Morale Boosters

Good, positive psychology becomes critical during a disruptive or grid down event. People deal with disruption based on their own experiences, expectations, and even current mood. Fear and panic can occur even in the most hardened soldier when things go sideways quickly. Maintaining morale and keeping a positive attitude throughout a long-term event can become critical, even life-saving, very quickly. Below are some items and methods to keep you and your loved ones thinking positive during a disaster.

Food

An empty stomach can lead to being hangry (which is a real thing), cause serious lapses in judgement and reasoning, and in the later stages of advanced hunger, cause small-muscle trembling and loss of coordination needed for precise physical activities. A steaming cup of coffee or hot chocolate; a warm delicious meal; a glass of a good bourbon ... all of these things can dramatically improve mode and outlook during a disruptive event. Food = nutrition which can restore focus and increase positive decision making, but the food has to be edible and, to an extend, enjoyable. 

A lone-prepper waiting out a power outage may be fully content gagging down MREs and reminiscing about his or her military days, but an 8 year old in the same situation would likely refuse such a meal (and I wouldn't blame them.) The primary thing to consider when stocking up on food for your preparations is just that; how good and tasty is the food you're storing? It has to be something your family or group wants to eat.

Of course nutritional value is another huge factor to consider when storing your food preps. Cases of popcorn as a primary meal is not going to provide the energy needed to perform physical tasks, though a few bags of popcorn to serve as a treat would be helpful. As cliché as it sounds your food stores need to be delicious and nutritious. 

Music

Good tunage can make or break a situation. Just ask Beatles fans who went and saw Yoko Ono in concert. A weather radio should already be on your list of preps, and one that gets AM/FM frequencies can help provide mood-lightening music. If you have the power (stored batteries, generator w/ charging cord, etc...) an MP3 player and decent speaker can allow you to customize your play list and avoid counter productive commercials from the radio and allow your weather radio to remain tuned to the emergency channel while you listen to music. 

Kill me now.

The selection of music should be carefully considered. Our ex-military prepper may enjoy a little hate-thrasher melodies, but our 8 year old may not. Then again, a playlist with nothing but Barney and Kidz Bop may prove so annoying to older adults they may wish the disaster would have taken their lives so they could have some peace. Streaming services like Spotify and Pandora allow you to not just customize multiple playlists, but download them onto your device so they can be played offline. The downside to those options is there is a monthly subscription fee.

Video Games/Electronics

Again, this one's dependent on power options, but if you can swing it hooking up a console or playing games on a charged phone can provide a distraction for a few minutes. Due to the power restriction, time playing such games should be very limited. Still "kids these days" are highly dependent on electronics for continuous and random engagement. Admittedly a teenager, or even a young adult, denied access to electronics may quickly become demoralized and depressed. Allowing small periods of electronic engagement may boast their spirits for a time. 

Books or Games

This is one for us older folks; engaging books and literature can provide hours of distraction and boast morale by taking our minds off of things. Non-electronic games such as board and card games can also be good distractions until the event is over.

Conversation and Humor

Sometimes conversation amongst humans can be enlightening and engaging and help pass the time. However, sometimes not so much. Caution must be taken to keep the conversation up-beat and positive. Conversations among people with different political or religious bents should most-likely be avoided as they can lead to the extreme opposite of a higher morale....such as beating the crap out of one another.

Humor's an excellent way of keeping attitudes high and happy as well. Again it's angled toward individual tastes and audience appropriateness, but having funny cable programs or stand up comedian performances on bluray or flash drives to be placed on a computer can seriously boast outlook of an otherwise dire or boring situation.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of experience, the unexpected, such as a disaster event, can have devastating effects on morale of an individual or entire group. Anticipating this emotional-hit and compensating for it in your preparedness plan can help assuage issues called by low morale before they even start to take root.

I have an 18 year old son who's been my prepping buddy for years. One day, when he was 16, we were sitting around the house going through our bug-out bags and he was showing me all the progress he'd made. I asked him, "What about a morale booster? Have anything for that?" I fully expected the question to trip him up, but instead he looked me straight in the eye and replied, "Oh yeah, I got that covered." He promptly pulled out a picture of him and I and said with a knowing smile, "I keep this handy at all times." I gotta say, it choked me up a bit and filled me with pride, believing in his darkest moments he would pull out that picture and be strengthened emotionally and mentally.

Me with my youngest son and prepping buddy.

Peace.