Consider a plane crash, for example, such as the one that occurred some years ago at a Canary Islands airport, when a KLM plane and a Pan Am aircraft collided on the runway.
A psychologist interviewed many of the Pan Am survivors, including a Dallas couple in their 70s, named Jim and Delores McKenzie.
When the disaster occurred, it was a fiery mess of mangled metal. To anyone watching from the outside, it was obvious that anyone inside should evacuate immediately.
But as Delores McKenzie reported in her follow-up interview, she didn't panic in the normal sense. And she certainly didn't rush to get out of the plane.
Instead, she simply sat in her seat... stunned.
She thought she was going to die. But she was not afraid. Though religious, she did not pray.
Luckily for Delores, a few moments later, her husband Jim got up from his seat and yelled at his wife to follow him. If he hadn't done this, Delores McKenzie says she would have died that day.
And here's the amazing thing...
As Delores McKenzie made her way to the exit that day, following her husband's orders, she remembers passing the couple they were traveling with. They weren't obviously hurt. But they weren't moving either.
Instead they simply sat in their seats, hands folded in their laps, staring straight ahead.
And it wasn't just Delores McKenzie's friends who sat still, stunned... unable to move, because of "negative panic."
As the McKenzie's calmly walked towards the exit, they saw many other passengers doing the exact same thing... just sitting there... frozen by "negative panic."
Today, Delores McKenzie believes that if she had simply yelled at her friends and the other passengers, many more might have made it out of the plane alive.
But Delores McKenzie was not thinking rationally. It simply never occurred to her to do anything but follow her husband's order.
This is a classic example of the disastrous effects of "Negative Panic."
Something similar occurred after the recent Boston Marathon bombings...
A Florida runner told his local newspaper, after returning home from the disaster, that: "We heard something and everyone froze wherever they were, even in the street. No one knew what was going on. It took about a half hour before news reports began filtering in."
Again, this is the essence of "Negative Panic."
It causes people to basically freeze... even in the face of incredible risk and danger.
And here's the important point...
Most people think they know how they'll respond in a crisis.
But in reality, most people react very differently than they expect. And the problem is, understanding how your body and your brain will react in a crisis situation is absolutely critical to your survival.
#1. To understand how your mind and body react in a crisis, and how to master control of both of those things... and:
#2. To know exactly what steps you must take. In other words to have a plan.
The first thing you must do is recognize that in almost any crisis you may have to deal with "Negative Panic" and the corresponding "Disbelief" stage. Simply recognizing that these stages exist will make you more likely to be able to move past them, to deal with the situation.
It's a very simple strategy, used by the Green Berets, the FBI, and police officers around the country... and it's called "Combat Breathing" in some circles... and "Tactical Breathing" in others.
Here's how to do it.
First, breathe in for a regular count of four.
Next, hold your breath for a count for four.
Then, exhale for a count of four.
And finally, count to four before starting the sequence over again.
That's it.
I know, it sounds incredibly simple, but the next time you feel highly stressed... or even the slightest bit panicked, give it a shot for just a minute.
"It keeps you very calm. You don't start to hyperventilate or panic. Everything just kind of goes in slow motion for you. You say, OK, here's what's going on, I can handle this... it's not that bad."
Amanda Ripley did an excellent job of reporting on this in her crisis survival book, called The Unthinkable.
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Until next time,
73 from N7OZH
