I
started writing this article more than a month ago, at that time COVID-19 was
only in Wuhan, China. Now, obviously
it’s everywhere. And while the main
thrust of this article is about what to do if you are “misplaced” in the
wilderness, today many, many people are anxious and suffering from sleepless
nights, because of the corona virus.
Getting plenty of rest, so you can control your fears and anxieties is
important in any crisis, whether you are turned around in the woods or dealing
with a virus – Author’s note.
“Princess
Bride!”, you say, “That’s a romantic fantasy from the 80s! What does that have that have to do with
survival and woodlore?” Yes, this is
a quote from a romantic fantasy movie, but the advice to “get some rest”
is actually very good survival advice. “But,
it’s okay to miss some sleep,” you think, “it’s no big deal, I can sleep
after I’m rescued, right?”
Wrong! Read on to find out why...
Fatigue
and fear, fear and fatigue, a deadly spiral.
Being tired or fatigued makes it difficult to control your fears and being
afraid can cause you to become more tired or fatigued (for more on fear and
survival read “What Are You Scared Of?! ©”, HERE). But just why are your tired and fatigued? Perhaps, it is muscular fatigue caused by
overexertion or over-exercise, the inevitable consequence of performing
important and necessary physical survival tasks, such as lifting, carrying,
walking, etc. Perhaps you are mentally fatigued,
because of your psychological reaction to the “Seven Enemies of Survival”: cold,
thirst, hunger, boredom, loneliness, pain and fatigue. Don’t forget that being fatigued, mentally or
physically, will make you increasingly more tired and fatigued, over time, as
you struggle with this and the other enemies of survival. The only way to recover from fatigue is to
rest. But what if you haven’t been sleeping?
The Rule of Threes, graphic by the author. |
Just as, on average, you can’t live longer than three days without water; you can’t live more than three days without sleep. “But” you say, “that 17-year-old kid, Randy Gardner went without sleeping for 264 hours, almost 11 days, back in 1965!” Your right he did, at a school science fair, all-in-all a pretty tame place. By the end of his record setting ordeal, Randy Gardner, although awake, was cognitively dysfunctional2. Would he have been able to stay awake for 264 hours in the middle of the wilderness, without hallucinating, falling, accidentally getting wet and hypothermic, hurting himself, etc., I don’t think so, and here is why.
An excerpt from “Sleep Deprivation Is The Same As Being Drunk, Study Says”, by Kristina Rodulfo |
According
to current studies, going without sleep affects the body in the same way as drinking
alcohol does. Even moderate sleep
deprivation impairs your alertness, your memory and your motor performance and precision. In fact, after only 17 to 19 hours without
sleep, you will perform as if your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was 0.08%,
which is considered impaired by US law. For
the average sized American woman, this would mean drinking three standard drinks
in an hour, and for the average sized American man, it would take drinking four
standard drinks in an hour, to reach a BAC of 0.08%3.
An excerpt from On Combat, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Loren W. Christensen, page 24, showing the effects of not sleeping on performance. |
The
US Army performed a study, shown above, which underscored how going without
sleep will affect you the same way as drinking alcohol does. This study documented a drastic drop off in
performance and efficiency as the amount of sleep declined. In this study Groups Two, Three and Four were
kept awake between 18 and 20 hours each day for 20 days. During this experiment their performance
dropped to only 15%, for Group Four, and to 50%, for Group Two, of their peak task
efficiency: in effect they performed the same as if they had been drinking and
had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08%!
Now,
many people go without sleeping for 24 hours, it isn’t that uncommon. However, not sleeping for more than 24 hours
will affect you the same way as if your blood alcohol concentration is at
0.10%, the equivalent of four standard alcoholic drinks. And the effects of not sleeping get
progressively worse after 24 hours. In
fact, as Healthline.com notes, the effects of going without sleep for more than
24 hours include, drowsiness, irritability, impaired decision-making and
judgement, impaired hearing and vision, decreased hand-eye coordination,
increased muscle tension and tremors. In
addition, you might begin to experience altered perceptions or hallucinations
and memory deficits. All these combined, increase
your risk of having an accident, and in the wilderness, just as on the highway,
an accident can be fatal. The only good
news is these symptoms will all go away once you have had some sleep.
After
just 36 hours without sleep, only a day and a half, according to Healthline.com,
you can expect to suffer from hormonal imbalances, which can alter your
appetite, metabolism, temperature, mood and ability to deal with stress. Additionally, you will be prone to making
risky decisions, have inflexible reasoning, a decreased ability to pay
attention, a lack of motivation and a difficult time speaking and choosing
words.
After
48 hours, or two days, without sleeping you will begin to experience “microsleeps”,
which are involuntary naps where your brain will shut down, lapsing into a
trance like state that might last from 15 to 30 seconds.
And
finally, after 72 hours, or three days, without sleep, Healthline.com reports
that on top of all the previous symptoms you will have an increased difficulty thinking,
multitasking and remembering. You might
also experience hallucinations, where you see things that aren’t there.
In
a wilderness survival situation, would you drink until you were drunk? No, of course not! But if you don’t sleep, that is exactly what
you are doing. And hallucinating and
seeing things that aren’t there can seriously impact your chances of surviving
a wilderness emergency, so...
An excerpt from the 1969 edition of Survival Training Edition, AF Manual 64-3, page 1-134. |
So,
work smarter not harder and when you can rest, REST! If all your immediate survival needs are met,
take a nap, sleep! Sleeping will lower
your metabolism, helping you to conserve vital and scarce energy, it will
decrease you level of fatigue, helping you to think more clearly and control
fear, and it will increase your task efficiency when you are performing
critical survival chores.
An excerpt from the 1969 edition of Survival Training Edition, AF Manual 64-3, page 1-13. |
Remember “...fatigue is an enemy of survival. Try to set up a program of rest.” a quote and an excerpt from the 1969 edition of Survival Training Edition, AF Manual 64-3, page 1-14. |
So,
if you become tired, either when you have become physically or mentally
fatigued, rest, take a nap! Remember
Count Rugen’s advice “Get some rest.
If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.”
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.
Don’t forget to follow me on both The
Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE,
and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free
to leave a comment on either site. I
announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
1 From
the movie, Princess Bride, 1987, 20th Century Fox. I am aware that if you can quote most of the
movie from memory that you are kinda a geek, however in my defense and as
someone who has studied fencing, sword fighting and stick-fighting for more than
30 years; the sword fighting is exceptional and the sword masters that they
talk about while fighting at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity were real
swordsmen, whose writings I have studied.
2 J. Christian Gillin, “How Long Can Humans Stay
Awake?”
3
In the United States, the term “standard drink” refers to a drink which
contains enough alcohol to raise an average person’s BAC by between 0.02% and
0.025%. One standard drink is considered
to be one 12 fluid ounce (355 ml) of 5% alcohol by volume (ABV) beer, or one 5
fluid ounce (148 ml) of 12% ABV wine, or one 1.5 fluid ounce (44 ml) of 40% ABV
(80 proof) shot of hard liquor. So, two
standard drinks will raise your blood alcohol concentration to about 0.05%,
three standard drinks will raise your BAC to about 0.08%, and four standard
drinks will equal 0.10% BAC, without taking size differences into
consideration. The general rule of thumb
is, for an average sized American woman it takes drinking three standard drinks
in an hour, and for an average sized American man it takes drinking four standard
drinks in an hour to reach a BAC of 0.08%.
Editorial Staff, “How Many Drinks Does it Take
to Reach a .08 BAC?”
Patrick T. Barone, “How Many Drinks Does it
Take to Get to a .05 Legal Limit?”,
4
A good PDF copy of the 1969, Survival Training Edition, AF Manual 64-3,
is available at https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QafWD_tnrQah_123Vdzf3cUpFscGc1tFZ-mbT-8cLuvT6d1JOFoeQlpZjQbXWlXEO-JRFjM2zPz-X6Onjky9dyQvtAsro4vU1ZyTDJZU2lPkGAIbXdRTWZjN_ADI4wxK69JTKD-WtXPfLP_9sXVUEJgUJUgaNEHZBDz_cCT8MAu1Gh2rvykD-jv0vtmQtE1Lk6RTR3yH4u_3X1lFrKXyAqoFohpKGI1xiMRoW0iOYD3g5JH6DHIjKdb6uFLL07Ijf42tXamK
Sources
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of the Air Force, Survival Training Edition, AF Manual 64-3, [US
Government Printing Office, Washington DC August 15, 1969] p 1.13 - 1.15
Editorial Staff, “How
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Gillin, J. Christian;
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