Mental Fitness & Survival

Survival situations are rarely convenient, and come at the most unexpected times. That is why it is important to remain mentally fit at all times.

Here are some tips to maintain "Mental Fitness".

• Exercise your mind on a regular basis.
• Study survival practices and make a list of your weak areas.
• Study your weak areas and make a list of how to improve.
• Make a plan on how you will implement those improvements.
• Practice your survival skill sets and physically go through dry runs.

Recently on an educational camping trip with a Boys Corps group, one of the leaders tried to show the boys how to start a fire with a 9 volt battery and some steel wool.....however, he hadn't practiced it at home, and was unable to start a fire with it.

Mental readiness is having the confidence that you need in your current survival skill sets in order to survive in a crisis situation.

Watching survival shows on TV isn't going to prepare you any more that watching "Rambo" will make you a Special Forces hero!

Your thoughts and input are welcome....

 

Publications and entertaiment sources are valuable for ideas. much more research is required, as well as practicing those newly discovered wanna be skills.
Have yet to make fire with a bow drill.
Have yet to take game with a bow.
Falling over on snow shoes. It's hard to get back up with grace.
Strike anywhere matchs may not be so, esp. if its raining.
And when the truck breaks down in deep snow miles from town, it is best to sit down , take several deep breaths and resign yourself to the fact you are not going to town . AND when the tow truck company says they will not come out there till spring... Well, there are those breathing exercises..

 

That was about half a mile from the house. Can be challenging living in the hills. This is just the reality of life for people living in the hills. Things will break unexpectedly no matter how well you do your maintenance. I kicked a snow ball or two, walked up to the cabin and called work telling them I couldn't make it in to work. Some days you just need to walk a little more than others.

 

And then there was the 70 year old gal that was hiking in to her shack in the mountains and fell in the snow . Broker her hip and had to drag herself the rest of the way up to the house. A friend found her when he went to check on her. First thing that told him something was wrong was the case of beer she dropped when she fell. Her family wouldn't let her go back .

 

Yes it does. It also ingrains that mind set that others may strive to get for shtf. Well thats just daily activity and I have my cell phone charged and at hand all the time when I am out and about. For others, being prepared needs to be prepared every day. If you go out to cut wood, you have a quick clot kit in case that saw gets you. A drive to town means you have a saw or an ax in the truck to cut down trees out of the way. Tire chains are used every day all winter long. A high lift jack is a potential killer. But can be handy to have. Snatch blocks and wire rope. Tow chains and straps. All this is found in my truck along with tools, jumper cables, spare parts and bits of wire and rope and......... I have used it all at one time or another and still have ended up having to walk away from the truck.

 

As winch is the first item I intend to add to my new truck.

 

See a lot of winchs on the front bumper. Wont do much good when the truck is nose in the ditch.

Get a reciever hitch mount winch. Can have a reciever mount set up on the front of the truck as well. Makes it more versitable.

 

the winches to be mounted on a plate to drop into the Reese hitch reaR or in the front depending upon how I need it.

it seems great minds think alike.....

 

That would a good set up. That and some extra cable and a couple snatch blocks, you can set up a pull in different angles. Have had to do that a couple times. Oh, And chains.

 

Crawling through frame deep mud or a waist deep ditch full of sloppy snow...?? Hmm. Ya , I'd do it , but.... Have thought it could be rigged that way however have never had tried it.. What would the line loss be if the battery was placed behind the cab?

 

Healthy body makes a healthy mind. The whole stereo type of jocks being dumb is not entirely true.

 

Do not know about all of that. Just a broken up old biker that don't like the icy cold creeping into the crack places.

 

Getting back to the idea of mental fitness (which is, after all, what this thread started out talking about).....

I'm currently reading the book "World War Z", which brought up a very valid point. They spoke of how, even though people can be in perfectly safe environments, they can still lose the will to live, possibly even taking their own life, if they believe that their situation has no hope of improvement or recovery.

This is where mental toughness, and practicing your skills, will help a lot. When you realize you have the skills to not only survive, but do more than just scrape by, your attitude is going to be better than most people's after a SHTF scenario, and you're more likely to pull through the worst situations. Plus, the added benefit that by exercising/practicing your skills, over and over again, you'll build up an automatic response that will take over, even if you're suffering some mental shock over your predicament. Much like, in my Navy days, they had us practice fighting "fires". A lot of it was silly (like the disaster team member standing in front of the fire team, waving a gray Navy blanket, to simulate your limited vision while in a smoke filled area), but nevertheless useful. Believe me, when the SHTF for real, we were ready, and responded as though we'd been doing it all our lives!