11 Ways To Be More Aware of Your Surroundings & Assess Safety Threats

Learn to stay alert, assess risks, and be safe in any environment

Co-authored by Saul Jaeger, MS and Aimee Payne, MFA

Last Updated: August 14, 2024 Fact Checked

Situational awareness is when you make an effort to be aware of what’s going on around you to recognize potential danger and react before it happens. Increasing situational awareness may allow you to escape or avoid dangerous people or scenarios that could harm you or those around you. We spoke with Life Coach Sandra Possing and Captain of the Mountain View California Police Department Saul Jaeger to learn more about situational awareness and what you can do to improve it in everyday life.

How to Develop Situational Awareness

Pay attention to the sights, sounds, and smells in your surroundings.
Keep distractions to a minimum when you’re going about your day.
Know where entry and exit points are in case of emergencies.
Pay attention to unusual behavior and how long it’s been happening.
Stay mentally alert, and don’t settle into comfortable routines.
Watch potentially threatening behavior from the side of your eye.
Anticipate threats and trust your intuition.

1

Assess your surroundings for threats.

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Pay attention to where you are and what’s happening around you. Look around and pay attention to the type of situation you’re in. Take a few moments to focus on each of your senses to take in as many details about your surroundings as possible. Pay attention to what you're seeing, smelling, hearing, and feeling in your environment, Possing recommends.^{[1]
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Expert Source

Sandra Possing
Life Coach

Expert Interview. 13 August 2020.}
- The normal sounds, behaviors, and sights you expect to see in a situation make up the environmental baseline. This gives you a frame of reference for comparing unusual behaviors, sounds, or smells.^{[2]
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- For example, look for bags, suitcases, or similar items left unattended in crowded areas. Leaving unattended bags in public places is a common delivery method for explosives.

2

Limit distractions.

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Being distracted makes you more vulnerable. Focusing on one thing so hard – like wearing earphones with the music turned way up or looking at your phone – that you’re too distracted to identify potential threats is called “focus lock.” Jaeger says, “If you're engrossed in your cell phone and walking around, and I'm a criminal that thinks I can take you, your purse, wallet, or laptop…you’re a great target because you have no idea I’m even coming.”^{[3]
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Expert Source

Saul Jaeger, MS
Police Captain, Mountain View Police Department

Expert Interview. 21 February 2020.}
- When you catch yourself experiencing focus lock, draw your attention back to your environment and any potential threats around you.

3

Identify the entry and exit points around you.

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Use your imagination to plan for dangerous situations. Try to visualize how you would react in a threatening situation.^{[4]
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Research source} Find any doors or windows to use if you need to escape from danger.
- If you notice a group of suspicious individuals heading in your direction, think about what you might do if they attempted to attack you or those around you.
- Imagine someone drawing a weapon or attacking you, then ask yourself what you could do to make it less likely to happen. What will you do if it happens anyway?

4

Take threatening behavior seriously.

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Don't assume abnormal behavior doesn't pose a threat. People often wait to respond to abnormal behavior because they are unwilling to recognize it as a threat. "Normalcy Bias" is the act of ignoring potential threats because it’s more comforting to believe we aren’t in danger.^{[5]
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Research source} Take signs of a threat seriously. Don’t tell yourself what you’re seeing “must be normal.”
- Personal space is usually understood to be a circle around you at about arm’s length. If anyone comes into that area (close enough to make contact with you), quickly identify any possible threat they may pose.^{[6]
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- Look at their face to see if they are focused on you or if they’re simply passing by.
- Notice where their hands are and what they are doing with them. If they plan to attack you, their hands may be balled into fists or carrying a weapon.
- Look for “imprints” or outlines of concealed weapons on the clothing of suspicious individuals. Check near the waistband for a shape that could be a concealed weapon.
- Identify people who may be armed with weapons of opportunity or items not usually considered weapons but could do serious harm. Common examples are baseball bats or chains.

5

Check your watch to track unusual behavior.

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Pay attention to how long strange behavior lasts. Keeping track of the time helps you notice trends in a person’s behavior that may not otherwise have seemed unusual to you. For example, if you notice someone walking laps around an area at regular intervals, pay attention. There’s nothing inherently dangerous about a person walking, but they could be waiting for you to lower your guard. Noticing they’re nearby can help you avoid a dangerous situation.
- Keep track of how long it has been since you last saw the people you are with. Waiting for your child outside of a public bathroom, for instance, is a situation where you may want to keep track of how long it’s been since you’ve seen them.

6

Stay mentally alert.

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Keep your brain sharp by getting enough sleep and eating well. Getting plenty of sleep helps you stay alert. Fatigue makes it extremely difficult to remain attentive and focused. When you’re hungry, dehydrated, or tired, you grow distracted and less aware of your surroundings. Also, reduced blood sugar levels caused by prolonged periods of not eating can make you just as groggy as a lack of sleep.^{[7]
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Trustworthy Source

Cleveland Clinic
Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals

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- Take notice of the signs of fatigue as they set in. It may get harder to pay attention, your temper is shorter, or your vision may blur slightly.
- Alcohol and prescription drugs can also cause fatigue, so make sure you drink responsibly and follow your doctor’s recommendations for medications.
- Possing recommends including meditation in your daily routine to help with overall awareness and observational skills. “Just slowing down and taking a breath – which sometimes means literally pausing for one second and taking one breath – is enough to open up your field of awareness…[so you] actually notice what's in your space.”^{[8]
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  Expert Source
  
  Sandra Possing
  Life Coach
  
  Expert Interview. 15 July 2020.}

7

Avoid setting “safe” routines.

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Take necessary precautions in your everyday life. Be alert to possible danger, even in environments where you feel very comfortable, like your home or a favorite restaurant. If you have a regular jogging route or morning routine, change it up every so often. That way, you’ll avoid becoming so comfortable in your daily activities that you ignore threats around you.^{[9]
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- When you come home, check your property for signs of a break-in, like broken windows.
- Leave your outside lights on and close your blinds at night.
- If you suspect someone is following you, don’t go home. Drive to a public place or police station to ask for help.

8

Don’t stare directly at a suspicious person.

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Use your peripheral vision to identify threats. Looking directly at a suspicious person may draw unwanted attention. In some extreme cases, a possible threat may become a real one if a person or even a threatening animal interprets your gaze as a challenge. Because of this, practice scanning your surroundings from the sides of your vision.^{[10]
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- Some individuals may approach you or even become hostile if they notice you looking directly at them.
- Using your peripheral vision means any dangerous individuals in your vicinity won’t know exactly what you’re looking at, allowing you a slight tactical advantage.

9

Train yourself to predict possible threats.

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Use your situational baseline to anticipate danger. Create an image in your head of what normal looks, sounds, and smells like in your location and situation. Then, use that baseline to predict what happens next so it doesn’t take you by surprise. Also, knowing what should happen in a scenario helps you identify unusual occurrences.^{[11]
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- If you see a truck pull into a parking lot near you, expect to hear its doors opening and closing or the beeping of its backup alarm.
- If you’re driving behind a school bus, predict that it may stop at any time to let children off in front of you.
- If you notice people behaving in an aggressive manner toward one another, be aware that they could fight, which may be a sign to leave the area.

10

Trust your gut feelings.

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Pay attention when a situation feels off. Even when you’ve identified the situational baseline, assessed any possible threats, and come up with a strategy to get away from danger, you still might feel like something’s wrong. Trust your intuition. You may be unaware of how your body is interpreting stimuli surrounding you, but humans have evolved to sense danger. If you feel uneasy but don’t have objective reason for feeling that way, it’s possible your subconscious has noticed something you missed.^{[12]
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- In a classic case of “it’s better to be safe than sorry,” trusting your gut about a situation and leaving may prove to have been unnecessary, but it’s better to be wrong about it a hundred times than to have been right once without acting.
EXPERT TIP

Saul Jaeger, MS
Personal Safety Officer
Saul Jaeger is a Police Officer and Captain of the Mountain View, California Police Department (MVPD). Saul has over 17 years of experience as a patrol officer, field training officer, traffic officer, detective, hostage negotiator, and as the traffic unit’s sergeant and Public Information Officer for the MVPD. At the MVPD, in addition to commanding the Field Operations Division, Saul has also led the Communications Center (dispatch) and the Crisis Negotiation Team. He earned an MS in Emergency Services Management from the California State University, Long Beach in 2008 and a BS in Administration of Justice from the University of Phoenix in 2006. He also earned a Corporate Innovation LEAD Certificate from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2018.

Saul Jaeger, MS
Personal Safety Officer

Our Expert Agrees. If you're walking down the street and you see someone walking towards you and you feel like something is wrong, trust that instinct. Don't just ignore it because you don't want to offend the other person, or you could end up putting yourself in danger. It's not logical, but it happens all the time.

11

Pick a spot with open sightlines.

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Position yourself to see threats coming. Where you stand can improve your ability to maintain situational awareness in a given situation. For example, if you’re in a crowded room with too many people to keep track of, try to stand with your back to a wall. That way, no one will be able to sneak up behind you.^{[13]
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- Different situations may require different positioning, but always try to put yourself in a place that allows you to identify any possible threats as they approach.
- Positioning yourself near exits may make it easier for you to quickly escape if a situation takes a turn for the worse.