Train for it

 Things I've learned about piloting over the years to keep you from crashing. Useful in other areas of life as well.

 

 Use your superior judgement to avoid needing superior skills.

The best initial response to any emergency is simply thinking, "Oh crap! Let's get to work." That transfers your focus from the problem to what you have to do about it.

The single best thing a pilot can do to minimize the likelihood of paralyzing fear in an emergency is to train for and practice handling emergencies on a regular basis. It helps control the panic and the resulting adrenaline rush. Your brain says, "I have seen this before, I know what to do, and I know that it ends safely."

In training, you learn ritual responses and ritual makes sense out of chaos.

The things that must be done in an emergency, such as an engine failure, must be deeply embedded in your brain in the same place where nursery rhymes and songs live. Regular training ensures that.

When an emergency happens, the adrenaline-fueled jolt of fear knocks out your higher cognitive functions. At that point, you are working with your reptilian brain: fight or flight, and you have no monster to fight and nowhere to flee to. You have to do something your brain has not evolved to handle. But if you train regularly, the reptilian brain incorporates the responses you practice.  It's like "muscle memory" for the brain, or, more accurately, a conditioned reflex.  You automatically fall back on the lowest common denominator of your training and carry it out without conscious thought.

If you do have a conditioned response and execute it, every time you make a positive step you get a little dose of dopamine.That helps damp the fear and your higher cognitive functions begin to return.

 Oh, and absolutely never forget to focus on flight path control above all else. This is non-negotiable. While dealing with any problem, major or trivial, don't forget to fly the airplane. Remember Eastern Airlines Flight 401, which crashed killing a hundred human beings because the entire flight crew was preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light and didn't notice that the airplane had begun a gradual descending turn to the left, didn't even notice the altitude warning alarm, until seconds before impact. Too late.

Don't die when you don't have to. Living is nice.