TIME. TIME. TIME is the main problem. Or rather, lack of time. Too little time to plan, to decide, to execute the plan.

Your usual coping strategies, even your best ones, may not work in a crisis. New strategies for gathering information, judging its usefulness, and deciding on the best option are absolutely necessary.

You've probably never faced a situation like this. That's why it's a "CRISIS". Otherwise, it would be a problem or a challenge, but not a crisis. For a problem or a challenge, you have a set of learned behaviors, such as 1. gather the facts, 2. consider options, 3. choose the best, then 4. act. There is no need to be fast thinking, no time restriction.

In a crisis, you need perceptual skills of a different order. You must be quick to look, listen, feel, and smell to gather the pertinent information for survival. In our culture, we've seldom had to do this. Maybe never before.

Some practice helps.

Once you've gathered the danger information, the exit information, the key pieces of the environmental data, you must quickly choose the best option, one you've never tried before, and then do it.

Our habits, our usual mental patterns, probably won't work here. You can't take the elevator, and which stairs, up or down? Maybe the only exits are windows. Do they open? If not, how do you break the glass? What floor are you on? How high up are you? A million questions to answer with your perceptions and only a few moments to find the best answers.

How do you prepare for a crisis?

Here are some suggestions to lay down some synapses in your memory so if the real thing happens, you will have rehearsed for faster, better decisions.

The first mistake you may make is the result of the way the brain processes your perceptions. The brain's first response is, of course, fight or flight or freeze. For all of these responses the brain first activates patterns you've already used. This may evoke the worst possible response.

Instead of falling into a habitual pattern, you probably need to become creative. Non-survivors of Hurricane Katrina barricaded their doors and drowned when the first wave hit.

The survivors used their doors as rafts to float out. Creative thinking.

If you only see one option to the crisis, take a moment to find two more, then select the best. And be creative while thinking up options. Creative thinking, here, simply means to find new uses or solutions for available objects or situations. <more>

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