If you are planning to spend time outdoors and want to know about basic survival skills in case of any emergency, then this article is for you. I am going to enlist the top 6 basic survival skills that help save lives in any situation. Here we go,
Go through the article and make yourself abreast of basic survival skills. Understand them and learn their use and need. This article can never be an alternative to a book because it is an extensive topic to discuss but I have tried to sum up only the basics to give you a bare idea.
1. Your attitude and wisdom
The most important skill that ensures your survival is your attitude, your belief of survival, and your wisdom. Self-believe is important in any situation of life hence in an emergency too. If you believe that you will survive then you can endure any situation with determination otherwise negative thoughts will overwhelm you. And you must remember that nothing is more dangerous than negative thoughts. Show some witty and plan according to the situation.
If you are in an emergency, remember “The Rule of Threes.”
A human can survive:
- 3 minutes without air
- 3 hours without regulated body temperature
- 3 days without water
- 3 weeks without food
Now you may prioritize your needs. You need shelter first of all, then water and food.
You should understand the situation and should not panic. Only you are not in this situation, many enthusiasts face it daily and survive. For planning a situation, follow the rule of “SPEAR.”
- Stop
- Plan
- Execute
- Assess
- Re-evaluate
When you will follow this rule, it will give you advantages;
- It will keep your mind engaged, thereby, sparing you from negative thoughts
- It will give you a pleasure of accomplishment and optimism when you complete a little task for you; as finding water or building/finding shelter. This approach will help you focus more on the solution rather than the problem itself.
2. Shelter
Your second priority should be finding or building a shelter. Having shelter is of utmost importance. Natural elements such as rain, snow, sunlight, cold, heat, and strong winds mayleave you in a miserable condition. Having a shelter will protect from harsh weather conditions and will help you regulate your body temperature. Try to find a natural shelter if possible such as hollow stumps, caves, and logs. But if you do not find any, then build your own. You can build scout pits, debris tipi, snow shelter, or a debris hut. A debris hut is the most common type of shelter.
3. Water
The third most important inthe priority list is water. A human cannot survive without water for more than three days. About more than 70% of the human body contains water. A human drinks up to 1 gallon of water per day. Make sure the availability of clean drinking water for you. In water availability, two things can harm you. Either it is the lack of water (dehydration) or the availability of polluted water with pathogens of serious diseases.
Try to find or collect water in any possible way. You can try to find headwater streams and springs. You can even collect morning dew to meet your water needs. When you get a water source, take water and boil it for some time before consuming it. It may contain harmful pathogens. Boiling is the cheapest and easiest method but you can also use a chemical method to purify water.
Now after these three, you have ensured 80% chances of your survival. Now you need some more survival hacks. Let us discuss this.
4. Fire
Fire is one of the most important survival needs due to its usefulness. Fire is helpful to you in:
- Warming your body
- Cooking your food
- Boiling drinking water
- Drying your clothes
- Warming your shelter
- Providing you psychological support in case of distress because it creates a sense of safety and security.
- Giving signals to rescuers, a triangular fire is a sign of distress.
Therefore, it is vital to keep fire-starting tools with you like matches, lighter, and flint and steel. But it is also equally important to know how to starta fire without any modern starting tools. You can apply the formula of friction to start a fire.
5. Food
You can survive longer without food but you need food to keep yourself warm and active. Then you must have enough knowledge of animals and plants in an area where you are heading. Before heading out, prepare a list of plants and their identification marks to find them in the emergency. You can eat plants to meet your food requirements but never consume any plant that you cannot identify. Some edible plants are poisonous and can cause death. You can hunt animals or catch fish for meat.
6. Survival knives
Survival knives can be the most important tools in an emergency in a wilderness. The list of tasks where you can use knives is long. Putting nut in the shell, you can use a knife in each basic survival skill. Let us have a look of having survival knives in wilderness.
- You can leave marks of your trial to return,
- You can hunt with a hunting knife
- saw woods,
- cut through lush vegetation,
- build a shelter by gathering material with the help of a knife,
- gather woods to start a fire,
- cook food by cutting vegetable,
- use to make meat,
- help to get fruit or edible parts of the plants as food,
- And protect yourself from potential predators in an emergency with courage.
Other survival skills
Other survival skills include the navigation tools to find paths and altitudes. Having a first aid box and basic knowledge of using tools is another important factor. You can keep yourself safe with good use of a first aid box.
Conclusion
I have enlisted the most important survival skills. Hopefully, you are more excited to head out for your tour now because you are well-versed with much knowledge.