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In March 2025, two hikers accidentally veered towards the unstable coastal cliffs while hiking California's Lost Coast Trail. One hiker slipped and slid more than 100 feet down steep cliffs.
He managed to use a hiking pole to cling to the cliff for almost an hour, bleeding from numerous injuries and with a dislocated shoulder. It took that long for the Coast Guard to effect the tricky rescue. If he had lost his grip, he most likely would have fallen to the boulders below and been killed.
Do you believe that you have the skills and strength to survive in similar circumstances? In this article, we'll break down how mental and physical strength can work together to increase your chances of staying alive in extreme situations.
Why is Mental Strength Considered the Most Valuable in a Survival Situation?
Source: Frederick Shaw on Unsplash
When most people think about human strength, they picture muscles or maybe endurance. Most survivalists agree, however, that mental strength is the most valuable tool you have in a crisis.
As one air force survival trainer reports:
"Survival is 10 percent physical and 90 percent mental...(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. 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.”
So, how do you develop the mental strength that will sustain you in an emergency?
How Mental Strength Helps You Overcome Fear and Panic
Emergency situations are overwhelming. Physical danger can leave you feeling panicked and prompt you into taking action that isn't in your best interest. Training your brain to stay calm and respond rationally to stressors before disaster strikes helps you establish the habits that will keep your fear under control so you can make effective choices.
Why Your Brain's Reaction to Danger Can Make or Break Your Survival
Like the 5c's of survival, most experts agree that the human stress response system takes some combination of the following "4 Fs" in response to stress:
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Fight
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Flight
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Freeze
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Fawn
Each of these responses is your mind and body's attempt to keep you safe. In a survival situation, however, you need the mental calm to intentionally choose your response to the stressors. This means that you need to recognize how you instinctively respond to threats - by trying to fight them, freezing in the moment, etc. - so you can decide if that's the appropriate reaction to the emergency.
How Mental Resilience Helps You Endure Physical Discomfort
Elite athletes train their minds to push through physical discomfort. This helps with recovery from injuries and overcome challenges. Sports psychologists teach pro athletes techniques like visualization, deep breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation.
These skills are transferable to any situation that could be physically and mentally demanding. The ability to visualize a goal and keep muscles relaxed could help injured hikers, for example, keep going until they reach safety.
What Physical Strengths Are Most Valuable When Trying to Stay Alive?
Of course, physical fitness is a major factor in surviving an extreme outdoor situation. Strength and endurance will help you overcome obstacles and reach safety.
So if your next adventure goes off the rails, what are the top abilities that will help you make it?
Which Physical Abilities Give You the Best Chance to Survive in the Outdoors?
Out in the wild, even small injuries can be fatal. These elements of strength training are non-negotiable if you intend to explore remote or dangerous locations.
Muscle Structure - unconditioned muscles can easily tear under stress. Proper strength training means that your muscles are prepared to handle unexpected challenges without injury.
Mobility - your joints are some of the most vulnerable parts of your body out on the trail. Strengthening the connective tissue that binds your ankles, knees, elbows, and shoulders can prevent tears that would dramatically limit your mobility in the wilderness.
Cardiovascular - Survival in a remote place requires endurance. Strengthening your heart keeps you going through stress and physical punishment.
Balance - often overlooked, balance is a key reason that some stranded hikers and mountain climbers make it home. If you fall, you may likely be stranded in bad terrain and need to walk or crawl on hazardous footing to make rescue easier. Developing your balance can be a lifesaver.
How Do Mental and Physical Strengths Work Together in Dangerous Circumstances?
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Both elements of strength - mental and physical - need to be trained together. By viewing your body and mind as an integrated unit, you can better assess your resources during a survival situation and make life-saving decisions to work with what you have.
When Mental Fortitude Must Compensate for Physical Limitations
One adventurer shared his thought process when he sustained a bad knee injury after falling and sliding down a remote path in the punishing Texas heat. He stayed calm and took stock of his injuries. He took the steps he could to minimize the damage, like losing his boot laces. He later wrote in his blog:
"This is the same thing you did in sniper school. You survived that and you will survive this too.” Having previously completed a similar physical feat gave me the mental strength to keep going last week."
This hiker's confidence in his own abilities helped him endure the pain, the 100+ degree sun, and the hour it took to slide and crawl somewhere with cell service.
How Physical Training Improves Mental Toughness in Survival Settings
Adventure trainers like Joe Bonington teach a concept called "deep reserve." This means that when circumstances become extreme, you have an additional well of strength and endurance you can tap.
This ability to push your body just a little bit further can be developed through physical training. Consistently helping yourself go slightly further can help you develop an underlying confidence that you can overcome additional challenges. This is crucial if your boat tips, you take a fall, or the weather changes when out in the wild.
What Separates Survivors from Those Who Don't Make It in Impossible Situations?
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There are hundreds of stories of people who made it out of disastrous situations, while their companions didn't. In many cases, luck plays a significant role. In other cases, people who have the experience, training, and physical ability to survive had an added advantage.
The Mental State of Successful Survivors vs Those Who Succumb to Despair
The psychology of survival is still being explored. One philosopher holds up Plenty Coups, one of the last Chiefs of the Crow Nation, as an example. In interviews before he died, Plenty Coups said “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground,” he said, “and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.”
In essence, the heart went out of the Crow's resistance movement. Keeping a vision of success is crucial to keeping any effort alive - whether an individual's escape attempt or a group's will to resist.
How Experience and Knowledge Increase Your Odds of Survival
One British psychologist extensively studied the M.S. Estonia disaster, when a cruise ferry sank in 1994, killing 852 people. He suggested that prior experience is what helps people move past the "freeze" response to an emergency. This can give you crucial moments that make the difference between survival and death.
Interestingly, this case study also suggested that a basic level of physical fitness played a role in those who survived versus those who perished in the sea. Apart from that baseline fitness, however, the psychologist found that preparation and experience were more important elements in survival than almost any other indicator, including "age, gender, personality, or genetics."
How Can You Prepare Both Mentally and Physically for Survival Challenges?
So if fitness, preparation, and experience are the key attributes, how can you develop those ahead of a real-world challenge?
Making this even more difficult is the reality that no one can truly predict what challenges they will face. Crawling down a trail with a torn meniscus may require a different muscle set than paddling out of a dangerous river current. Any effective preparation plan must include versatile skills that can be applied in a wide variety of circumstances.
We've found that a combination of mindset training and physical endurance can prepare you for a wide variety of situations.
Training Your Mind to Overcome Negative Thoughts in Survival Situations
Source: HarpyEagle
Mindset can sound like a buzzword. But in reality, it's one of your top tools for overcoming dangerous situations.
Training your mindset requires a number of skills.
Visualization is the ability to imagine yourself completing the task or escaping the situation. This is important because it prevents your brain from focusing on the difficulty of the challenge, and instead helps your mind notice the opportunities you have to survive.
Self-regulation is the ability to bring your body and mind out of a panicked state and into a calm, problem-solving mode. Some adrenaline is not a bad thing - it can keep you energized in the moment. Panic, however, is the enemy. You can learn deep breathing and muscle relaxation to help reengage your frontal cortex.
Mindfulness is the practice of being aware of your situation and remaining in control of your response to it. This is the product of practice and preparation. No one is magically born with this skill, and anyone can learn it with practice. Sometimes, thinking through worst case scenarios can help you mentally rehearse how you would respond to various difficult situations without panicking.
Practical Ways to Build the Most Valuable Strength for Survival
If you want to know for sure that you can beat dangerous conditions, the best way to habitually prepare your body and mind. Just like any other form or preparedness, you don't need to dedicate your entire life to learning how to fight off wild animals or survive a shipwreck. Instead, it's best to focus on developing the skills that have a wide range of applications.
Strength training regularly. This will vary widely depending on your overall health and baseline fitness. If you're just starting out, gradually build your weight lifting routine to avoid injury. A personal trainer can be useful for many people who are trying to build up their strength level.
Practice endurance training. Conditions are different in the real world than in the gym. Rucking - the practice of hiking and running with a full pack - is a practical skill that has numerous survival applications. In fact, that's why it's a favored training method in the military.
Pursue self-knowledge. Survivors are well aware of their limits and their responses. Start taking note of your personal limitations and automatic responses. What do you do when annoyed, injured, sick, or sleep deprived? What are the points in a workout or hike when you feel like you hit a wall? Acknowledging these limits ahead of time can help you make reasonable decisions with your resources during an emergency.
Develop mental resilience. You don't need to put yourself in extreme situations to develop resilience. Dealing with everyday difficulties and acknowledging that you have the skills and knowledge to handle them builds your self-trust, which in turn helps you make quick decisions under pressure.
What Crucial Mental Strengths Help You Make Life-Saving Decisions?
Source: HarpyEagle
In the moment, being aware of your surroundings and noticing resources that can help you is a key strategy. This is called situational awareness. It is the ability to focus not just on your own feelings and stress response, but accurately perceiving your environment.
Prioritization is the next step. What is most important at this moment? Calling for help, placing a tourniquet, or finding shelter? You can't do everything, so decide what the most important thing is to do first.
How to Maintain Clear Thinking When Facing Extraordinary Circumstances
In a stressful situation, the animal brain takes hold. Blood rushes to our extremities and we feel the urge to run away, fight, or simply freeze up.
Practicing the 4-7-8 breathing technique can be helpful for slowing the rush of adrenaline and keeping your mind clear. Inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, then exhale slowly to a count of 8. This helps your body relax and re-engage your critical thinking.
Ways to Combat Doubt and Fear When Your Survival is at Stake
Breaking down your survival into small tasks and reminding yourself that you are capable are useful tools for staying alive.
Don't think about how your broken ankle could likely be fatal out in the woods with no cell service. Instead, tell yourself, "I can do this. I just need to make it to the end of the path." Then when you reach the end of the path, give yourself another small task. "All I have to do is move to that next intersection. I can lean on this stick to help."
Small, actionable tasks keep panic at bay and keep you from giving up.
At the End of the Day, Mental and Physical Strength are Both Needed
Despite action movies full of ripped heroes flipping Jeeps, muscles alone won't save your life in a disaster.
There's a reason why first responders and service members are intensely trained through repetition. Building mental and physical habits reduce the amount of time you have to spend deciding what to do in an emergency, and allow you to get on with the business of staying alive.
