Health preservation practices: reflections on the reasons for choosing during a period of real threat to society's vital activity

In the paper, the author considers the problems of self-preservation behavior of individuals in the period of real threat to society’s vital activity. The author substantiates the idea that health preservation occurs at three levels -individual, group, and national. The individual's choice of self-preserving or deviant forms of health preservation affects each of these levels. The author considers objective and subjective reasons that influence the choice of deviant forms of behavior. Among the objective reasons are the peculiarities of the national mentality, which are difficult to change. Among the subjective ones are self-awareness, strategies of behavior models in a risk situation, and a low culture of health preservation. The “normalization” of risk exacerbates the choice of deviant forms of self-preservation behavior, disregard for the norms of behavior that are imposed during a real threat. The work provides empirical examples that illustrate the specifics of real practices of self-preservation behavior in relation to health.