A few thoughts on the rule of 3

For people who are accustomed to spending time in the wilderness the Rule Of 3 is common knowledge. A rule of thumb helping you prioritize correctly in a survival situation or before ending up in one. But how often do you reflect over this rule?

Here is an infographic I made to show you the importance of getting your priorities right when in the wild (Feel free use it in it’s original form):

Have you ever considered how long you can in fact survive without food or water though? And did you consider the rule not always being relevant in all environments? Say during summer in temperate climates where shelter could be secondary to water or maybe even food?

I’m thinking it would be nice to know, for motivational reasons, how long people have survived. Let’s say you end up in survival situation where you have to extend the time frames of the rule of 3. Wouldn’t it be motivating to know that someone had made it for even longer?

You only have to look at some of the more recent survival reports to realize that your mental attitude outweighs any other principle or rule in survival. Take for example an incident from Umeå, Sweden in 2012 where a 45 year old man got snowbound in his car for 8 weeks with no food at all and survived. An even more recent incident is from Australia less than three weeks ago where a 62 old hunter survived for 6 days without water. He survived by staying in the shade and eating ants. Something he had learned from watching survival TV.

Our body is capable of amazing things if our mind doesn’t give up on us. And if you can think straight in a survival situation you have a far better chance of making it. Your mind allows you to be creative and inventive. So if you’re in an environment with no or only little risk of hypothermia you may want to start looking for water straight away. Because staying hydrated keeps your mind healthy as well as your body. And although you may be able to survive for three days without water. You may not be able to stay focused without it for more than 24 hours.

I ran a course this summer challenging a few of my fellow bushcraft/survivalist friends to spend 24 hours in the wild with a minimal amount of gear. With 2 liters of water plus 4 items of your own choice it wasn’t a survival test. But what we learned was really interesting: Although everything except long pants, shoes and a shirt counted as extra items the hardest part of the 24 hours wasn’t settling with the small amount of gear, water and food. It was boredom and a certain amount of apathy. Sure I was hungry after 18 hours of being physically active and getting only a little food. But waking up the next morning with all the basics taken care of (shelter, fire, water and food) I was just plain bored and waiting for time to run out so I could get a proper meal instead of what I had been able to forage. 4 hours before the challenge was over we even talked about breaking up earlier because we had basically “made it”. Which in fact would have meant that we had failed our mission.

So getting you priorities right doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to make it in a survival situation. And also not getting them right doesn’t mean you are doomed for failure either of course. But the Rule Of 3 is a great rule and I suggest you use it to get your priorities right. Just remember to stay active and keep a positive mind.

Links:

Missing hunter ‘survived on ants’ and didn’t drink
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3270216/Missing-hunter-survived-ants-didn-t-drink-water-SIX-days-going-missing-Outback-hunting-camel.html

Sweden snow: Man ‘survives two months trapped in car’
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17088173
How did Swedish man survive in this frozen car at -30C for TWO MONTHS?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103339/Swedish-man-Peter-Skyllberg-survives-frozen-car-months-eating-handfuls-snow.html
Sixty days under the snow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWloyZwSu-I