US Crow You will never face an environment like that of a battlefield, and when the shit hits the fan you better be mentally prepared to survive any disaster. Whether your group is under heavy enemy fire or just trying to survive in a barren wasteland – lives are at risk. Any survival situation will seriously test your will to live.
Post incident survival situations involving combat will subject you to intense physical, mental and spiritual stress. Those unwilling to fight will not survive. You must be mentally prepared to take a life to protect you and yours. We all hope for the best out of humanity. When you take into account over 3 million crimes were committed during 2012 in the presence of a militarized police force – it might be time to start planning for the worse.
Should your scenario be nothing more than a constant search for civilization through a nuclear wasteland there will still be survivors. You will be up against an invisible threat capable of killing you on a molecular level by breaking up the bonds between your atoms. This post-apocalyptic wasteland won’t be full of boy scouts either.
Prepare your mind for combat
I can not stress this enough – when you do LFX (live fire exercise) – simulate stressful conditions as much as possible. Make every drill count. One of the most common threads throughout ‘tactical‘ training is the absence of stress! If you have a veteran in your group he can explain to you the importance of stress during combat training. Ever had a drill sergeant? While their poetic phrases like… ‘Hey dumbsh#t! Why are you so f#cked – are your parents related!?’ may seem like needless belittling – it has its purpose..
Introducing stress into your exercises trains you to recognize your mind and body’s response by forcing you to overcome it to hit your marks. For this reason mental preparedness should rank high on your to-do list. If you don’t – you will experience; poor judgment, anxiety, negativity, and memory problems at a very bad time.
Simulate stress in combat
In our survival guides we focus on training with small groups while being connected to a larger network, hopefully you’ve linked up with link-minded friends to train with. Make an agreement to ‘talk sh#t’ to one another. Don’t be afraid to push each other. Demand more from each other. If you have the means to do so – introduce smoke grenades, flash-bangs, OC canisters, and barbwire into your LFX. Simulate battle as much as you can while maintaining safe conditions at all times.
If you can’t deal with the suggestions listed above you’re in for a world of hurt. Please note, nothing will truly prepare you for war but this is a good start.
Survive disaster with mental preparedness
It’s been three weeks since TEOTWAWKI. You’re running low on food, water, and ammo – is your head in the game? There are several ways to prepare your mind for disaster. Know your limitations, identify your goals and develop a plan to achieve those goals (lower your heart rate quicker, hitting the target, etc). You can’t allow negativity or pessimism to shake your teams confidence. If you are the leader of your unit it is your responsibility to keep morale up.
As the leader of your group you should train yourself to identify stress in your team members. Each member’s current psychological state and personal history should be taken into account. You can identify these signals by recognizing personality changes (was confident – now indecisive, was careful – now reckless), physical changes (nausea, lightheaded, chest pain), and emotional changes (eating less, isolated, sleeping less/too much).
Keep group morale up!
Talk to one another about each others’ goals and thoughts. Take care of one another by pairing up your groups members. Each one responsible for the other. Always work as a team and balance command with compassion. Encourage faith but don’t allow faith(regardless of religion) to dictate your objective.
The chain of command must always be effectively enforced. You don’t want too many chiefs and not enough Indians – that’s a quick way to get your group ate up. If you’re the leader of your group you must accept every responsibility that comes with leadership, and use it wisely. People are counting on you.
No matter the odds your group is facing, keep morale up! High moral will keep panic outside the ranks and will build trust in one another. Your group is much more likely to achieve their objective when properly motivated by their leader. Never give up on hope.
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http://uscrow.org/2014/02/11/keep-your-cool-survive-disaster-mental-preparedness/