Your Worst Enemy: How to Control Fear

It’s said that survival is partially a mental game. That’s actually incorrect.

It’s almost entirely a mental game.

Go ahead, buy all the gear you want. But if you don’t know how to control fear, all the fancy knives and freeze-dried chemistry in the world won’t make a bit of different. You’ll be too out of yourself to use them.

John D. McCann writes on how to control fear in his book, Stay Alive! Survival Skills You Need. Here are his four methods on how to control fear.

~ Living Ready

Fear = Panic

In order to prevent panic, we must understand how to control fear. We now know some of the fears that affect people in a survival situation. But that is not enough.

Mark Twain once said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

We must learn how to control fear, so panic does not have a chance to control us.

When fear strikes, we know we must act immediately. Don’t run from it, but recognize and admit it. To prevent the physical symptoms of fear from setting in, there are several things you can
do.

How to Control Fear: B-R-E-A-T-H-E

People tend to hold their breath when frightened, so breathe, breathe, breathe! Breathing prevents hyperventilation. Take slow, deep breaths to establish a regular breathing pattern, which will help you relax.

How to Control Fear: Stay Loose

People also have a tendency to freeze when frightened. The breathing helps you to relax, which helps prevent you from becoming tense. Tense muscles can add to anxiety by reinforcing
fear. To know how to control fear is also to understand your body.

How to Control Fear: Move Around

Move! When people freeze in the middle of a threatening situation it results in inaction. To break this natural instinct, move. Doing something will lessen the dread of the fear and help you
restore confidence in yourself.

Staying busy also keeps your mind busy and away from the negative aspects of the situation that reinforce the fear.

How to Control Fear: Be Prepared

Another way to limit fear is by being prepared to survive! I have always been an advocate of carrying the basic essentials for survival with me whenever I leave the safety of my immediate surroundings, or what I call the “safety zone.”

I always wear, or have with me, proper clothing for a change of weather. Many times when I am hiking it starts to rain. While continuing on my way wearing the rain gear I keep with me, I pass others in a soaked t-shirt and jeans.I have seen these same unprepared hikers on a hot sunny day without any signs of having water with them.

Preparedness also includes knowledge and training in regard to handling a survival situation. I have “beat a dead horse to death” over the years advocating the necessity of practicing with your
survival kit and learning the skills of survival. Being properly equipped is not enough; knowing how to use the equipment is also critical.

In John Leach’s book, Survival Psychology, he states, “Familiarity with the use and handling of survival equipment is also essential during training. Unfamiliarity with equipment stops people from using it. Victims have been recovered from life rafts with a survival box (containing flares, rations, first-aid kit and so on) unopened and the necessary contents unused.”

Carry the essentials to survive and be comfortable with their use.

How to Control Fear: Physical Fitness

Lastly, stay physically fit. The combination of preparation, knowledge and fitness for survival develops confidence in yourself and your ability to face your fears in a survival situation.

Add all these factors up, and you’ll be well on your way to understanding how to control fear.

Arm Yourself With Knowledge

SAS Survival Handbook

Coleman 4D XPS LED Duo Lantern

Special Forces Survival Guide

When you’re cold, wet, tired and in the elements, hot water for tea, coffee or cooking is good. But hot water quickly is much, much better. And there’s not much out there that boils water in the field more quickly or efficiently than
the Kelly Kettle.

So what exactly is a Kelly Kettle? This clever little bit of camping/preparedness kit is an import from Ireland that was originally used to heat water for Irish boatmen and fishing guides.

It’s simply a double-walled kettle with a big hole in the middle of it. That’s it. You fill the kettle with water, place it on its base, place a few twigs (or anything, really) in the base, light it, feed it a few more twigs, and in just a few
minutes you have boiling water.

It’s that simple.

The Kelly Kettle is what’s known in bushcraft/preparedness circles as a “volcano” kettle, which doesn’t mean it spews hot magma, rather the name come from the basic design of its center fire hole. Due to the kettle’s extremely large surface area, when a fire is lit in its center, the water heats up very quickly.

What’s more, the Kelly Kettle is very effective in windy conditions, as the fire is protected from the wind. In fact, the fire burns hotter as it gets windier because the kettle’s stand acts like a bellows that draws air into the fire chamber. The final effect, with flames shooting out from the top of the kettle’s chimney and hot steam piping into the air, is, well, volcano-like.

I first discovered the Kelly Kettle while researching alternatives to propane stoves. Like many outdoorsmen, when I’m on hunting or fishing trip I usually take a little one-burner propane stove for heating up water for tea, coffee, etc. It works well enough when the wind’s calm, but not so much when the wind blows.

Since I live in Oklahoma, where the wind blows pretty much non-stop, I had been looking for a wind-proof alternative to my propane stove, something I can take on a fishing or hunting trip and use to boil water quickly and easily right on the tailgate or ground.

But the Kelly Kettle is equally useful as an emergency/backup source of hot water for homeowners, campers, picnickers or anyone who needs hot water quickly, reliably, and with minimal fuel.

Thinking the Kelly Kettle might be the ticket, I ordered one. And on first use, I was, quite frankly, shocked at how quickly this thing boils water with such little fuel.

Soon after receiving mine, I decided to test it in a cold, wet and howling mid-winter wind. With just a little grass tinder and twigs scrounged from my yard and placed in the stainless steel base, it took less than four minutes from striking a ferro rod to the grass and feeding twigs into the fire, to boiling water ready for the French press.

The Kelly Kettle has since become a permanent and valued part of my camping/preparedness kit. It’s rugged, simple, efficient, and works well with virtually any combustible material you feed it.

With a price range from $59.95 for the aluminum “Trekker” model that holds 17 ounces of water all the way, to $84.99 for the stainless steel base camp model that holds 50 ounces of water, the Kelly Kettle is not inexpensive. But then, good gear rarely is.

Outstanding Gear and Resources

Special Forces Survival Guide

Survival Straps Survival Bracelet

SAS Survival Handbook

Power juicers aren’t the first gadget that come to mind when considering the Living Ready lifestyle. Here are some juicing tips for anyone interested in self-sufficiency.

Last year, our small vegetable plot cranked out more zucchini squash than we could eat in a year. No, three years. These things just about grew legs and got a job. I thought the neighbors were going to call the police, these zucchini were so intimidating and numerous.

We were excited at first. How many ways could we make these zucchini? After burning through a few cookbooks and bags of charcoal, the thrill wore off. But the zucchini didn’t. They just kept coming.

Back in the day, such a surplus was a good problem to have. The excess would be canned for later. Being someone who cringes when perfectly good food is thrown away, this is something we should’ve done.

But like many modern folks, we didn’t go the canning route. Not that it’s a bad idea. We’re just not there yet with our self-sufficiency.

What zucchini that didn’t make it past the “no, really, we’re OK”s from family and friends wound up returning to the earth from whence it came. That’s a nicer way of saying, “it went in the trash.”

That still bugs me. I place a lot of value in “waste not, want not.” The zucchini incident did not live up to my own standards.

I don’t want a repeat this coming season. If we get a bumper crop with any of our vegetables, I want to use everything. So I went out and found a solution.

I bought a juicer. Specifically, a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer.

Yes, this staple of late-night programming is gimmicky. But for $100, it’s not like juicing tips us into bankruptcy. It actually turned out to be a smart investment. Instead of letting surpluses go to waste, I could juice produce that would’ve turned south.

Here are some pros and cons, as well as some juicing tips, I learned along the way.

Pro: It’s Fast

Turn the machine on, then drop fruits and veggies down the chute. Bam. You’ve got juice.

Compared to canning, this is lightning speed. Food grown outside could go from the ground to my glass in just a few minutes.

Pro: It Will Juice Anything

The Jack LaLanne Power Juicer is an indiscriminate produce killing machine. It does not care what is tossed into it. It could find the juice in a boot. It is to juicing what Liam Neeson’s character is in Taken.

Pro: It Makes Use of Scraps

Broccoli stems are a good example. We normally buy a head of broccoli and eat the tops, discarding the rest. This is wasteful. The solution is to juice the stems. The results are actually sweet, which was a surprise. It got me thinking about how other scraps could be put to use.

Potato peels? Juice ’em. Asparagus stems? Juice ’em. More heads of lettuce than you can eat? Juice ’em. Apple peels? Juice ’em. The leafy parts of a celery stalk? Juice ’em. Grapes on a vine past their due date? Juice ’em. All those leafy veggies your doctor says to eat but you never do? Juice ’em.

Pro: It’s a Supercharged Compost Machine

As the machine separates juice from everything else, the latter winds up in a container. This pulpy mix would make perfect compost.

It’s supercharged because it’s making the job of hungry bacteria easier. The total surface area of those shredded bits is greater than if you tossed in a whole vegetable or fruit. This allows for more bacteria to get in and do their job. Although I’ve yet to prove it, it is my theory that the pulp will break down faster.

Pro: Lots of Ways to Eat the Pulp

The pulp can be used for a variety of culinary purposes, too. Carrot shreds would go perfectly in baked goods, for example. You could eat fruit pulp outright. Or you could throw veggie pulp into an omelet. There are scores of juicing tips out there on what to do with the stuff.

Whatever you do with the pulp, just don’t let it go to waste.

Pro: It’s Healthy

We’re talking about 100% juice with no preservatives, no dyes and nothing you can’t pronounce (although zucchini is hard to spell). Tell me that’s not a good thing.

You’re also getting a vitamin bomb, depending on what you put in it (i.e not cupcakes). Some juicing tips out there talk about natural remedies for this and that. I don’t buy into many of those claims, but I’ll stand by this most inarguable of juicing tips: There are a lot worse things you could drink.

Con: Results May…Vary

If you’re a picky drinker, a power juicer is not for you. The taste usually falls somewhere between “pretty good” and “I have to take the rest of the day off.”

I worked long and hard to earn the nickname of “the human trash can” around the house, so taste doesn’t bother me. That’s not why I bought this juicer.

The trick is to find the right combination of fruits and vegetables. Most of the juicing tips I’ve read say an apple will make anything palatable.

Con: The Juice Doesn’t Last Long

It’s best to drink the juice right away. Remember, there aren’t any preservatives and nothing has been homogenized. The longer the juice sits, the worse it’s going to look and taste.

I suppose you could can the juice, but that’s not the point of this machine. Juicing is supposed to save time.

Con: Clean Up is a Mess

This is the case with most juicer models. There are several parts to the machine, and they all need to be cleaned immediately after use. That’s is the best of all the juicing tips I could offer.

Waiting even an hour guarantees all that pulp will magically transform into veggie glue. At that point, you may as well have canned, because you’ll spend just as much time scrubbing.

Overall, I’m happy with my purchase and am looking forward to finding ways to use the machine. It’s an unlikely choice for self-sufficient folks, but one definitely worth a look.

Outstanding Gear and Resources

Special Forces Survival Guide

Survival Straps Survival Bracelet

SAS Survival Handbook