When people are in a panic, scared, and tense, they can adopt the “pack mentality”. That is how situations quickly get out of control. There is a good chance you may encounter situations in which tensions are on the rise and a pack mentality is clearly forming.

When one or more people approach you and are agitated and tense, you can help relieve the tensions in many cases. In the following checklist, you will find suggestions that may reduce panic levels.

During your initial planning, you will want to spend time researching how to talk to agitated people in a calming manner. People who are frightened experience emotional and physical effects that may make them irrational. Blood pressure rises, adrenaline flows, and mental anguish impairs thinking. Someone must maintain rationality and calm, and that is much easier for a person who has fully prepared themselves for this situation than those to whom disaster was never a thought in their mind. However, as a community member, rising tensions can only bring trouble.

If you are ever put in a position such as this you need to know exactly what to do or say to defuse the situation.