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Situational Awareness: What does it Really Mean?
March 10, 2021
A motto states that you should “always be prepared”, but that’s much easier said than done. You can’t always expect to be prepared for an emergency every waking moment of every single day.
It’s fair to say that being constantly aware of everything all the time is impossible, and if you try, you’re going to overwhelm yourself. But you can strike a delicate balance between being aware of your surroundings and make informed decisions using physiological and psychological indicators in your subconscious mind. This is what we know as situational awareness.
Situational Awareness and Decision-Making
Situational awareness is heavily influenced by tactical decisions made in the field of combat, covert surveillance and hostile environments.
Training providers such as Advanced Tactical Resources prepare individuals for dynamic and aggressive situations by training in:
- Close Protection
- Self-defence
- First Aid
- Travel Awareness
By training delegates in these areas of situational awareness, they can assess their surroundings and anticipate people’s actions confidently. One of our core principles in any situational awareness training is to spot ‘the absence of the normal and the presence of the abnormal’.
Going back to our earlier point about preparedness in the world of hostile environments, the reality is that most people aren’t faced with these situations every day. However, when going about their daily business, people are faced with specific scenarios that situational awareness principles can be applied. When a person’s gut instinct kicks in and notices something wrong or anticipates a problem arising, their physiological and psychological demeanour changes.
Understanding what situational awareness means and how to train your mind and body is how people can genuinely remain safe. We can break down the mental and physical aspects of situational awareness into four key levels, where people can bridge the gap between being ‘at risk’ or ‘vulnerable’ with being ‘ready’ to deal with an emergency. This is not the same principle as ‘fight or flight’. However, that ideology can be applied when it comes to taking action, which we also incorporate as part of our various first aid training courses, travel safety training, personal safety training and close protection courses.
Four Levels of Situational Awareness
Code White
Essentially, you are ‘switched off’ and unaware of what’s occurring around you, therefore unprepared for anything. This could be due to various reasons; you may be asleep, tired, stressed or impaired physically or psychologically. This is the lowest situational awareness level, as it is where people are most vulnerable. This level is common while at home or in a comfortable environment. People shouldn’t be in code white while out in public.
Code Yellow
You’re alert and aware, but not to the point where you are panicking. You’re scanning your surroundings for potential threat indicators or anything noteworthy while going about your routine. As an example, you’d be in code yellow of situation awareness if you’re in a shop, and you notice the entrance/exit, what people are doing, what they’re wearing, their behaviours, actions and what they’re saying. There are no apparent threats, but you’re remaining aware nonetheless.
Code Orange
Situational awareness level orange refers to a heightened level of awareness. Ostensibly, you’ve spotted something that breaks your baseline, i.e. someone has made you uneasy or uncomfortable, and you anticipate something bad may happen. Your eyes are drawn towards somebody or something that’s abnormal during code orange, and you’ll likely begin to visualise possible scenarios in your head, finding solutions for them at the same time.
Code Red
Code red is where action must be taken. This is where your situation has reached a point where you need to move away or actively protect what’s important. This does not necessarily give you free rein to attack somebody. It could mean you move out of the danger zone(s) and deescalate threats if you’re prepared to do so. This is where the ‘fight or flight’ theory comes into play.
Regardless of your state of situational awareness, it’s good practice to think about it according to these levels. They can be vital to ensuring you have that mental and physical preparedness.
Situation Awareness Training
The art of awareness training gives you the tools to shift the line of focus and practice enough to make your decision-making automatic and intuitive. Our scenario-based training courses provide excellent conditioning exercises to train delegates on their responses, to enable instinctive actions or reactions based on their environment. These environments are constantly changing, with varying degrees of complexity, risks, threats and so on.
You should retain a minimal level of preparation and self-awareness to develop full situation awareness. Would you know exactly what to do if you’re faced with an emergency? Advanced Tactical Resources can help give you that extensive, quality, military-grade training, stemming from our trainers’ time in law enforcement, military and UKSF.
Situation Awareness Courses
guardian travel - Security Awareness Fragile Environments
guardian travel - Hostile Environment Awareness Training
Want to learn more about Situational Awareness?
By training you in active situational awareness and decision-making skills, you will walk away from our safety training courses with confidence in assessing your own self-awareness, environments, people and situations.