The Survival Psychology

Survival psychology describes what happens in our minds when we are suddenly faced with a disaster that threatens us physically or mentally.

Survival, being truly prepared to survive, requires being able to control your fears, to control your subconscious emotions and impulses. In a circumstance related to life and death, whoever hesitates is lost!

Nobody wants to accept that something terrible is happening to him. The human brain is configured in such a way that it refuses to accept something that goes beyond the experience of the ordinary or the everyday. In crisis situations, however, denial can be fatal!

There are several stages of psychological reactions to a crisis, a shocking and horrible circumstance, which offer you the alternative between death and survival:

Denial - People do not want to believe that a certain event is happening or has already taken place. They simply cannot accept, for example, that the tower block in which they work has caught fire!

Postponement - People often choose to postpone acceptance of what is happening. They can, for example, comb their hair, put their food in the fridge, carefully gather their goods from the office to give themselves the feeling that everything is as normal as possible.

Diagnosis - People then begin to recognize the situation they are facing. They begin to notice the messages sent by their senses: the smell of burning, the sounds of things collapsing or the screams of other people, the sight of the damage caused by fire.

Acceptance - People come to accept the crisis in which they are involved.

Consideration - At this stage, people are beginning to think about what would be the best thing they could do. Others, however, are so overwhelmed by the situation that they are left to their own devices and must be helped by the people who have the highest speed of reaction.

Action - Finally, choose the path to follow and act accordingly. At this stage, some try to save themselves, to flee, to fight the fire, to give help to the wounded.

In a psychological study from 2000, Dr. A. R. Roberts recorded the most common reactions in cases of crisis.

First, people begin to realize that they are in danger. After that, they discover that the stress and trauma of the event in which they are involved cannot be dealt with by their usual abilities. They begin to be overwhelmed with fear, confusion, and stress. Then he enters a state of imbalance that seems invincible.

During military training, recruits are put in situations that aim to make them immediately appreciate a situation and immediately choose a course of action. This allows them to act much faster than other people and gives them an advantage in multiple combat scenarios.

The solution, however, is not to simply act as soon as an event occurs, but to increase the speed of your decision-making process. One way to do this is to skip the so-called cognitive dissonance phase.

Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort that occurs when you are dealing simultaneously with two or more conflicting things: ideas, beliefs, values, or emotional reactions.

Dissonance is revealed when people are confronted with information that does not conform to their beliefs. If the dissonance is not diminished by changing their beliefs, misinterpretation or rejection of information may occur, seeking support from others who share their beliefs and trying to convince others of the validity of their beliefs.

In this case, you can immediately accept that something out of the ordinary has happened, reaching directly to the stage of consideration (consideration) instead of wasting precious time convincing yourself that the event really happened.

Increasing the ability to survive or the speed of reaction in a crisis situation requires both a physical and mental process.

You have to think like an athlete, as a basketball player. If you throw a ball at him, his immediate reaction is to raise his hands and catch him before hitting him in the face.

His muscular memory came into operation and allowed him to have these answers automatically. A person who does not play basketball may react quite differently. She can stand still, hitting the ball, or she can raise her hand to block the ball, but her first reaction is to try nothing to defend herself.

The basketball player has been training for a long time to catch and throw the ball, so his body is ready to react in a split second. Likewise, sports such as martial arts or boxing increase your reflexes and teach your muscles to respond extremely promptly to a certain signal. Such workouts speed up your mental and physical reactions, increasing your chances of survival.