Just made this tonight. this is a great skill to have

If you have to leave your home and Bug out, what do you bring? Do you bring super tactical stuff that keep soldiers safe everyday? Do you bring a pillow? What do you bring. This video was made to get you thinking about practical. While it demonstates the difference between two knifes, if you think along these line you may find some things for your BOB that you can’t really live without.

Why do we do it?  Interview with COMANCHESNIPER as he talks about his reasoning on prepping and survival.

When you are thrust into a survival situation, there are physiological changes that occur in your body. For one, your body will start excreting adrenaline. This is in response to the primeval fight or flight reflex. Your peripheral arteries such as the ones in your hands and your legs constrict. Your coronary arteries dilate. Your heart rate increases. Your blood pressure goes up. Your pupils dilate. Your respiration rate increases. Why is this?

These are natural things. These things protect you. Your pupils dilate so you can see better. Your heart rate and blood pressure go up to prepare you for an increased workload such as running or fighting. This is a good thing but can get in the way of clear thinking.

Another thing that occurs is your emotions immediately make rash decisions for you. These aren’t thoughts per se. These are more like instincts. These emotions are trained feelings. A good example of this is when somebody scares you from behind. You don’t think about jumping, you just jump.  In World War I, soldiers in the trenches became so attuned to the sound of incoming artillery that they would fall to the ground before they even thought of it. This emotional response would constantly save their lives. Emotional  responses actually occur in your brainstem and not in your cerebral cortex where logical thinking takes place.  These are primeval instincts of survival. They can definitely save you from things that need immediate attention. The downside to these emotions is their ability to influence your decisions.

There is a reason why every survival manual the world starts off with the saying” remain calm”. The above-mentioned natural reactions are what they are speaking of. At the moment you realize that you are in a survival situation is important to slow that emotional thinking down and turn on the logic centers of your brain.

Let’s look at an example. I want to steer away from the cliché of getting lost in the wilderness. That example has been overdone.

Let’s pretend that the economy crashed. The depression is so bad that food truck stop delivering food to the grocery stores. Now, if you’re on this site then you are probably storing food and bullets and other survival related things. That will help with your emotional reaction. But it will still create an acute stress that will put you into a fight or flight reaction. All the above mentioned physiological effects will start to take place. This is where it becomes important to think very logically. Running out into the street and screaming is not going to work toward your goal survival. In fact every action from here on out needs to be towards the fulfillment of your goal of survival. There are choices to be made. Do you stay? Do you go? Do you have everything you need?

Wildland firefighting standing order number 10 says, “stay calm, think clearly, act decisively.”  These are words to live by. Remaining calm help you think clearly which then leads to decisive actions. If you’re missing any of these three things than you are not functioning correctly and it would be time to focus again on remaining calm first. Remaining calm allows the other two actions to occur.

The title of this piece is “lost is not a place”. The reason I chose that title is because getting lost demonstrates the emotional response best. You can’t go to lost because lost is not a place. Lost is a state of mind. Lost is a trigger of emotional responses that you must overcome in order to resolve being lost. To add to that is another saying that is apropos, “getting rescued is just an interruption of surviving.”

Learning to control your emotional responses is one of the best tools you can bring with you in a survival situation. Knives, guns, shelter, water, and other resources will do you no good if you can’t control your emotions when you really need to.