Survival skills should be bedrocks of outdoor enthusiasts. In the wilderness, many favorable or unfavorablesituations may occur. Learning survival core principle, right mental attitude, knowledge of edible and poisonous plants, creating a shelter, making a fire, and most importantly finding water are master principle and techniques. The psychological foundation of survival is basic: remaining calm. If you find yourself in a survival mode your mind will wonder and get thousands of disoriented thoughts and feelings. If you are in this situation, stay calm and remain where you are and fight these effects no matter what and at any cost.
Observing your breath and assessing the environment will calm you down significantly. Once you remain calm, find a place which is sheltered and make a plan for survival. Objectives planning and preparation will not only lead you to a safer destination but also helps you to overcome odds, unfavorable situation, and dangers. Your main priorities are shelter, fire, and water. If you see trees, wood, and fossil fuels you will also have resources to make a shelter and fire.
But above all element, water is the most important. In a survival situation human being may live with food for several days or weeks but death is likely within day without water. Therefore, finding water is the number one priority for all survivors. But how do you find the water and what are the indicators of water, look for column of insects and ants, birds- they may gather around water not necessarily all the time, abundance of varieties of vegetation, large clumps of grass, cracks in a rock, valley floors.
If all of your efforts fail, utilizing SAS tips would be greatly helpful. Rest as much as possible, avoid smoking and drinking alcohol, stay in the shade, avoid laying on heated ground and surface, eat as little as possible, as the body uses fluids to break down food, do not talk, breath through your nose not with the mouth. Retrieve from Special Forces (survival guide, “minimizing water loss”). And once you find water it is very important to filter the water.
There are several techniques such as collecting dew by rubbing with a cotton cloth and absorbing water, digging mud and creating a reservoir, if you plan to stay in that location for a while and you have plenty of food, water and energy to survive. You may filter water through your sock; a sock filtration technique is very useful as it filters dirt and large particles or vegetation from that sample of water. And if possible avoid collecting water from still pond with foam, still odors, and bubbles in the water, and avoid drinking water that lacks green plants and vegetation as they are poisonous. Don’t even waste your survival time in filtering them.
