Dangerous situations can occur at any moment, and you’ll have to be aware of your environment to dodge them.
Being all-eyes-and-ears when outside will considerably increase your odds of escaping unharmed.
If you’re distracted while walking down the trail or street, you won’t be able to notice the threats lurking in the environment.
Maintaining your senses sharp will keep you in one piece.
This ability is called situational awareness and it’s incredibly important for every prepper. Mac Slavo explains why.
Simply put, situational awareness is just knowing what’s going on around you which is important for all of us.
Unfortunately, situational awareness is easy to lose. But if you’ve already been great at it, reading this should be all it takes to remind you to take that mindset seriously if for some reason you’ve forgotten about it.
Creating habits and changing your behavior is the best way to make sure you remain aware at all times, even during high-stress situations.
If you haven’t yet tried to become more aware of what’s happening around you, try these simple tips to help you out!
Identify Elements in Your Environment
Start by noticing the threats that surround you. Then expand your awareness to other non-threatening elements.
This is the most basic level of Situational Awareness where you begin to monitor, detect, and recognize multiple situational elements. These include objects, events, people, and environmental factors.
Basic situational awareness also requires you to notice the locations, conditions, and actions of the elements around you.
Although this may seem daunting, we all do this to some extent already.
To improve situational awareness, you simply have to make it a habit to notice things even when those things are going smoothly.
Trust Your Gut
Instincts were given to animals for a reason, and as humans, most of us have had a “gut reaction” to a situation or event.
Trusting your gut means if you’re getting a bad feeling or an “off vibe” as some describe it, make a different choice.
For example, if you have a bad feeling about going to the grocery store, don’t force yourself to go. Wait it out until it feels right.
Continue to Challenge Yourself to Become Aware
Challenge yourself to notice things such as “time.” I don’t mean what time it is, but how long something has been going on.
Keep your mind updated on how long things take, even if it’s menial, such as, for example, a neighbor’s home renovations.
Notice what’s coming in and going out of their home.
Don’t do this with the goal of “busting” your neighbor, but as a way to enhance your own awareness. It should be used as a mental exercise.
This will help keep your mind sharp for when you need to be aware of potentially dangerous events going on in public or in your surrounding area. Knowing how long things have been “off” will help you know what actions you will need to take if any.
Stay Well Rested
A lack of sleep will affect your ability to assess your environment and the fatigue will make it more difficult to respond to a situation if needed.
Americans are largely sleep deprived, which decreases our situational awareness dramatically.
Getting a good night’s sleep and adequate rest will help keep your mind functioning in tip-top condition.
Use a natural supplement such as melatonin or CBD oil if you need added support to help you get adequate sleep.
These aren’t all the ways you can improve your situational awareness, but they are some of the easiest and personally helped me out quite a bit!
Knowing what’s going on around you and being able to assess the threats to your life or property are incredibly important skills, and in my opinion, not talked about enough.
You should not learn to be aware of our surroundings to “tattle” to the police on your neighbors but to survive in dangerous SHTF situations.
