How To Survive Outdoors

Many eXholes are on the verge of getting tossed out of their apartments, with no prospect of shelter in sight. While waiting for landlords to come down to reality price-wise, it might help to follow these useful tips on surviving the cold, as we enter the winter season.

Seek and create shelter from cold, wind, snow, and rain. If possible, retreat to timbered areas for shelter construction and fire.

Use natural shelters: the windless side of ridges, rock croppings, slope depressions, snow blocks, a snow hole at base of standing trees, dense stands of trees, or under downed trees.

Improvise a windbreak or shelter from: stacked rocks or snow blocks, tree trunks, limbs, or dig a snow cave or snow trench with a cover.

Conserve body heat by putting on extra clothing. Replace damp undershirt and socks. Loosen boot laces to increase circulation. Place hands in armpits or crotch.

Nibble high energy goods-candy, nuts, granola bar. Remember the body loses heat by respiration, evaporation, conduction, radiation, and convection. To prevent loss by respiration, cover the mouth and nose with loosely woven or knit wool.

To reduce evaporation through excessive perspiration, wear clothes that breathe and are in layers.

To prevent loss by radiation, keep the head, hands, and feet covered. Look for hypothermia symptoms.

In stage one, the victim begins shivering, has poor coordination, slurs speech, and shows poor judgment. By stage two, when the body temperature is below 95 degrees, muscular rigidity replaces shivering, and the victim becomes more irrational and needs warmth immediately from external sources and protection from further heat loss. Know that the victim is the LAST to realize s/he's in danger.

Are You Starving?

The eXile Guide to Recognizing the Symptoms and Signs of Starvation

We polled various doctors with the question: How can I tell if I'm starving? Here is a summary of their responses:

Symptoms: Weight loss is characteristic and may reach 50% in adults and even more in children. It is greatest in the liver and intestines, moderate in the heart and kidney, and least in the nervous system. Emaciation is most obvious where normally prominent fat depots and muscle masses waste and bones protrude. The skin becomes thin, dry, inelastic, pale, and cold. A patchy brown pigmentation may occur. A thing called perifollicular keratosis is not infrequent. It causes the hair to become dry and sparse and fall out easily.Most systems are affected. Achlorhydria and diarrhea are frequent, the latter often being terminal. Heart size and output are reduced. There is lowered systolic, diastolic, and venous pressure. Respiratory rate, minute volume, and vital capacity are all reduced. The main endocrine disturbance is gonadal atrophy with loss of libido, which to the slower of you eXile readers means impotence. Women experience amenorrhea, or the halting of menstruation. Your intellect will likely remain clear, but apathy and irritability are common. Work capacity is diminished owing to muscle destruction and eventual anemia and cardiorespiratory failure, but you won't have a job anyway, so it won't matter. Hypothermia frequently contributes to death. Serum proteins are normal, but owing to loss of fat, extracellular water is relatively increased, tissue tension is low, and the skin is inelastic, making you more susceptible to wounds. So be careful-and eat what you can!