Day 31: What to do when lost in the wild…
What to do when you realize you are lost: If you spend enough time in the backcountry hiking or wandering off of the trail it is inevitable that you are eventually going to get lost. What matters is what you do next. If you understand the way our brain works you already know that we have a lizard brain that is essentially focused on sex, drugs, and rock and roll. When you get scared you want to fight, flight, posture, submit, or run. Why don’t we do all of those things constantly every day without thought? Well it’s simple, we also have this part of our brain in the front called the prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain is designed to curb the impulses of the lizard brain and let us think rationally through our problems. Instead of doing drugs, we eat right, go to bed on time, run and work out to feel good. Instead of constantly seeking sex we foster relationships that bring deeper meaning and attachment. The problem we have when we get lost is that initially we are scared. When this happens the prefrontal cortex does not function and the lizard brain takes over. This is valuable if there's a lion chasing you. You should never negotiate with a lion so in this instance the lizard brain is the right move. This is not valuable when you are scared about being lost and you feel like a lion is chasing you but in reality he is not and you just need to stop and think through your situation. Don’t make it worse. My advice to anyone who finds themself lost for the first time is stop. Stop and think through your situation. If you can make a fire, get sleep through the night if needed, and drink water or some kind of tea, you are not in any actual danger. When you do actually stop and assess your situation, take a break, eat a Snickers, drink some water and just chill for a few minutes. You will find that the stress subsides and your prefrontal cortex turns back on. This helps you to better recognize key indicators around you. You can now better recognize that cool tree you walked past or better see the path that you come from. This helps you to recognize known points like a specific Mountain that you are familiar with or a road that you can handrail to get back to your original destination. So if you do find yourself lost, stop, assess yourself, assess your equipment, pull all of your gear out of your bag to see if you have a phone, a compass, a sat device or anything that will help you remedy the situation. Stop and think you're way through the situation until you come up with the right solution for the problem at hand.
If you’ve never felt a survival matress when camping
you are missing out grab now ^^^^
