How to settle your nerves in a difficult situation.

Sometimes you find yourself in a state of worry or panic. When your hands are freezing, you're lost in the deep wood, you're in the first few days of adaptations, you're new to the game of survival outdoors, and your vehicle malfunctions—whatever. Relax. Force your tongue into the whole roof of your mouth and continuously breathe through your nose—it will help and calm you. Make decisions and stick to them and say to yourself, "Relax—it's going to be O.K." You have made it this far in life. Taking care of your physical health in the form of nutritious food is important too. 

Breathing through your nose and pulling in air by relaxing your diaphragm and gut, not expanding your chest, is a huge one; this is deep abdominal breathing and will relax the area around your adrenals and slow down your sympathetic nervous system (in charge of flight or flight), making you calmer and psychologically equipped to handle stress; practice this breathing at all times. Breathing properly (through your nose) is merged with tongue posture. To properly nose breathe and have good health and body posture, you need good tongue posture; to do this, you should keep your whole tongue, from the back to tip, on the roof of your mouth except when speaking or eating. Creat a vacuum lock in the back of you  mouth by lifting your tongue. You also must keep your mouth shut and teeth touching (near clenched). Most people haven't done this through life, so thier face is too small to accommodate their full tongue resting on the upper part of the mouth: start from scratch and make sure that at all times at least the fat back part of the tongue is pressed up on the roof; the front tip will likely have to be curld down to your lower jaw area but should still run the full surface of the roof of your mouth; all this, pluggs the airway that is the mouth (but keeps the fat part from plugging the airway that runs from the nose behind it), puts pressure on your upper pallet, ensures good over all facial development (especially if you start young), and helps ultimately to maintain focus under pressure.

I have developed a speculation that hunting has always been a thoughtful, calm experience for man and not the huffing and puffing, heart racing experiencecer we are fed by American movie makers. A study was done in which experimenters found that while mouth breathing, the hand/eye coordination areas of the brain were not active at all, leading me to the conclusion that our dexterity abilities as a species have evolved only to be fully utilized while we are in a rest and recover state, a state most people today (certainly chronic mouth breathers) rarely, if ever, truly experience.

In the same vein, tape your lips at night—another huge one. How often have you woken up in a sourceless panic, mouth dry and gaping open? A night of nose breathing will give you a deeply restful sleep, leaving you ready for the next day.

Another tip is to focus on the tasks that need to be done before moving into a cold or dangerous state and then complete them in order of importance in a methodical and deliberate way. Focus and work when you feel like giving up. Think and work and just do the best your gut and reason can guide you how.

I eat dry meat—I find that pounding the meat to a powder not only saves meat, because you are digesting more, but also I find I have far fewer negative thoughts when there are fewer dried chunks of dried meat in my gut—more powdered meat.

Know that it's a different jungle out there, particularly if you are new to the scene. 

Don't give up on reality, and don't rely on faith.

You will fail often, especially at first, but follow your gut and you will survive.

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