A lot of preppers are quick to stock up on critical supplies like food rations, water purification, outdoor equipment and personal protection. However, these aren’t the only things you need to prepare to be truly ready to handle a prolonged crisis.
Things like general physical fitness and mental preparedness are also critical things you can’t forget to prep. The early days of a full-blown crisis are sure to be frenetic, and if you’re not of sound mind and body, all those supplies you have stored up could end up being to someone else’s benefit!
For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume that you’ve got the supply part of the prepper/survivalist equation nailed down. So, we can focus on some of the other less tangible things you need to be able to survive in a long-term survival situation.
How to Maintain a Positive Mindset
Your brain is constantly looking for confirmation of what you’re telling it. If you’re constantly frustrated, and focusing on what’s going wrong, your brain will reinforce that negative attitude.
Being trapped in a negative fixed mindset will cause you to miss important survival opportunities. Any one of which can reduce your chances of surviving in a prolonged crisis.
Preparing your brain to maintain a positive mindset starts with breaking the negative thought cycle you’re stuck in. There are fast and slow ways to do this.
Positive Self-Talk might seem corny, but it can significantly boost your mental resilience. Incorporate phrases like “I’ve got this,” “No problem,” and “I’ll figure it out” into your daily personal narrative cultivates a strong, positive mindset. It conditions your brain to see things as possible, and it will tap into this when serious challenges arise in your survival situation.
Related: Essential Survival Know-Hows Modern People Have Forgotten
Laughing in the face of adversity also helps maintain positive brain chemistry. Cracking a little joke when you stub your toe or spill that glass of milk conditions your brain to go to the positive when things look bad. You can use this to keep your mental resilience strong when the SHTF.
Controlling Your Adrenaline
The effects of an adrenaline rush hampers your neocortex. This leads to emotional reactions, repetitive movements, and twitchy muscles. When the short-lived adrenaline rush fades, you’re left feeling weak and depleted.
All of these things put you in a position to be easily exploited by someone else. To that point, many martial arts train you to keep your adrenaline in check when a conflict starts. You simply play defense until your opponent’s adrenaline fades and they’re gassed. Thus, giving you a new advantage
Learning How to Control Your Adrenaline
Controlling your adrenaline response starts with staying fit and healthy. This makes your body less prone to take into adrenaline, while also helping to maintain lower stress levels.
Maintaining a positive mindset and practicing meditation breathing will also prepare your body to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system. This plays a big role in adrenaline regulation.
Preparing Intermittent Fasting
In a prolonged crisis you likely won’t be getting three meals a day.
Especially in the early days of a crisis.
Our ancient ancestors had to live with prolonged periods of fasting, while hunting, foraging, gathering firewood, scavenging, and fishing.
If you want to learn more about how our ancestors mastered these survival skills and how you can too, then you’ll want to get your hands on this guide.
This isn’t your typical survival manual; it’s a comprehensive guide that dives into the forgotten wisdom of our ancestors who didn’t just survive in the wild – they thrived there.
They passed down to use a separate ketogenic metabolism where the body runs on fat stores, rather than running just on glucose or the catabolic breakdown of muscle tissue.
However, your body needs some practice to be good at switching to ketogenesis. It also helps to optimize your liver health, as your liver plays a major role in how your body burns fat instead of breaking down muscle.
How to Prepare for Periods of Fasting
There are supplements out there claiming to kick your body over into ketogenesis, but I don’t 100% trust the science behind them. The better option is to practice intermittent fasting as part of your monthly or weekly schedule.
There’s a lot of different ways to do this, and you’ll find some conflicting information out there from people who try to use intermittent fasting for weight loss. I think the following is enough to get your body prepared to go into ketogenesis when necessary.
Pick one to two days a week where you don’t eat for 12 hours. When you do eat that meal, or any big meal, go for a walk or do light cardio for 10 minutes afterward.
Get 30 minutes of light cardiovascular exercise within 30 minutes of waking up, while your body is in a fasted state.
Do a 24 hour fast at least once a month.
Do a 48 hour fast at least once a year.
Get your liver numbers tested and do what you need to do to optimize liver function.
You can find here protocols designed to tackle the root cause of your health problems. The protocols go into detail in each section, showing you exactly what to do and when to do it. At the end of every protocol, you’ll find a table that summarizes which actions and remedies you can take every day of the week so you’ll never be left guessing what to do next.
Acquiring a nice stockpile of food, supplies and ammo will certainly make you feel prepared for a crisis. Yet if you ask a lot of experts, they’ll tell you that 90% of survival is mental.
Preparing yourself for the metal side of handling a crisis starts with being able to control your adrenaline and being mindful of what’s going on around. Preparing yourself with techniques that activate the parasympathetic nervous system is key to staying clear minded and fully focused in times like this.
Preparing yourself with multiple stress management techniques is also critical for surviving a prolonged crisis. This can include things like meditative breathing, gratitude practices, and even simple humor.
You also need to prepare your body to handle times when you can’t always eat three meals a day and the physical requirements of surviving. General physical fitness training, and maintaining good cardiovascular health is essential. Practicing intermittent fasting will also help your body switch over to ketosis in lean times.
Preparing your mind and body for the challenges they’ll face when a crisis finally does hit will give you an advantage over those who don’t. That alone might be enough to help you overcome unforeseeable obstacles in that new normal.
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