Situational awareness is very
important, not just for personal security but as a
fundamental building block in your security plan and the security
of your Prepper Group.
Because of this importance, we have stressed the
importance of
situational awareness for Preppers many times in the past.
It is important to note that situational awareness --
being aware of one's surroundings and identifying potential threats and
dangerous situations -- is more of a mindset than it is paranoia,
although one could argue that an ounce of paranoia will help you develop
a keen sense of situational awareness. Because of this, situational
awareness is not something that can be practiced only by highly trained
government agents or specialized corporate security teams. Indeed, it
can be exercised by anyone with the will and the discipline to do so.
Situational awareness is not only important for recognizing day-to-day
threats, but it also serves to identify other dangerous situations after
TEOTWAWKI.
The primary element in establishing this mindset is first
to recognize that threats exist. Ignorance or denial of a threat make a
person's chances of quickly recognizing an emerging threat and avoiding
it highly unlikely. Bad things do happen. Apathy, denial and complacency
can be deadly.
A second important element of the proper mindset is
understanding the need to take responsibility for one's own security.
The resources of any government are finite and the authorities simply
cannot be everywhere and cannot stop every potential terrorist attack or
other criminal action. The same principle applies to private security at
businesses or post-SHTF within your Prepper Group. Therefore, Preppers
need to look out for themselves, their neighbors and their Prepper
Group.
Another important facet of this mindset is learning to
trust your "gut" or intuition. Many times a person's subconscious can
notice subtle signs of danger that the conscious mind has difficulty
quantifying or articulating. Many victims who experienced such feelings
of danger prior to an incident but chose to ignore them. Trusting your
gut and avoiding a potentially dangerous situation may cause you a bit
of inconvenience, but ignoring such feelings can lead to serious
trouble.
The discipline part of practicing situational awareness
refers to the conscious effort required to pay attention to gut feelings
and to surrounding events even while you are busy and distracted. At
such times even obvious hostile activity can go unnoticed, so
individuals need to learn to be observant even while doing other things.
LEVELS OF AWARENESS
People typically
operate on five distinct levels of awareness. There are
many ways to describe these levels ("Cooper's colors,"
for example, which is a system frequently used in law
enforcement and military training), but perhaps the most
effective way to illustrate the differences between the
levels is to compare them to the different degrees of
attention we practice while driving.
For
our purposes here we will refer to the five levels as
"tuned out," "relaxed awareness," "focused awareness,"
"high alert" and "comatose."
The first level, tuned out,
is similar to when you are driving in a very familiar
environment or are engrossed in thought, a daydream, a
song on the radio or even by the kids fighting in the
backseat. Increasingly, cellphone calls and texting are
also causing people to tune out while they drive. Have
you ever arrived somewhere in your vehicle without even
really thinking about your drive there? If so, then
you've experienced being tuned out.
The second level of awareness,
relaxed awareness, is like defensive driving.
This is a state in which you are relaxed but are also
watching the other cars on the road and are looking at
the road ahead for potential hazards. For example, if
you are approaching an intersection and another driver
looks like he may not stop, you tap your brakes to slow
your car in case he does not. Defensive driving does not
make you weary, and you can drive this way for a long
time if you have the discipline to keep yourself from
slipping into tuned-out mode. If you are practicing
defensive driving you can still enjoy the trip, look at
the scenery and listen to the radio, but you cannot
allow yourself to get so engrossed in those distractions
that they exclude everything else. You are relaxed and
enjoying your drive, but you are still watching for road
hazards, maintaining a safe following distance and
keeping an eye on the behavior of the drivers around
you.
The next level of awareness,
focused awareness, is like driving in hazardous
road conditions. You need to practice this level of
awareness when you are driving on icy or slushy roads --
or the pothole-infested roads populated by erratic
drivers that exist in many developing countries. When
you are driving in such an environment, you need to keep
two hands on the wheel at all times and have your
attention totally focused on the road and the other
drivers around you. You don't dare take your eyes off
the road or let your attention wander. There is no time
for cellphone calls or other distractions. The level of
concentration required for this type of driving makes it
extremely tiring and stressful. A drive that you
normally would not think twice about will totally
exhaust you under these conditions because it demands
prolonged and total concentration.
The fourth level of awareness is
high alert. This is the level that induces an
adrenaline rush, a prayer and a gasp for air all at the
same time. This is what happens when that car you are
watching at the intersection ahead doesn't stop at the
stop sign and pulls out right in front of you. High
alert can be scary, but at this level you are still able
to function. You can hit your brakes and keep your car
under control. In fact, the adrenaline rush you get at
this stage can sometimes aid your reflexes.
The last level of awareness,
comatose, is what happens when you literally
freeze at the wheel and cannot respond to stimuli,
either because you have fallen asleep or, at the other
end of the spectrum, because you are petrified. It is
this panic-induced paralysis that concerns us most in
relation to situational awareness. The comatose level is
where you go into shock, your brain ceases to process
information and you simply cannot react to the reality
of the situation. Many times when this happens, a person
can go into denial, believing that "this can't be
happening to me," or the person can feel as though he or
she is observing the event rather than actually
participating in it. Often, the passage of time will
seem to grind to a halt. Crime victims frequently report
experiencing this sensation and being unable to act
during an unfolding crime.
Finding the Right Level of
Situational Awareness
Now
that we've discussed the different levels of awareness,
let's focus on identifying what level is ideal at a
given time. The body and mind both require rest, so we
have to spend several hours each day at the comatose
level while asleep. When we are sitting at our homes
watching a movie or reading a book, it is perfectly fine
to operate in the tuned-out mode. However, some people
will attempt to maintain the tuned-out mode in decidedly
inappropriate environments (e.g., when they are out on
the street at night during the coming race riots), or they
will maintain a mindset wherein they deny that marauders
can victimize them. "That couldn't happen to me, so
there's no need to watch for it." "If we give
them a little food, they will go away." This results in their
being tuned out to any potential threats.
If
you are tuned out while you are driving and something
happens -- say, a child runs out into the road or a car
stops quickly in front of you -- you will not see the
problem coming. This usually means that you either do
not see the hazard in time to avoid it and you hit it,
or you totally panic, freeze and cannot react to it --
neither is good. These reactions (or lack of reactions)
occur because it is very difficult to change mental
states quickly, especially when the adjustment requires
moving several steps, say, from tuned out to high alert.
It is like trying to shift your car directly from first
gear into fifth and it shudders and stalls. Many times,
when people are forced to make this mental jump and they
panic (and stall), they go into shock and will actually
freeze and be unable to take any action -- they go
comatose. This happens not only when driving but also
when a criminal catches someone totally unaware and
unprepared. While training does help people move up and
down the alertness continuum, it is difficult for even
highly trained individuals to transition from tuned out
to high alert.
This is why law enforcement and military
personnel receive so much training on situational
awareness. For a free pdf
download of the United States Coast Guard manual on
situational awareness, click here:
It
is critical to stress here that situational awareness
does not mean being paranoid or obsessively concerned
about security. In fact, people simply cannot operate in
a state of focused awareness for extended periods, and
high alert can be maintained only for very brief periods
before exhaustion sets in. The "fight-or-flight"
response can be very helpful if it can be controlled.
When it gets out of control, however, a constant stream
of adrenaline and stress is simply not healthy for the
body and mind, and this also hampers security.
Therefore, operating constantly in a state of high alert
is not the answer, nor is operating for prolonged
periods in a state of focused alert, which can also be
demanding and completely enervating. The human body was
simply not designed to operate under constant stress.
All people, even highly skilled operators, require time
to rest and recover.
Because of this, the basic level of
situational awareness that should be practiced most of
the time is relaxed awareness, a state of
mind that can be maintained indefinitely without all the
stress and fatigue associated with focused awareness or
high alert. Relaxed awareness is not tiring, and it
allows you to enjoy life while rewarding you with an
effective level of personal security. When people are in
an area where there is potential danger (which, in
reality, is almost anywhere), they should go through
most of the day in a state of relaxed awareness. Then if
they spot something out of the ordinary that could be a
threat, they can "dial up" to a state of focused
awareness and take a careful look at that potential
threat (and also look for others in the area). If the
possible threat proves innocuous, or is simply a false
alarm, they can dial back down into relaxed awareness
and continue on their way. If, on the other hand, the
potential threat becomes a probable threat, seeing it in
advance allows a person to take actions to avoid it. In
such a case they may never need to elevate to high
alert, since they have avoided the problem at an early
stage.
However, once a person is in a state of
focused awareness they are far better prepared to handle
the jump to high alert if the threat does change from
potential to actual -- if the three guys lurking on the
corner do start advancing and look as if they are
reaching for weapons.
Of course, when a person knowingly
ventures into an area that is very dangerous, it is only
prudent to practice focused awareness while in that
area. For example, if there is a specific section of
highway where a lot of improvised explosive devices
detonate and ambushes occur, or if there is a part of a
city that is controlled (and patrolled) by criminal
gangs -- and the area cannot be avoided for whatever
reason -- it would be prudent to practice a heightened
level of awareness when in those areas. An increased
level of awareness is also prudent when engaging in
common or everyday tasks, such as visiting an ATM or
walking to the car in a dark parking lot. When the time
of potential danger has passed, it is then easy to shift
back to a state of relaxed awareness.
Preppers can hone their situational
awareness ability by practicing some simple drills. For
example, you can consciously move your awareness level
up to a focused state for short periods of time during
the day. Some examples of this can include identifying
all the exits when you enter a building, counting the
number of people in a restaurant or subway car, or
noting which cars take the same turns in traffic. One
trick that many law enforcement officers are taught is
to take a look at the people around them and attempt to
figure out their stories, in other words, what they do
for a living, their mood, what they are focused on and
what it appears they are preparing to do that day, based
merely on observation. Employing such simple
focused-awareness drills will train a person's mind to
be aware of these things almost subconsciously when the
person is in a relaxed state of awareness.
~ by Bobby Akart
Because you never know when the day before ... is the day before. Prepare for tomorrow.
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