I recently ran across a wonderful quote made by a well-known survivalist. He said that, “Knowledge weighs nothing.” How true that is. Whether you fill your head with garbage from a constant dose of brain-sucking reality television or proven survival tactics and strategies, that information does not restrict your movement with a weight requirement. Except, of course, the extra pounds of fat you put on if you are constantly sitting on your butt staring at your electronic idiot box while wolfing down pizza and potato chips, cheeseburgers and fries, ice cream and other wonderfully healthy foods.

Accordingly, you need to memorize and be able to recall immediately the human survival “Rule of Threes”. This rule reminds you that …

• Human beings can survive approximately 3 minutes without oxygen and air.

• Without a regulated body temperature (meaning a temperature-controlled shelter of some kind) humans can last approximately 3 hours before dying.

• You cannot make it much more than 3 days without drinking water.

• 3 weeks after you take your last bite of food, you will die.

Obviously, these are averages. You have no doubt heard incredible disaster survival stories where individuals succeeded in far outpacing those particular limits. However, there is no need to test the waters with your survival on the line.

Besides, when you read about someone making it an extended period of time without one survival component, that person usually had his or her health compensated by copious amounts of the other three.

How to Benefit from the Human Survival Rule of Threes

Remember, knowledge weighs nothing. So put the Rule of Threes to use immediately. Learn to make emergency shelter in any situation. Emergency shelter needs to be your first effort when catastrophe comes calling, assuming that you have a healthy supply of oxygen. Teach your family members and friends how to build or access shelter in a typical emergency scenario which is likely to happen where you live.

Store 1 year’s worth of water supply in your home or apartment. Store another emergency water supply somewhere away from your house, in a secured location or hidden survival bunker. Learn to harvest water from nature, and store a supply of water purification and filtering products.

Start stocking an emergency food pantry. As you did with water, store a long-term supply of food in your emergency bunker and at home. Learn to get food from nature, by harvesting plants and trapping animals. You can also learn more about the best emergency food companies and what they have to offer.

If you are on this website, you are either beginning to have an interest in disaster preparedness or you are already a member of the prepper or survivalist communities. Either way, you need to constantly remind yourself of the Rule of Threes. This simple 4 x 3 matrix of human survival costs you nothing to store away in your brain, and should be accessed consistently as you plan to ride out the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI).