Imagine that something unexpected happened and you found yourself in a very unenviable position. For example, you are lost in the mountains while skiing, your plane crashed in the jungle, or your jeep stalled in the middle of a waterless desert. What do you need to know and be able to do to survive in such a situation? What skills are paramount and what can be neglected? Read about it in our article.
Soft Skills For Survival
Yes, soft skills are needed not only to build a successful business or a fast-paced career. They are also necessary in those cases when the chance will throw you into the wild jungles of the Amazon or the icy expanses of the Arctic. By the way, we draw your attention to the fact that they are no less useful in everyday life.
# 1 Psychological Resilience
Number one, not only in order but also in importance. Even if you have absolutely nothing, if you do not know how to make a fire and are unable to distinguish north from south, often all you need is willpower and courage.
Once a 17-year-old girl got into a plane crash and was left alone in the middle of the Peruvian jungle: in a summer dress, one shoe, with a broken arm, and a box of chocolates. She lost her parents, and her glasses (without which she could hardly see). There were only impassable forests around, rains, daytime heat, nighttime coldness, and myriads of insects.
Nevertheless, she managed to survive. She was able to defeat the main enemy - The desire to surrender. This is what kills most often.
# 2 Ingenuity
In an extreme situation, you will find yourself at the most inopportune moment and with the most inappropriate things. You can read dozens of survival instructions, but something always goes wrong. And therefore it is very important to be able to adapt to the environment, look for a way out of difficult situations, invent something from the available objects and apply it.
# 3 Communication Skills
Collective survival is a fairly common scenario, and very ungrateful. In any group that tries to survive for any length of time, conflicts always arise. And then even the smallest quarrel can put everyone on the brink of life and death. Therefore, the ability to establish communication, resolve misunderstandings, and simply organize people is extremely important. And you shouldn't rely on someone else to do it. If not you, then who?
# 4 Physical Fitness
Survival in the wild is manual labor and, again, manual labor. Therefore, the more often you visit a gym or stadium, the more chances you have to stay alive.
But there is one caveat here. Survival is primarily a test of endurance, not strength. You don't have to lift 100kg barbells or run sprints. But to carry firewood, to make many kilometers of crossings, to cut trees - that's all for you. Therefore, special attention should be given to sports such as running, swimming, and CrossFit in everyday life.
Hard Skills For Survival
The most powerful willpower will not save you if you freeze in the winter of Taiga or die of thirst in the desert. And therefore, you will need a specific set of skills and knowledge that will allow you to meet the basic needs of life: heat, water, food, as well as a way back to civilization.
# 5 First Aid
In the wild, even the slightest wound can significantly reduce your efficiency. If you do not know how to stabilize a fracture, stop bleeding, warm a freezing person (which is not as easy as it seems), this will mean death.
You must learn to provide first aid for:
- Bleeding.
- Injuries (fractures, dislocations, bruises, sprains).
- Burns, frostbite.
- Hypothermia, heatstroke.
- Bites of wild animals and insects.
- Poisoning.
# 6 Extraction Of Fire
The ability to make a fire by any possible means and in any weather is perhaps the most important hard skill of survival. At least in cold climates. Fire is warmth, protection, psychological comfort, clean water, and healthy food.
This skill includes not only the ability to bring a match to a kindling but also other things:
- Preparation of firewood with and without tools.
- Search for tinder.
- Choosing the right place for a fire.
- Igniting fire without matches and lighters.
- Construction of various types of fires: for heating, cooking, and lighting.
- Carrying fire.
# 7 Arrangement Of The Shelter
While most makeshift shelters do not protect you from the cold at all, they play a huge role in protecting you from hypothermia. Their task is to protect from wind and precipitation, which are much more dangerous than natural cold. Wet clothes lose heat ten times faster than dry ones, and in such situations, only one thing can help you - a waterproof shelter. In addition to building a shelter itself, it is very important to be able to choose the right place for your it.
# 8 Finding And Purifying Water
You can live without water for only a few days, depending on climate and physical activity. But, as practice shows, even half a day of thirst significantly worsens the state of health and is very demotivating. Moreover, water is important not only in the hot season but also in winter, because a dehydrated body produces less heat.
So you will have to look for water from the very first hours of the disaster. Moreover, not only to look for it but also to filter and disinfect it - in most cases, it will be unfit for drinking.
# 9 Submitting Distress Signals
If you are lost in a deserted area, the best solution is to stay put and wait for rescuers. This will save energy and make it easier to find you. Well, to add more apples to the basket, it will be useful to send distress signals that indicate your location. You must learn how to build a signal fire, use a signal mirror and pyrotechnics.
# 10 Orienteering
There are situations in which you have to get out to civilization yourself. And the ability to correctly determine the cardinal points, as well as maintain a given course, will be key to your salvation. To do this, you need to be able to:
- Work with a compass and a map.
- Find the sides of the horizon according to the environment.
- Maintain the required direction using the azimuth.
# 11 Finding and Preparing Food
Despite its popularity in survival shows, food is the last thing to think about when it comes to saving lives. A person is able to starve for three weeks without any irreversible consequences for the body. By this time, people either die from cold, dehydration, accidents or find salvation.
Yes, there are exceptions, and your survival may be delayed. Well, this skill is still important. And here's what you should learn:
- Identification and preparation of edible plants;
- Fishing;
- Hunting with traps (please note that this method is illegal in “normal” conditions).
Summary
Even if you don't have special skills, you have a chance of survival if you have enough courage. But you still need soft skills: ingenuity, communication, and physical fitness. You also need to master a number of "hard" skills: setting a fire, building a shelter, finding and cleaning water, giving distress signals, orienteering, mining, and cooking.
Taking at least a little time to master the above, will significantly increase your chances of survival in any extreme situation. Yes, today everything is in order, and you are sitting in an easy chair reading a book, but no one knows where tomorrow will take you for some reason. Therefore, the ability to survive, at least in theory, will never be superfluous, because it is possible that someday you might need it!
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