Keeping your mental health intact when SHTF, although difficult, is of extreme importance. Because, as they say, it is about your mental strength as much as it is your physical strength and survival skills.
Think of it; you could have a Master’s degree in prepping but with the inability to keep your head cool when necessary, you’ll hardly know what to do. In fact, an essential gear to carry when SHTF is an absolute mental doggedness. You must have an unbending will to survive.
Without this mental conviction, you’re toast. Trust me… or yourself rather.
5 Tip For Keeping Your Mental Health Intact When SHTF
When SHTF, there’s nothing as helpful as the ability to calm yourself and keep your mental strength intact. However, the foremost thing to note when disaster strikes remains that you have to stay in control of your head.
Here are five tips to ensure that your head remains above water in the crucial moments. And know what’s better? By mastering your mental health, you may become a leader and save those whom you love.
Tenacity
Whatever you choose to call it — intestinal grit, fortitude, or tenacity, this facet of survival is about endurance; about how long you can carry on. Can you hang in there safely for as long as it is necessary? Can you keep going even when it appears all hope is lost?
This tenacity is not a test of stamina or physical toughness. Instead, it is a manifestation of your mind’s will and strength to survive. It is to continue surviving with the mindset of “when” and not “if.” This means believing that the dawn of brighter days will eventually break and ruling out the possibility of perpetual gloom.
A genuinely tenacious mindset will help you accept the unacceptable, heal through the suffering, and continue breathing even when you’re expected to be virtually broken. It is to defy all odds, but this will always start mentally. Maintaining any other mindset apart from this will hurt your chances of survival.
Adaptability
The chameleon is an excellent survivor, and this is entirely put down to its ability to adapt to situations instantly. Thus, vividly, adaptability is a crown jewel of your mental survival skills. To keep your mental strength, you have to embrace dynamism, accepting the concept of unending changes, and even more, keeping up with these transitions. You have to know how to adapt quickly and easily to transitioning surroundings, situations, and events.
If you miss your way in the woods and realize on time you’ll not be making it home that day; you’ll do just fine if you quickly adopt. You can immediately assess the situation to find out the convenience you’ll be lacking as well as the dangers you may be exposed to. Even if you’re usually lazy, realizing these will help you adapt easily. Before you know, you’re building a shelter, gathering sticks, carving your spear, and making a fire.
That’s the mindset to survive. If you don’t understand adaptation, you’ll barely survive when SHTF.
Work Ethic
Sorry to burst your bubble: survival is hard work. It’s not you in the comforts of your home, spread out on the couch, changing the channels with a remote while you wait for the cooker to beep so you serve your spaghetti. Rather, it is you in the middle of somewhere that’s not home, rubbing your arms over a fire to keep warm, your eyes anything but relaxed as you look over your shoulders, and you waking up before 3 am the following day to seek out animal trails or find your way home.
When you’re thrust into an emergency, what you need is an excellent work ethic. If you cannot put in the efforts, you’ll suffer, and believe me, that’s not the worst that can happen. Fortunately, you can improve your work ethic to become more accustomed to the wear & tear, but only if you manage to survive the first bout of laziness.
And so, while I would advocate that you became a more hardworking person from now, before SHTF, there’s a part of me that suggests you’ll learn better by experience. It is, after all, the most effective tutor — albeit the hardest. If you’d rather learn what you have to do at home, the tip is to ensure that you stick with a project until you see to its completion.
Positivism
The number of people who ask us to be positive about life may be too many, and you may be, therefore, think it is unnecessary. Maybe everyone just says “be positive” because it’s so easy to say. Wrong, dear.
The fact that everyone emphasizes it is why you have to be positive when SHTF. You already know that you’re in a fix (maybe you’ve lost your home after a hurricane, a wildfire has razed down your property, you’ve lost your home… whatever). What you should do next is to allow yourself to see the bright side of the whole thing.
It is as someone wrote, “there’s a light blinking at the end of the tunnel, blink back, so it stays on for you.” Keeping a positive view of whatever is happening is the surest way to solve it. By keeping your hopes alive, your subconscious is motivated towards finding a solution.
This positivity will give you hope for another.
Bravery
Everyone knows we have to be brave when accidents happen. What we may not know is the actual definition of bravery. Being brave does not mean that you’re scared. Instead, it is that you’re scared, badly scared and yet do what you think is right.
So, by asking you to be brave, it is to take risks associated with survival. You may be safe in a hideout and know that you don’t make any progress if you continue hiding. You may die of hunger or anything. Only a brave mindset will help you leap.
Without bravery, you’re without faith.
Without faith, you’re without hope.
Without hope, there’s no chance of survival.
Takeaways From Keeping Your Mental Health Intact When SHTF
Your mental health is as crucial to your physical abilities when it comes to your survival boots. If you are not stable within you, then there’s rarely a reason to survive another day. Without a doubt, keeping your mental health intact when SHTF is pivotal. Do so, for you, your family, your future.