Maintaining Mental Function and staving off insanity post SHTF

[Tartar Horde]

It is interesting to note culturally in the West a "strong body" has always been the ethos. You only have to study the roots of Western Civilisation to understand where this comes from. A culture that sees physical strength as a combat against mental stress will always find it difficult to overcome something you can't defeat through force.
In the West, silence and solitude are a punishment, for the above cultural reasons and are very effective in breaking down our defences. Anyone who has spent time meditating/yoga and continues to follow this mind training will find solitude and silence to be nothing new or threatening as through meditation the whole process is to still the mind and find silence within you. To someone who can do this effectively solitary confinement is laughable, indeed many proponents of Eastern Philosophy would find it most revitallising to be "cut off" from all external stimuli, and many people in the East go to great lengths to actually accomplish this in their later lives.
The body is weak, the mind is strong.