Here are eleven survival skills we should all know and we are also including why they are vital. There are so many skills to learn, but these skills, in particular, will help you survive when all hell breaks loose. Keep a pen and paper handy because you will want to make notes!

* Thaw Cold Feet
Prolonged exposure of your feet to the cold can result in frostbite– an injury caused by the freezing of skin and its underlying tissue. In the first stage of frostbite, you won’t experience any permanent skin damage. However, if you don’t begin thawing your cold feet, it can progress to a more serious form of frostbite. When frostbite becomes really severe, all of the skin in your feet, as well as all underlying tissue, will turn black and die.
How to Do it: Begin swinging your leg back and forth forcefully (sort of like a pendulum). Inertia will begin forcing blood back to the tips of your toes. Believe it or not, this simple act can be very effective at fighting the effects of frostbite. What you should not do is rub or massage frozen skin. This will likely make the symptoms worse. This tip won’t necessarily “prevent” frostbite from happening, but it can buy you some time.

* Find the North
This is one of those survival skills that goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. While the technique in #24 showed you how to estimate distance traveled, the following technique will tell you the direction you’re traveling. Think about it: calculating your distance traveled means nothing if you’re going in the wrong direction. This is incredibly useful for when you have a map but no compass (either you lost it or forgot to bring one).
How to Do it: Take an analog watch and hold it flat. Make sure the hour hand is aimed towards the sun. South will be halfway between the hour hand and 12. Additionally, north will be 180-degrees in the opposite direction. I know what you’re probably thinking, “There’s no way that’s accurate!” I can assure you that it’s pretty accurate. Next time that you’re on a hike, or have some free time, test it out. It’s one of the most important survival skills you can have.

* Orient Yourself Using the Moon
Being able to navigate and orient yourself using the moon is not only really useful, but it’s also pretty cool! There aren’t many survival “experts” out there who know how to do it. It’s something that people did several hundred years ago when traveling, and it can be used equally effectively today. I hope that you remember it the next time you go for a hike.
How to Do it: If you see a crescent moon (a moon that’s partway between a between a half moon and new moon) before the sun goes down, then the side that’s illuminated will be facing the west. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you agree? Additionally, if it rises after midnight, then its bright side is going to face the east. In general, using the North Star is an easier and more reliable way to navigate, but this method can come in handy for when you can’t see the stars.

* Escape Biting Insects
When in the wild, you should make it your goal to expose yourself to as few insects as possible. The more you come in contact with them, the more likely you are to get bitten. This applies to all types of insects. In some cases, these bites can lead to an infection. For these reasons, survival skills that help you “escape” biting insects is are always good to know.
How to Do it: The best thing you can do is to seek out a windy spot. This makes it particularly difficult for mosquitoes and other flying bugs to bite you. You can also apply mud exposed areas of skin. This creates a “barrier” between your skin and the bugs. Also, keep in mind that mosquitoes are attracted to dark-colored and/or wet clothing, so try to avoid this type of clothing if possible. Finally, you can rub flakes of birch bark on your skin and clothing since these are known to act as a bug repellent.

* Identify Coral Snakes
First and foremost, you should do your best to avoid all snakes when in a survival situation (unless you’re going to use them as food, in which case, you should pursue them). This is especially true if you don’t have the ability to distinguish venomous and non-venomous snakes. One bite from a venomous snake and you’re as good as dead. The reason I recommend survival skills like identifying coral snakes is because quite frankly, this is the one people mess up on the most.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes regarding snake identification: “Red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black, friend of jack”. Coral snakes, which are poisonous, have red and yellow bands and a black head. They reside mainly in the southwest and southeast. Scarlet king snakes on the other hand, have alternating red and black bands and are relatively harmless. They reside in places like New Jersey and Florida. Be extra attentive regarding survival skills like this one, and it could save your life.

* Survive a Bear Attack
Most people don’t realize that your actions during a bear attack largely determine whether you live or die. Specifically, people have a difficult time distinguishing between “Predatory” and “Defensive” attacks. As I’ll reveal shortly, you must react differently to each attack, otherwise, you’re as good as dead. Also, people enter the wild not knowing how to prevent a bear attack in the first place. These are survival skills that you must know, especially if you’re going to be spending a large portion of our time outdoors.
How to Do it: First and foremost, don’t run. You can’t outrun a bear. The only thing running does is activate their biological response to chase you. Instead, what you should do is raise your arms as wide as possible, and scream loudly. The exception to this tip is if it’s a defensive attack (when a mother is protecting her cubs). In this particular case, it’s better to lie down and play dead with the hopes that the bear no longer considers you a threat and moves on. To prevent an attack, hike in groups. Bears are less likely to attack a group of people. And make a lot of noise as you hike so that you don’t “spook” the bear.

* Splint a Broken Arm
If you’ve ever broken your arm, you know how painful it is. Fortunately, with today’s medical technology, fixing a broken arm is pretty easy (a quick visit the hospital will get you fixed up). But this doesn’t apply in the wilderness. In the wild, if you break an arm, there won’t be any doctors there to patch you up. This is bad because a broken arm will severely limit your ability to make fires or build shelters– two things that are imperative to survival. There’s no “quick fix” to healing a broken arm, but I will show you survival skills that teach you how to splint one.
How to Do it: Take a deflated sleeping pad and wrap it tightly around your broken arm. You can then secure the arm in the air (like a sling) using pack straps. If you don’t have a pad, you’ll need to improvise. You can also use sticks as splints, placing each one on either side of the arm (to help secure it in place). If you have pain medicine, take it, because once your adrenaline dies down, it’s going to hurt…a lot.

* Estimate Daylight
If you’ve lost your watch, it can be difficult to estimate the amount of daylight you have left. If you don’t know how much daylight is left, you can’t make good decisions. For example, if it’s getting dark soon, you should begin building a shelter to hunker down for the night. But if you overestimate the amount of daylight you have, you may not begin building your shelter until it’s too late. Then you’ll be stuck building it in the dark. That’s why you must learn how to estimate daylight without knowing the exact time. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to do.
How to Do it: As far as survival skills are concerned, this is arguably the easiest one to learn. Simply place four outstretched fingers between the horizon and the sun. Each one of your fingers represents 15 minutes of daylight. So if the sun is sitting on the second finger from the top, you know that you have about 30 minutes of daylight left. Likewise, if the sun sits just above the top finger, you know that you have approximately one hour of daylight left. It’s easy, fun, and can really come in handy when you’re in a survival situation.

* Know Your Water Needs
One of the biggest killers in the wild is dehydration. Unfortunately, it can also be one of the more difficult things to detect. Most people don’t realize just how much water they lose when hiking. Not only do you lose water through perspiration (sweating), but you also lose water with each breath that you exhale. Urination also causes you to become more dehydrated. When you add all this up, it can result in a significant amount of water lost. That’s why you must learn survival skills that teach you how to estimate your water needs.
How to Do it: In normal climates, the average person loses about 1.5 liters per 24 hours (through urination, breathing, and sweating combined). If you physically exert yourself, or if you’re somewhere like the desert, you lose much more. In these instance, you can lose as much as an additional 1 liter per hour! That’s quite a bit, and just goes to show how surviving in the desert can be one of the most challenging places on earth to keep yourself alive without modern technology.

 

* Build a Trap
While on the topic of food, let’s look at another set of survival skills that can keep you fed. Specifically, it’s important that you know how to build a trap for catching land animals. One of my favorite designs is the 4-Figure Deadfall Trap. With this trap, the goal is to hold up a heavy rock that will eventually fall onto an unsuspecting animal, resulting in instant death. Similar to the fishing spear, they’re relatively easy to build, and don’t require that many resources. Let’s take a look at how to build one.
How to Do it: Find three sticks and a heavy stone. Cut notches into the stick. Hold up the rock while you position the sticks as shown in the illustration above. Once everything is balance, you can let go. You’ll need some kind of bait to entice an animal underneath the rock. Bugs can be a good option for this. It will require some tweaking to get right, but once you do, you’ll experience a huge boost in moral.

* Make a Fire Without Matches
If you asked people what they thought the hardest part of survival is, they would probably answer with, “Making a fire”. It’s true- making a fire without matches is one of the most difficult things for a beginner survivalist to accomplish. But just because something is hard, that doesn’t make it impossible. Once you learn the proper survival skills, making a fire without matches will become easy. But it will require a lot of practice on your part. In fact, you should practice the following techniques far before you ever find yourself in a survival situation. That way, you’ll know exactly what to do when the time comes.
How to Do it: There are dozens of ways to make a fire. I’ll show you that one I like the most. It’s called the “Hand Drill Method”. Is it hard? Yes. But if you can master this one, all of the others will be a piece of cake. Basically, all you need is a fireboard, some tinder, and a stick. Then use your two hands to spin the stick as quickly as possible. This will create heat by friction, which will then help the tinder catch fire. It’s time consuming and difficult from a physical standpoint, but once you have it down packed, you’ll be able to start a fire from anywhere in the world without matches.

There are more, including Liter Bottle fish traps and attitude at Truth Survival. Again, make notes and file them away because there is a lot of information here!

You may need all of the above or never need any of them but, should the SHTF, you will want to be prepared and knowing any of these important survivor tips is vital!