Whether you're lost in the wilderness at dusk or are facing the aftermath of a natural disaster, your brain can keep you and your loved ones alive. We must give the same care to our minds that we do our stockpiles. There are certain games and tasks we can do on a regular basis to keep our minds sharp. It's also a good way to keep kids occupied!
The Importance of the Mind in Improving Survivability
People with a positive attitude and optimistic outlook tend to have better resilience than those with a cynical attitude or those plagued by depression.
Other things researchers have identified as negatively affecting a persons ability to cope or bounce back are things like experiencing consistent loss and failure, an unwillingness to ask for help, and a lack of problem solving skills.
No the great thing about this is there are things you can do to increase your resilience. Doing mental exercises can help you to prepare for TEOTWAWKI, or smaller things like the loss of a job, loved one, or being in an airport when bad people do bad things.
How to Improve Mental Strength
Spiritual Meditation
The first thing I do to develop mental strength is I spend some time everyday in meditation. The majority of humans spend very little time thinking. When you engage in thinking you begin to flex and work the greatest resource you have, your brain.
Mental Games to Improve Survivability
We play games that force the players to grapple with the “What if”. This is the same thing that military and intelligence community do all the time. By playing “war games” it fosters the critical and creative thinking.
SCENARIO-BASED GAMES
You can purchase some games like Persian Incursion which is a game used for these purposes.
Most in the prepper community are aware of the card game Conflicted. This is a game that helps you to begin to think ahead of time what you will do in a given situation. While you may never face the given scenarios what I feel the real benefit of this game is in the building of descion making muscles, using your brain to come up with real answers to questions quickly, and also reveals to you your real values and beliefs.
PAINTBALL
Paintball is a great way to teach team tactics, quick decision making skills, It allows us to practice what we might do in a given scenario. When we play we have different objectives for each team, designed to present real possibilities on our property. It also helps us learn where weakness in our security may be.
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS (KIM’S) GAMES
Taken from the 1901 book KIM by Kipling it is a great game that can be played anywhere.
The basic way to play the game is to take a group of items, observe the items for a set time, then after covering the items or removing them from the players sight, try to list more observations about those items than your opponent can.
You can play this game anywhere because we spend a lot of time in our car, a hazard of living 30-45 minutes from anything, we play this game while driving.
Or sitting in the car waiting for my wife at the store, we will say okay look out the window observe the next ten people who walk out of the store. Then state back the observations.
A similar twist on this is the old, find the letters of the alphabet game, where you have to find the letter of the alphabet in order on various signs, license plates etc.
BODY LANGUAGE
We will watch videos of crimes just to see how people act before they commit crime. Given the recent events in Europe and the amount of travel I do, I am increasingly aware of how important this skill set is for me and my family.
What other games do you play to improve your mental strength?
Article Source: Tactical Intelligence
