At the Heart of Surviving--Panic Control

I love this guy's blog, Deep Survival. Laurence Gonzales is an author/survival expert/columnist at National Geographic Adventure. He's got a wealth of worthwhile articles in his blog archive.

This one, published a few weeks ago, gets at the very core of what it means to survive. Click on the title below to read the whole article.

How to Control Panic

Excerpt:

When we hear the word “panic,” most of us imagine someone running around and screaming. But panic takes many forms. It can be thought of simply as any behavior that occurs when the level of stress or emotion is high enough to prevent conscious thought and deliberate decision-making.

For example, most people panic when they fall or when they’re knocked down. The panic may be brief and not very intense, such as when you slip on ice and scramble to get back up. But it can also be incredibly powerful. In the summer of 2000, a 35-year-old climber in Alberta grabbed a loose hold while soloing the southwest face of Mount Colin and fell more than 200 feet, hitting solid rock at the bottom. He died from extensive trauma, but even in his panicked state he was still trying to get back up.

In emergencies, such a powerful natural response can seem nearly impossible to suppress.

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