After my wife and I had a son, I was consumed with nightmares about disasters: earthquakes, tsunamis…even a zombie apocalypse. In an attempt to be "ready for anything," I studied wilderness and urban survival, stunt-driving, shooting—basically everything you've ever seen in a ridiculous disaster movie.  Though the lengths I went to aren't necessary for everyone (with luck, you'll never have to use the brains of an animal to cure its hide), certain survival skills are good to have in your back pocket—during a hurricane, a travel disaster or even a situation where the dead have unexpectedly risen from their graves.  Society has broken down? Make sure you've got a flathead screwdriver, some honey—and a machete couldn't hurt either.  Don't be scared: When you're threatened, your brain releases a flood of chemicals that jack up your heart rate, preparing the body to face danger and to fight and bleed. Gross motor skills—pushing and pulling—improve. But these chemicals also change how your brain works. Even simple actions can be fiendishly difficult. People under incredible stress have trouble dialing 911: They can't see the numbers, they can't press the buttons.  What can you do about it? Drill sergeants and coaches like to say, "You don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training." Repeat an action a thousand times so that when the stress hormones are ripping through your system, you do it on autopilot. A simple technique, sometimes called combat breathing, can help even an untrained person overcome extreme stress. Our breathing is automatic, but you can also control your breathing, unlike your heart rate or your adrenaline levels. In very stressful situations, take four deep breaths, on a four-count (breathe in for four beats, hold, breathe out for four beats), and this can bring you back from a state of super-arousal.  Clean your cuts: Take a CPR or First Responder course and acquaint yourself with the basics of medical emergencies. Remember, in a disaster scenario, it's extremely unlikely that you will be able to frantically surf YouTube videos for help. Emergency medicine has come a long way in recent years; get yourself some Quik-Clot and make a kit with bandages and antibiotics. The most important thing is to clean a wound. If it's bleeding, 20 minutes of pressure should induce clotting. Honey can act as a good short-term antiseptic.  If you emerge from a disaster in OK shape, be sure not to become another victim. Carefully survey the scene before rushing in to rescue others.  Steal a car: Everyone else has turned into a zombie? Then take your pick of the vehicles left behind. But don't get flashy. The older a car is, the easier it is to start without a key, so look for something from the 1990s or earlier.  Using a flathead screwdriver, pry out the plastic and pot-metal and aluminum stuff that the key would normally go into, and then reach in and turn the starter ignition with a pair of pliers or the screwdriver. The only thing stopping the car from starting is the ignition lock, which can be peeled away in about three minutes. Assuming the battery has a charge, you're good to go.  Don't starve on rabbit: European explorers, trapped for the winter with the Inuit in Canada, ate rabbit all the time and still starved to death, because rabbit meat is so lean. The Inuit ate more organs (not just the meat) and so got more vitamins, minerals and essential fats. If you're trapping rats to stay alive, eat as much of the animal as you can. Make a stew so nothing gets wasted, and you can divvy out portions equally.  Build an igloo: If you're caught out in the snow, your primary concern is to maintain body temperature. You'll lose heat three ways: convection (the wind), conduction (what you're touching) and radiation (wear a hat!). You'll need shelter. If the snow is the right kind (hard and old but not too old), you can dig out a cave or a trench, or even carve out blocks of snow with a ski-pole, machete or a stick. These blocks can be used to make a roof or a windbreak, which cuts windchill (and don't bury yourself, you'll need a ventilation hole).  For an igloo, cut the blocks out and stack them around you; one course up, and then start stacking them inward, on an angle. You'll have to finesse a keystone cap. Cover the outside with smaller chunks and powder. Inside, keep your body off the ice or ground (the Inuit put their sleeping blankets on top of a bed of sticks and reeds) and create heat-trapping "loft" (it's what keeps you warm in a sleeping bag) by layering a few small blankets or big trash bags, with leaves or crumpled newspapers in between.  When all else fails, keep moving, eating and drinking. Heat your body from inside.  Finally, remember that survival is a group endeavor. People don't degenerate into wild animals when disaster strikes. That's a myth pushed by Hollywood and people trying to sell you something. Sociologists find that the vast majority of people behave well in a crunch. So get to know your neighbors. The ideal components for a survival kit are a doctor, a mechanic, a farmer. Society, it turns out, is useful in times of disaster, too.  A version of this article appeared January 12, 2013, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Apocalypse Tips, From Antibiotics to Zombies.
The worried author on how to build an igloo, steal a car and live on rabbit (don't eat just the meat).