My experience with air raids in Ukraine was, I guess you could say, a "gradual" introduction. First two visits during the war I heard them multiple times but was never close enough to actually experience anything, beyond _maybe_ hearing some explosions very, very, far away in Odesa. Heck, I slept through the sirens multiple times. And a lot of those times I was around Ukrainians who totally ignored the air raids. 😂

First time I was actually close enough to experience anything was seeing what I think was a cruise missile getting shot down, probably 2-3kms away, as well as another time hearing a loud explosion (probably from a ballistic missile hit) while having dinner at an outdoor restaurant. Again, everyone around me just ignored it.

I've been within 1-2kms from explosions a few more times since. I find that the sirens are a bit more likely to wake me up than at first. But possibly because I got introduced gradually to this, it didn't affect my sleep noticably. And I'm here voluntarily, which probably makes a difference too.

Of course, I've done a lot of pretty dangerous stuff in my life before, eg cave exploration. So I may be just more calm around danger in general.