Mental Fortitude for Emergency Preparedness

We've all experienced a fight-or-flight response to everyday stresses. When our survival instincts kick in, they can prompt us to act in ways that are counter to our best interests and aren't always predictable. 

So how can we prepare for adversity in a way that doesn't resort to our animal instincts? Learning how to develop mental strength can be as important in an emergency as physical ability. We'll explain. 

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Mental Toughness: What Does It Mean?

The word "toughness" might make you think of a suck-it-up mentality that refuses to acknowledge hardship. On the contrary, studies of mental toughness indicate that successful people have developed stronger psychological coping mechanisms to deal with hardship. 

In other words, they have a better understanding of their own emotions, stressors, and thought patterns, which leads them to develop better control over them. 

A good working definition: the ability to stay calm and focused during a crisis and persevere through hardship. Mental toughness and resilience are similar concepts. 

Mental toughness has mostly been evaluated in the world of sports and warfare; two realms where a competitive attitude and the ability to push past physical discomfort are important. This is why it's a useful concept when discussing possible crisis scenarios, which would almost certainly involve physical hardship and courage. 

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This makes mental toughness a little more specific than resilience or perseverance, which is generally understood as the ability to withstand various physical and emotional hardships (serious hospitalization, a breakup, death of a loved one, loss of a job) with your sense of self and the ability to keep going intact.  

Developing Mental Toughness

Mental toughness sounds like a great thing to have - so how do we develop it? This may come as a surprise, but as a kid, you're mentally tough genetically. Over time though, as we fail to cultivate our emotions and our mental fortitude, we start losing that edge.

Research from sports has informed the military's approach. When training soldiers to have a readiness mindset, there were two goals:

• Inhibit the avoidance response - in other words, train your brain not to run away from frightening things while you're going through tough tasks
• Encourage the approach response - in other words, get you in the habit of running towards the source of the problem and doing something to address it. Mental toughness helps us in overcoming difficulties instead of shirking away.

Humans have a biological desire to survive that causes us to stay in our comfort zones and avoid risk. This can work against our best interests in a survival situation or even in everyday situations like addressing a problem at work or in a relationship. Higher levels of mental toughness can help you survive in a scenario where there are real threats that need to be dealt with. 

Key Components of Mental Fortitude

It isn't just a personality trait that some are born with and others lack. Mental toughness and grit can be developed, just like a muscle.

• Train for challenging situations: push yourself consistently to try new things. This helps build on previous successes. 
• Step outside your comfort zone: you should get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. This helps build your capacity for what you believe you can handle.
• Practice persistence. Reframe failures in your mind by saying "I just haven't succeeded yet, but I can't be stopped." 

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What is a Tough Attitude? 

Picture a Navy Seal. These elite soldiers don't let anything rattle them. For them, mental toughness means everything. Some of the qualities that lead to this kind of mindset include:

• Strong focus - keep your goal in mind and don't let any discouragement or discomfort distract you
• Self-belief - don't doubt yourself. Believe that you are unstoppable and you will act like you are. 
• Self-control - know that an emotional response is inevitable, but that it doesn't control you. 

Is Mental Toughness Genetic?

It's extremely hard to prove that mental toughness isn't or is genetic, since your environment plays such a big role on your development and that can't objectively be studied apart from your family background.

Some researchers think that there's a genetic component to resilience, but almost all agree that it can be shaped by your circumstances and your own initiative. 

The bottom line: you're able to build mental strength through practice, just like any other mindset habit. 

Traits of Mentally Strong Individuals

TSgt. Lee Young teaches Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape courses to Air Force members. He asserts: 

“Survival is 10 percent physical and 90 percent mental,” Lee said. “(It takes) someone who’s mentally strong and has the willpower to endure. These are the people who make it out of a survival situation because they have high mental fortitude and are trained to be mentally tough athletes through relentless physical activity. You need food and water, but if you don’t have that mental strength and you quit within the first few days, then your life is over.”

These mentally strong individuals share several characteristics: 

• confidence
• control
• commitment
• constructive view of challenges 

These "four C's" help them to manage stress in truly dangerous situations and recover quickly from obstacles. They don't focus on what they wish the situation could be or their doubts about their ability. They focus on small wins, don't accept failure as an option, and constantly work towards progress even in the face of serious setbacks. 

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Civilians might not face the harrowing training that these airmen do, but they can still apply this training to their everyday lives. When you're faced with a difficult situation, apply those "four c's." 

Maybe you got home from work and your basement was flooded. Instead of getting angry and storming around the house complaining about how you hate living here, accept that this is happening. Tell yourself that you have the ability to deal with this problem and that you will handle it. If and when your solutions fail, commit to trying something else until you succeed. Treat every setback as simply an obstacle to be overcome. 

Practicing this mindset constantly with everyday challenges can help you build mental toughness, so you'll be prepared if a true life-or-death crisis ever occurs. 

Benefits of Mental Toughness for Emergency Preparedness

Your mind and body aren't two separate systems - they're one, interconnected complex network. Training both your mind and body can pay off in a SHTF scenario as mental toughness is needed to be able to think clearly. Without mental toughness, it's very likely that you'll panic.

Developing patterns of thinking where you envision yourself in control and capable train your mind to kick into problem-solving mode in a crisis, instead of fight-or-flight mode. This in turn helps control the cortisol and adrenaline shooting through your nervous system, keeping you from becoming too impulsive.

One way to do this is to envision the result you want to see.   

Sports psychology shows that envisioning yourself crossing the finish line or scoring the goal is almost as helpful as actually physically practicing those skills to your overall success.  

Not only does this help you face challenges when they arise, it can improve your physical health even if a true crisis never materializes. The Cleveland Clinic even suggests and reports that mental toughness can also (which includes resilience) can reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, and dementia. And, while mental toughness can give great results and lead to improved performance, it can also lower stress levels, resulting in more benefits that are generally associated with lower cortisol levels. Just like exercise and mental health are self-reinforcing, training yourself to think positively can help you push past your limits when you really need to. 

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Studies of crisis psychology show that mental toughness may help you stay calm and focused in a dangerous situation. This helps you avoid the common stress responses - like denial or panic - and focus on solutions and helping others. 

The ability to see yourself as tough and capable and problems as solvable leads you to make better decisions under stress. It also can help you keep going long after you thought you could. 

Building Resilience

Resilience is one aspect of mental toughness. It's the ability to adapt and recover in the face of challenges. 

This means that you have developed the ability to cope with hard things in a healthy and productive way. We all need to build this practice though facing the things we find difficult in life, practicing self-compassion for those things, and moving forward without resorting to negative coping mechanisms like denial or blame-shifting.

For example, astronaut Don Thomas shares that he was rejected from the Space Program four times before he finally made it. This just made him study harder, learn more skills, and figure out how to "move on" until he finally met his goal. That's resilience. 

How Mental Toughness Affects Handling Intense Situations

Mental toughness builds up patterns of thinking that help you handle intense situations. These can include 

• Stressful workplace situations
• Personal and professional relationships
• Athletic performance 
• Discouraging situations 
• Tough decisions 

Picture your life like the Situation Room. By training yourself to believe that you can make tough calls and persevere through any discouragement, you're less likely to quit and more likely to keep your emotions regulated when things get hard.

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Steps to Achieving a Higher Level of Mental Fortitude

There are a number of steps you can take to help you build your mental toughness:. It's a good idea to start small and build on your progress.

Most of us weren't taught how to train our minds, just our bodies. So it's a skill that takes some time to learn and you will inevitably experience setbacks along that way. That's good news though - it will just give you more opportunities to develop resilience. 

Understand your "why": Name your goal and repeat it to yourself often. Why do you want to train for this marathon or get that college degree? Are you doing it to provide for your family? Maybe so you won't have to depend on someone else? Naming your motivation helps you keep your eye on the prize. These goals are personal and much stronger than someone else telling you what to do. 

Change negative patterns: We all have negative thought patterns and coping mechanisms. Even if you have no personal history of mental illness, there are still "soundtracks" that each person carries in their mind that can be changed once you realize what they are. Start by replacing "I'm not good enough to do that" with "I'm going to do this." Cultivate a growth mindset that doesn't accept limitations or defeat as final. 

A mental health professional or a coach can be a good resource to help you recognize those negative patterns and actively change them. 

Practice mindfulness: Learn breathing techniques to calm your nervous system and bring your emotions back into regulation. Exerting control over the self is the first step to addressing difficult circumstances. 

In military studies of mindfulness, recruits were instructed to practice breathing into a count of 5 and out to a count of 7 to slow their heart rate. They also practiced skills like a "body scan" where they practiced relaxing muscle groups, and a "mind scan," where they took a mental inventory of all their thoughts and emotions without passing judgement on them. These are all skills that anyone can do, regardless of their physical fitness, to bring their nervous system back into regulation and help them focus on the task at hand. 

Journal: You'd be surprised by the patterns you can notice over time by consistently writing down your thoughts and experiences. Journaling also helps process your emotions, keeping them from being bottled up and exploding in negative ways. 

Practice self-compassion: Treat yourself like a person you are training. Keep encouraging yourself and keep your mental soundtrack full of encouragement. Reframe failures and learning experiences and opportunities for growth. This helps you avoid the pitfalls of overreliance on mental toughness.

While most of us probably need to develop more resilience and mental fortitude in our everyday lives, it's also important to get help when it's needed and rely on others for a healthy life, too. Our bodies and minds aren't designed to "push through" permanently without taking time to rest, recover, and process our experiences. 

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Take action: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Being prepared for a crisis helps you stay calm instead of panicking. 

Check out our series of videos on emergency preparedness at MIRA University to know how to face a disaster:

Results of Building Mental Toughness

 Mentally tough people handle challenges better. Even if you are physically stronger than everyone you know, resilience and confidence are crucial tools. This is why military basic training includes superior officers screaming in your face - it takes a belief in your own ability to keep pushing forward in the face of negative feedback. 

These are skills everyone can develop. By starting small and retraining your brain, you can develop a new narrative of success that helps you take actionable steps in the face of crisis. 

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