive without all of the modern amenities and that you know what to do in case of any emergency, you’ll be less likely to panic and more likely to defeat your fear in an SHTF scenario.
Be Prepared
Being prepared to either bug in or bug out in a SHTF scenario will help you manage your fear. Here are a few tips:
- Have your bug out bags packed and keep them current.
- Keep your vehicles in good repair.
- Keep your weapons clean and at the ready. Teach your family how to safely use them if that’s part of your survival plan.
- Keep your stockpile up and make sure that you’re rotating so that everything stays fresh.
- Keep your home and property in good repair so that your property remains safe and secure in case of natural disasters.
Remain Physically Fit
This is one of the most important steps that you can take to manage your fear. If you know that you’re in good physical shape and can handle the physical stress that either escape or fighting will demand, you’ll be more confident and less likely to panic. Exercise is also a great way to gain mental discipline, which will also help you to defeat your fear in an SHTF situation.
Don’t Wait – Start Now
Now that you have some tools that you can use to help you prepare your brain to remain calm in an emergency, practice them. Just like with your emergency drills, training your brain requires repetition and practice. Survival really is dependent upon remaining calm and ready to evaluate any situation, so take these tips and start using them now so that you can defeat your fear in an SHTF scenario.
What would be your morale-boosting strategy in a disaster scenario?
The Most Comprehensive Book Available
Our grandfathers had more knowledge than any of us today and thrived even when modern conveniences were not available. They were able to produce and store their food for long periods of time. All the knowledge our grandfathers had, in one place.Here’s just a glimpse of what you’ll find in the book:
The Lost Ways is a far-reaching book with chapters ranging from simple things like making tasty bark-bread-like people did when there was no food to building a traditional backyard smokehouse… and much, much, much more!
Discover how to survive: Most complete survival tactics, tips, skills and ideas like how to make pemmican, snowshoes, knives, soap, beer, smokehouses, bullets, survival bread, water wheels, herbal poultices, Indian roundhouses, root cellars, primitive navigation, and much more at The Lost Ways
Here’s just a glimpse of what you’ll find in The Lost Ways:
From Ruff Simons, an old west history expert, and former deputy, you’ll learn the techniques and methods used by the wise sheriffs from the frontiers to defend an entire village despite being outnumbered and outgunned by gangs of robbers and bandits, and how you can use their wisdom to defend your home against looters when you’ll be surrounded.
Native American ERIK BAINBRIDGE – who took part in the reconstruction of the native village of Kule Loklo in California, will show you how Native Americans build the subterranean roundhouse, an underground house that today will serve you as a storm shelter, a perfectly camouflaged hideout, or a bunker. It can easily shelter three to four families, so how will you feel if, when all hell breaks loose, you’ll be able to call all your loved ones and offer them guidance and shelter? Besides that, the subterranean roundhouse makes an awesome root cellar where you can keep all your food and water reserves year-round.
From Shannon Azares you’ll learn how sailors from the XVII century preserved water in their ships for months on end, even years and how you can use this method to preserve clean water for your family cost-free.
Mike Searson – who is a Firearm and Old West history expert – will show you what to do when there is no more ammo to be had, how people who wandered the West managed to hunt eight deer with six bullets, and why their supply of ammo never ran out. Remember the panic buying in the first half of 2013? That was nothing compared to what’s going to precede the collapse.
From Susan Morrow, an ex-science teacher and chemist, you’ll master “The Art of Poultice.” She says, “If you really explore the ingredients from which our forefathers made poultices, you’ll be totally surprised by the similarities with modern medicines.” Well…how would you feel in a crisis to be the only one from the group knowing about this lost skill? When there are no more antibiotics, people will turn to you to save their ill children’s lives.
If you liked our video tutorial on how to make Pemmican, then you’ll love this: I will show you how to make another superfood that our troops were using in the Independence war, and even George Washington ate on several occasions. This food never goes bad. And I’m not talking about honey or vinegar. I’m talking about real food! The awesome part is that you can make this food in just 10 minutes and I’m pretty sure that you already have the ingredients in your house right now.
Really, this is all just a peek.
The Lost Ways is a far-reaching book with chapters ranging from simple things like making tasty bark-bread-like people did when there was no food to building a traditional backyard smokehouse… and much, much, much more!
And believe it or not, this is not all…
Table Of Contents:
The Most Important Thing
Making Your Own Beverages: Beer to Stronger Stuff
Ginger Beer: Making Soda the Old Fashioned Way
How North American Indians and Early Pioneers Made Pemmican
Spycraft: Military Correspondence During The 1700’s to 1900’s
Wild West Guns for SHTF and a Guide to Rolling Your Own Ammo
How Our Forefathers Built Their Sawmills, Grain Mills, and Stamping Mills
How Our Ancestors Made Herbal Poultice to Heal Their Wounds
What Our Ancestors Were Foraging For? or How to Wildcraft Your Table
How Our Ancestors Navigated Without Using a GPS System
How Our Forefathers Made Knives
How Our Forefathers Made Snowshoes for Survival
How North California Native Americans Built Their Semi-subterranean Roundhouses
Our Ancestors’Guide to Root Cellars
Good Old Fashioned Cooking on an Open Flame
Learning from Our Ancestors How to Preserve Water
Learning from Our Ancestors How to Take Care of Our Hygiene When There Isn’t Anything to Buy
How and Why I Prefer to Make Soap with Modern Ingredients
Temporarily Installing a Wood-Burning Stove during Emergencies
Making Traditional and Survival Bark Bread…….
Trapping in Winter for Beaver and Muskrat Just like Our Forefathers Did
How to Make a Smokehouse and Smoke Fish
Survival Lessons From The Donner Party
Click here to get your paperback copy of The Lost Ways and The Lost Ways II
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