Slightly Anxious Articles
Our views on emergencies, what you should do and what you should buy
Why You're Right to Be Slightly Anxious
The Complete UK Household Emergency Preparedness Guide
Slightly Anxious About Rising Water Levels
The founding article explains why emergency preparedness is a rational, not paranoid, response to the current world — surveying ongoing conflicts, domestic infrastructure vulnerabilities, and rising extreme weather. Slightly Anxious positions itself firmly against bunker-mentality "prepper" culture, instead arguing for a realistic, week-at-home mindset. The core ethos is introduced: treat a potential crisis like an indoor camping adventure. This is the essential starting point for anyone new to the brand.
A comprehensive guide to what the British and European governments are actually recommending citizens do to prepare. It walks through a full household audit: assessing risk, creating an emergency plan, building a supplies store, and knowing what to do across different crisis types. The geopolitical landscape is shifting government advice from natural-disaster focus toward broader threats. This is the master reference article in the series.
Flooding is described as one of the most terrifying UK disasters — fast, potentially fatal, and capable of destroying a property for years. An estimated one in four UK properties currently faces some flood risk, rising to one in three by 2050. The article guides readers through checking their property's specific risk using tools like Flood Assist, then covers preparations including barriers, sandbags, and evacuation triggers. Pre-positioning a grab bag is stressed as essential, since flooding can give very little warning.
Other views are available, but quite frankly, who has the time?
Slightly Anxious About Approaching Flames
Slightly Anxious Says Get a Grab Bag!
Using the Car in an Emergency
Wildfires are a rapidly growing UK risk — the London Fire Commissioner confirmed an unprecedented rate of increase as of May 2026, driven by climate change. While house fire rates have stayed relatively stable, wildfires are expanding in frequency and geography. The article distinguishes between wildfire and house-fire preparations, covering evacuation routes and what to do when fire is approaching. It urges readers to have a grab bag ready and an evacuation plan in place before fire season.
A grab bag is a pre-packed emergency kit ready for instant evacuation — the difference between leaving in two minutes with everything you need versus leaving in a panic with nothing. Essential contents include document copies, water, food, first aid, chargers, cash, warm layers, and a torch. Unlike most Slightly Anxious products focused on home-endurance, this article specifically addresses fire and flood evacuation scenarios. Regularly reviewing and refreshing the bag — especially medications and food — is strongly advised.
Your car is potentially your most valuable survival asset — it can rapidly evacuate you from danger if used correctly. Effective emergency use requires advance preparation: keeping the tank above half full, maintaining a car emergency kit, and knowing evacuation routes before you need them. Electric vehicles offer the bonus of acting as a large battery to power appliances during a home-endurance crisis. The article warns against leaving emergency supplies visible in the car, as opportunistic theft rises significantly during crises.
What to Do When the Power Goes Out
What to Do When the Lights Go Out
What to Do When the Heating Stops
A power blackout is one of the most feasible UK emergency scenarios, with credible causes ranging from winter demand peaks and interconnector failures to an aging National Grid. The article maps all the ways electricity affects daily life — heating, cooking, lighting, communication, refrigeration — and provides solutions for each. A portable power station is identified as one of the highest-value single emergency purchases. With modest advance preparation, a power outage is one of the most survivable crisis scenarios.
Most power cuts happen at night, compounding disorientation and risk. The article covers a full spectrum of lighting solutions from the immediate (torches, candles, headlamps) to the sustained (battery lanterns, solar-charged lights). Having multiple redundant lighting options is safer than relying on a single solution, and the fire risks of candles in an emergency — particularly trip hazards in the dark — are highlighted. A tiered approach is recommended: immediate, short-term, and week-long lighting strategies.
Losing heating in a UK winter is a serious health risk, especially for the elderly, young children, and those with medical conditions. Solutions range from layering clothes and using sleeping bags to portable heaters and, where safe, solid-fuel options. The article also covers the growing opposite problem: keeping cool in summer without air conditioning, reflecting the rising UK heat emergency risk. Key product recommendations include thermal sleeping bags and portable propane heaters, with firm ventilation safety warnings throughout.
What to Do When the Water Is Turned Off
Curated Meals at Slightly Anxious
An adult can survive only three days without water, making supply loss one of the most urgent emergency scenarios. Water can be lost through burst mains, power failure stopping pumps, or flooding contaminating supply — and UK water companies may take longer than expected to restore it. The article recommends storing at least three litres per person per day in food-grade containers, with purification tablets or a filter as backup. Knowing where your stopcock is and having a pre-filled water store are the two most important immediate actions.
Maintaining hygiene standards during a crisis is critical to avoiding secondary illness on top of the primary emergency. The article centres on water loss — which can arrive via infrastructure damage, power failure, or flooding — and the products needed to stay clean with very limited supply. It covers handwashing protocols, toilet hygiene using chemical or composting toilets, personal cleanliness, and household sanitation. Staying clean in a crisis is not a luxury — it's a health and morale essential.
Food is one of the most critical elements of surviving a crisis — physically and psychologically. In almost any emergency, fresh food runs out within days and refrigeration fails quickly, so Slightly Anxious focuses on developing genuinely tasty no-refrigeration meals. The article explores tinned, dried, and shelf-stable options chosen for nutrition and flavour, not just calorie-count. The goal is to make emergency eating feel like an adventure rather than a punishment.
Hygiene is Everything with Slightly Anxious
Kitchen in a Crisis with Slightly Anxious
What to Drink in an Emergency Situation
How to Keep Informed and Keep Talking in a Crisis
When normal utilities fail, the kitchen must adapt around camping stoves, BBQs (outdoor only), and multi-fuel alternatives. The article covers equipment selection, safe fuel storage, and the important carbon monoxide risks of cooking on gas indoors. It pairs directly with the Curated Meals article, stressing that the right equipment is only useful if you also have the right food to cook. A functioning emergency kitchen transforms a crisis from a food desert into something genuinely manageable.
The most distinctive article in the series: a frank, light-hearted discussion of alcohol during a crisis. Slightly Anxious acknowledges the official advice (don't drink) while also acknowledging the reality that many people enjoy a drink and there's no reason a crisis should be entirely joyless. Spirits store best long-term; wine is acceptable; beer is the least suitable for emergency storage. The key rule: never drink to the point of impaired decision-making. The tone is warm, funny, and very on-brand.
During a crisis, communication can be as vital as food and water — yet a blackout can simultaneously kill TV, internet, and mobile networks. Slightly Anxious recommends analogue fallbacks: wind-up or battery-powered radios, walkie-talkies, and printed contact lists. Pre-agreeing a family communication plan before any crisis hits is strongly emphasised. Being informed and connected keeps morale high and enables better decision-making throughout the emergency.
Keeping Entertained with Slightly Anxious
Doing Laundry During a Crisis
Looking After Your Pets in an Emergency
For home-endurance emergencies — potentially a week without power, internet, or streaming — boredom and low morale become real problems. The article recommends stocking board games, card games, books, puzzles, and activity packs for children as part of the emergency store. Battery-powered or hand-crank entertainment options including small radios and screens are also covered. Keeping spirits up isn't frivolous — it's a core part of getting through safely.
The average UK household does around 270 washing machine loads per year — and emergencies don't eliminate the need for clean clothes. Without electricity or water, the machine is useless, so the article teaches manual laundering using a bucket, washboard, biodegradable soap, and a clotheshorse. Expectations are set honestly: clothes won't come out sparkling, but they can be clean enough to stay hygienic. The emphasis is on practical resourcefulness rather than perfection.
With 62% of UK households owning pets, emergency preparedness must account for animals as well as humans. The article draws parallels between pet and human emergency planning: you need an emergency plan, a pet-specific grab bag, and dedicated supplies including food, water, medication, and comfort items. A household "pet squad leader" should be designated in advance. Evacuation planning must factor in whether emergency shelters accept animals — many don't — making this an often-overlooked critical preparation step.
It's All About the Kerching Kerching!
Aesthetically Pleasing Packaging with Slightly Anxious
Two financially-related topics are routinely overlooked in emergency planning: cash and insurance. If electronic payment systems go down during a power outage, physical cash in small denominations becomes the only way to transact. Insurance is equally important — most standard home policies have specific provisions (and exclusions) for flood, fire, and civil disorder that many people have never read. Understanding your cover before a crisis is far better than discovering a gap in the middle of one.
Slightly Anxious takes a deliberately different approach to the typical "prepper" market, which favours military-style, bunker-mentality aesthetics. The brand believes most crises will require at most a week of home isolation, not a zombie apocalypse, and that emergency supplies should look attractive enough to actually buy and keep on a kitchen shelf. Good packaging design is not vanity — it's a driver of uptake, and uptake is what gets households prepared. The article introduces the Slightly Anxious design philosophy.
Japan’s disaster preparedness culture may be famous for earthquake drills and warning technology, but its central advice is reassuringly ordinary: store familiar food, keep enough water, plan for sanitation and know how your household will communicate. This article compares that approach with the Slightly Anxious Emergency Guide, finding strong agreement on seven-day resilience, cascading failures and practical preparation. It also explores what Britain can learn from Japan’s rolling-stock system, community planning, workplace supplies and hazard-specific evacuation advice for ordinary households.
What Japan can teach us about being prepared
Powering your home from your electric car
with Slightly Anxious
An electric car carries a battery big enough to run a typical home for days, but very few UK set-ups can feed it straight into the house during a power cut. This article explains the difference between V2L, V2H and V2G, what each costs, and the permissions involved, from network operator approval to Part P and planning. Its practical answer for now is to use the car’s own sockets to keep a portable power station topped up, and to run the fridge, lamps and router from that. Slightly Anxious also covers the safety rules, and when full vehicle-to-home is worth waiting for.
Increasingly concerned about the drums of war at Slightly Anxious
Slightly Anxious has always steered clear of bunker-and-apocalypse thinking, but ignoring the growing geopolitical risk to Britain would be negligent. Drawing on MI5’s latest threat update, this article looks at the “grey zone” activity already happening: undersea cables tampered with, the foiled attack on RAF Fairford, drones over airports and cyber attacks that have cost the economy billions. The reassuring conclusion is that whatever the cause, the impact on your household looks much like what we have always prepared for: a week of utilities down at home, or a quick evacuation. Our existing advice still covers it.
The Get Home Bag
with Slightly Anxious
Most emergency advice assumes you’ll be at home when things go wrong, but on a weekday afternoon most of us are at work, often miles from our own front door. This article looks at what happens when the trains stop, from Tokyo in 2011 to Lewisham, Paddington and a night on a train at Three Bridges. It explains why walking home isn’t a realistic plan for most readers, and why the bag belongs in your desk drawer, locker or car boot. Slightly Anxious sets out what to pack and the one free step that matters most: finding someone near work who would put you up for the night. It ends with five questions to ask your employer.