Prepare your mind

Anticipate

It’s going to get stressful.

Think about what things might happen during an emergency that will cause stress. Is it being separated from family? Not knowing what is going on? The sounds, smells or sights of what is happening? Write these down.

How do you think you will react to the stress? How do you usually react to highly stressful situations? Think about how you might feel during an emergency and what you and others might be thinking. Write these down.

Common feelings include anxiety, fear, general stress, uncertainty and feeling helpless.

Although these reactions are very natural, they may stop you from preparing or acting, so it’s important to acknowledge them and manage them better when they happen.

Identify

Your feelings and thoughts.

How you feel in highly stressful situations is strongly affected by the way you cope with the physical signs of anxiety and the thoughts running through your head.

We experience anxiety in a variety of ways, including upset stomach, irritability, headaches, shortness of breath and tightness in the chest.

For children, it might include anxious behaviour, such as excessive clinging.

Try to also identify any frightening and negative thoughts you might have. Do those thoughts help or hinder? Some typical, but unhelpful thoughts include things like: "I can’t do this", "I’m hopeless", "Why didn’t I ...?", "I don’t know what to do", "It can’t be that bad".

Manage

Your feelings and thoughts.

Use familiar techniques to help manage your feelings or try the following:

• Practice calming techniques, such as deep, relaxed breathing or mindfulness (use a smartphone app such as Smiling Mind to help you get started)
• Replace frightening thoughts with more helpful ones like: "Breathe calmly", "I can handle this", "I’m coping".
• Try not to focus on the bad things that might happen, but instead tell yourself that the calmer you are, the better you’ll be at managing exactly what needs to be done.

Here are some other things you can do

• Complete this worksheet to help prepare your mind and build wellbeing resilience.
• Do practical preparedness measures. This will give you a sense of being in control and having acted. Follow our preparedness advice to help with this.
• Here’s some further information from Phoenix Australia on preparing emotionally for disaster.