When you find yourself stranded out in the middle of nowhere with no contact with civilization, you may find yourself wondering what you should be prioritizing for survival first. Finding food? Water? Contact with other humans for rescue?
None of these, actually. While they are all important in keeping you alive, shelter is the very first thing you should prioritize having.
“But why?” You may ask, which is understandable. Unlike food or water, a shelter is not what powers the inside if your body, and if you get cut off from both for long enough, you die from starvation or dehydration… assuming disease does not claim your life first, due to lack of nutrients.
First, we will take a look at what a shelter does for survival, before moving on to why you should be prioritizing it first and foremost.
Shelter utilities
In a nutshell, a shelter is meant to protect you from your environment by giving you your own microclimate in a more controlled environment that you may be more adjusted to than the one outside.
It hides you from other, more dangerous animals, while also having different utilities such as giving you your own storage room for important items needed for survival, giving you privacy to think, and boosting your mood in the current situation you are in by giving you something more akin to a human setting (especially if the shelter is built).
You want the shelter to be big to fit you and your things, but not too big that the microclimate is too influenced by the outside.
The microclimate part is the most important part of all this, because not having a shelter can make things go downhill for your health really fast.
Dangers without shelter
You are constantly being assaulted on all sides every second. By what, you may ask?
The wind. The air. The temperature around you.
Laugh at it all you want; it might seem like something silly to be worried about at first.
But it will not be so funny when the sun sets and the night becomes more frigid than expected, and you, without anything to cover you, can only wait for the sweet release that is the morning heat to warm up your shivering body.
And this is only the beginning. A way too common scenario is someone falling into a body of water, like, say, a river, and not being able to dry their clothes out.
If they do not have a shelter and/or a fire when nighttime comes, then the biggest threat to their survival is hypothermia and their chances of surviving for the night has just decreased considerably. In just a couple of hours, someone with hypothermia may be rendered incapacitated, and they may even die.
And that is just one aspect that can affect you negatively if you do not have a shelter. What about if the sun is out too strong and there isn’t any cover? The shelter is going to be warm, sure, but it is better than getting heat stroke because you wanted to prioritize hunting food than having a roof over your head first.
And that’s just on a more natural environment like a forest during spring. What if you’re stranded in a desert? Or during winter? Having a shelter in these especially harsh environments can mean the difference between life or death.
Rule of 3s
You may have this drilled into your head, be it from your friends, reddit posts, or other online articles, constantly telling you to follow the rules of 3.
Basically, it goes along the lines of surviving 3 minutes without air, 3 hours in a harsh environment (without shelter), 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.
Yes, you heard that right. The reason people tell you to prioritize shelter is because of this rule.
Now, obviously, it is not something you should always follow to the letter. For instance, if you are really thirsty, do not put finding drinkable water off just because you need to make a shelter first.
Instead, you should use these tips as a good rule of thumb when you are not in any immediate danger.
Our body can go on for three days before dehydration strikes and we find ourselves in great danger of perishing from thirst, and our body can break down the fat inside of us and keep us lasting for weeks, which is why you do not need to prioritize these two just yet. Sure, you will need them eventually, and you will feel thirsty and hungry as time goes on, especially if you expend energy to build your shelter, but you will not die just yet.
On the other hand, if you catch the rain outside with no shelter to your name, and no fire, then hypothermia awaits you after a few hours, as your body constantly shivers seeking warmth. Eating will provide you calories to generate heat, but if you are weakened from the environment’s cold temperature, you will not be able to eat in the first place.
Finishing Off
If your life is not in any immediate danger, such as from suffocation, starvation, and dehydration, then prioritize building a proper shelter first.
The environment is a slow but insidious killer, and most of the time, you will not realize that you have been snared by it until it is too late.
Having a shelter considerably reduces the chances that your environment might claim you because your body cannot stand up to the heat or the cold.
Don’t try to feel like a powerful person that can stand up to the elements either, heat stroke and hypothermia can take any healthy person from 100 to 0 real fast in just a few hours, so don’t risk it.