Awesome. You’ve stocked up emergency food for you and your family for 5 years. You have 5 years of water stored as well. You have built individual bug out bags and emergency kits for each family member, have constructed a hidden doomsday bunker and equipped a rugged bug out vehicle. Everyone in your family can make fire, and you have all taken extensive personal defense and firearms training. You have left absolutely nothing to chance … or have you?

Food, water, shelter and fire are definite human essentials for survival. But if you and your family have to survive in a lock-down situation for 6 months, 1 year, 5 years or even longer, without some form of entertainment you are almost guaranteed to go stir crazy. There are endless documented stories of fights and arguments that lead to injury and even death when inhabitants of a home, shelter or panic room had no outlet for their emotions.

That Is Why Entertainment Is so Essential to Your Disaster Preparedness Plans

Keeping your mind occupied and off of your current situation is extremely important for your long-term survival. You can procure all of the survival skills in the world, but if your mind is not in a good place, all your hard work prepping could prove worthless. This could mean simply storing enough batteries to power multiple MP3 players. It can also mean stocking backup batteries for your laptops, tablets and cell phones so you can enjoy downloaded movies and games. A generator is a great idea, because it can power so many forms of electrical entertainment.

Simpler forms of entertainment are also excellent ideas. Checker and chess boards, trivia games, puzzles paper backs and hardback books all deserve a place in your disaster survival plan. A deck of playing cards can be used in hundreds of different games. Dice are very versatile as well. Dolls and toys for toddlers and tweens should not be forgotten, as well as play things for your pets.

Take time now to hit the web and find a list of the many different games which can be played with a deck of cards. Talk to your family members about what entertainment essentials they think would be a good idea to stock. Implement a family entertainment night every couple of weeks so you can begin getting used to playing games or watching movies together. You cannot eat or drink a good book, but all the food and water in the world is pointless if you have no way to keep your mind sharp when the zombies come knocking.