To mentally prepare for whatever may come your way is very vital. It means having a plan in place for any potential SHTF situation.
Mental preparation can help ease stress and anxiety. It can improve your mental health. And It can also help ensure that you are ready for anything that comes your way.
Related: Will Society Collapse in 2040? Society Collapse 2040 & The Reality of Our Societal Decline
How to Mentally Prepare for Any SHTF Situation
To mentally prepare for the worst is something that all preppers do. By having a plan and being ready for anything, we can reduce the amount of stress and anxiety that comes with the possibility of any SHTF situation.
Knowing that we have planned what we need to survive allows us to let go of some of the fear and panic that can come with shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and conflicts in our everyday life.
As preppers, we tend to view catastrophes and tragedies through different eyes.
- First, we’re preparing ourselves should anything like what we see out there happen to us where we are.
- Second, the anxiety about these events motivates us to prepare.
Preparing is a bit of a coping strategy for many – just as insurance is an investment in peace of mind.
We hope we never need our prepared trauma kits, but it will mean the difference to us or someone else the minute we do.
Having it allows us to let go of the stress and anxiety of the horrific things that could occur – if something worse happens, we’re ready. We can acknowledge that we have what we need to deal with anything that has it bad.
But what if we feel our preps are never enough?
Anxiety can be a huge hindrance when it comes to SHTF planning. It can put us in panic and release stress hormones that can ramp us up even more frantic. But, by acknowledging that we have what we need to deal with in any situation, we can let go of some of that anxiety and focus on what’s important.
In this blog post, let’s examine the common anxieties that go hand in hand with prepping. And I’ll give you tips on how to mentally prepare so you can accomplish your prepping goals without feeling overwhelmed or crippled by anxiety.
6 SHTF Skills to Mentally Prepare for Any SHTF Situation
- Stay focused and Steadily plot along to the larger goal of self-sufficiency and independence from a system destined to fail.
- Do not let your anxiety become so overwhelming that it cripples your forward progress.
- Take the time to appreciate what you have accomplished and are in place.
- Take the time to breathe slowly and avoid herd mentality.
- Prepare for what you reasonably will face, turning crippling anxiety into motivating pressure.
- Remember that some anxiety is good – it helps us do good and work faster.
Beware of Herd Mentality
Social learning is one of the things that exacerbate our anxiety.
We witness other people panic buying and suppose that there must be a disaster on the horizon. But this may not always be the case, and the panic buying will cause a pandemic.
Toilet Paper Shortage 2021
Consider the COVID 19 Toilet Paper shortage. Other people – stockpiling – influenced panic buying more than any proximity to real danger. After all, the Shortage of wood pulp was not on the list of Covid symptoms.
But we still see the herd of people snapping up the inventory – and we reflect on our supply and wonder if we shouldn’t just grab a little extra toilet paper, food, hand sanitizer, cleaning products, or whatever else while we can.
The panic-buying leads to empty shelves, supply shortages, and the feeling that the problem is more significant than it is.
We function as a herd but don’t have to live in a herd mentality.
Most prepared people explain what brought them to prepping and how they managed through a disaster – often begin with – everybody was panicking; I was doing this or I had that, so I wasn’t worried.
When you see everyone running away from something, you bet – that we are in a herd mentality – we join stampedes even before knowing what we’re running from – instinctively doing this because it’s survival behavior.
Prepping allows us to go beyond much of this herd thinking.
If we know that the storm is coming from the gathering clouds – it is wise to apply the wisdom of – what happens with gathering clouds – and get on higher ground.
When we look at the world and are stricken with anxiety because we see so many people unaware of the same threats we perceive, it is wise to shed our herd mentality.
We plan our preps and security. So run with the herd when you have to – but understand why you are running.
And do not let the anxiety of the herd change your course!
End of The World Preparation: How to Prepare for the End of the World
Spoiler Alert: You won’t be able to prepare for the world’s future.
It probably won’t matter what preps you have or your efforts when the apocalypse occurs or some other great global catastrophe. For example, if a comet hits a planet and creates an extinction-level event, it will not matter how many beans and ramen you stored in your bug-out cave.
Focus on what is most likely to happen to you.
Don’t spend all your time prepping for some massive collapse or disaster – when the disaster most likely to occur is more local to you.
Don’t focus on Extinction-Level Events.
An extinction-level event is referred to as such because it leads to extinction. It is the process of a species family or other groups of animals or plants becoming extinct, finished, done, and zeroed out.
Given this information, don’t expect a mass extinction event or prepare for armageddon for your reasons. It will just fill you with unendurable dread. Yes, something like this could happen. But it will not likely matter what you have on your shelves to alleviate anxiety.
In your preparation, concentrate on the most probable disasters you’ll face.
An Icelandic volcano erupted and released enough ashes into the atmosphere to shut off sunlight in Europe in 536 CE. Byzantine historian Procopius (who witnessed it) described it as the sun giving forth its light without brightness like the moon – this lasted for 18 months.
Pestilence raged in the form of the Justinian plague – which would later come again and be called the bubonic plague. It was arguably one of the worst periods to be alive in recorded history.
No sun, no food, and a deadly unknown disease have resulted in the devastation of entire civilizations. There have also been conventional wars. It was terrible if you were a Roman!
However, things probably weren’t too bad for you if you lived somewhere else. Even major global events don’t always spell Romans’ end of the world a decade later. Things got back to normal even though its government collapsed.
Don’t over-prepare for some imaginary collapse or calamity when the disaster that will most certainly occur is closer to you.
- If you live in a storm-prone region, prepare for the worst storm before considering unlikely possibilities.
- If you live in the countryside, you won’t have to worry about civil unrest as your city relatives will need to do so.
If a nationwide power outage occurs every ten years for the last three decades – it would be far more essential for you to prepare for a tragedy than any other spectacular but less probable event.
