Saturday, September 7, 2013

Taking Care Of Yourself First Helps Everyone

I have a story that I often tell people. I do it so much that they get tired of hearing it. Now you get it.

If you have ever flown on a plane, you have experienced the obligatory safety lecture. The part that we need here is where they tell you about the oxygen masks.

During an emergency oxygen masks will drop down from the ceiling above each seat. The steward or stewardess giving the safety lecture will tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first, even if your child is sitting next to you gasping.

The reason they give for this is that if you are not breathing well, you can't help anyone else. 

You put your own oxygen mask on first, so that you will be healthy enough to help put someone else's oxygen mask on them. Even if they lose consciousness, you will still be able to get their oxygen mask on them. 

If you lose consciousness because you put their oxygen mask on first, they may not be able to help you. You may not even finish putting their oxygen mask on before you pass out, if you try to put their oxygen mask on first.

This lesson is very applicable to many emergency situations. You can not help anyone else unless you are okay. 

It applies even to daily life. Taking care of your personal health is very important at any time, but even more so when medical help is scarce during an emergency. 

The above is what I have been doing lately. I have been working on taking care of myself. I have had some serious health problems that have required a lot of my attention and energy. That didn't leave me much to keep writing on this blog. 

I think I can rest on my laurels a bit here since I have over 500 posts on this blog now. I think there is enough to help anyone who is interested in basic information on emergency preparedness to get a good start on finding out what they need to know.

I apologize for not having this blog better organized, but you can use Google searches to find subjects that interest you on this blog. I use tags for each post and that makes searches more efficient on many subjects. I expect I will write a post that goes into more detail on how to do this.

With climate change happening so fast, we all face many more and much more serious emergencies than have occurred in human history. It only makes good sense to be prepared for emergencies.

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