The fight-flight-freeze response
Two hundred thousand years ago, when we were cavemen and cavewomen, we were in a world of constant danger. You never could predict when a sabertoothed tiger or a wholly mammoth would appear from nowhere and attack you. So, you always had to be on the look out for threats.
What is fight-flight-freeze response?
Cavemen and cavewomen could only survive if they learned to deal with threats at an early age. So in addition to being alert about our surroundings in anticipation of threats, we also had to learn to deal with threats from an early age. They adapted to this by either fighting off the predator or running away (flight) from the threat. So this became our most basic stress response. The even more older primitive response is the freeze response, where the body feels trapped and we just go immobile. If the caveman found himself unable to fight in the midst of a pack of lions, he would ultimately respond by freezing in fear.
Fortunately or unfortunately, even after so many centuries, our brain behaves in the same way. When we encounter a threat, or the mind thinks of something as a threat (for someone with social anxiety, a conference room could be a threat), we immediately get into the ‘sense-tense mode’. So, we sense danger, and our muscles tense up, preparing us for either fighting or escaping (flight response).
And ultimately, when the fight or flight fails — or if you feel trapped in a scenario — where maybe a professor is being very critical about you and you don’t see a way out — the body becomes immobile and goes into a freeze response — where we become passive and don’t take any action. This is commonly referred to as being paralysed by fright.
How to recognize if the fight-flight response has gotten activated?
• Your heart starts to beat faster
• Vision become narrow so that you become more alert
• Sweaty hands
• Your hearing becomes more sensitive
• Muscles tense up
• Urge to run away or escape the situation
Which part of the brain is responsible for this?
The limbic system (also called as the mammalian brain) is responsible for the fight-flight-freeze response. A majority of our emotional processing happens in this part of the brain.
Why is this fight-flight-freeze response important?
These adaptive body responses are important for our survival. Imagine you are crossing the street and a bus comes right in front of you, you want to be able to flee from this scenario. So your brain prepares your body to jump away from the bus and save yourself.
The first step in handling the fight-flight-freeze response
The downside to this adaptive body response is that it can make our general functioning challenging. When our brain starts to react to situations like ‘giving a speech’, ‘going to the mall’, ‘dealing conflict’, as if they were all predators and threats, and starts to activate the fight-flight-freeze response, then it can become incredibly difficult to get on with our lives.
Basically, the thing with our mind is that it hates uncertain scenarios. Going back to the example of the caveman — imagine that a human figure is approaching the cave, and the caveman is unable to figure out from afar whether this human is a friend or a foe. At this point of time, there is no time to ‘think positive’ and take a casual approach to this. You had to take the safe route and conclude that this could be a foe, and hide in the cave until the human figure comes closer and his face is clearer. So, to help you take the safe route, the caveman mind brought up strong emotions like fear, hypervigilance, and got your body ready for mobility.
We generally find ourselves in situations with uncertain outcomes (‘will the speech go well’, ‘is going to mall going to trigger a panic attack’, ‘who will win the conflict’), so now even after thousands of years, the modern mind reacts similarly. It throws up strong emotions at us – anxiety, fear, charge us up for mobility, to help us take the safe route.
The best way to handle this automatic response, is to take a pause and start naming our emotions. In times of hardship, it can be extremely beneficial to put words to what we are feeling — “I am feeling sadness”, “Anger has shown up”, “Shame is popping up”.
Naming our emotions will aid in not getting swept away by the emotional storms. When life is especially challenging and giving us uncertain outcomes, difficult emotions are bound to show up. In order for us to stay afloat and hold ourselves steady, (a) naming our emotions and (b) recognizing that the fight-flight-response is a natural response, will give us the much needed space to decide on what action to choose that will make our lives better.
Therapy and psychoeducation
The cool part about being in therapy is that you get to understand how your mind and brain work. Neuroscience and evolutionary psychology has so many answers on how and why we emotions, feelings, memories and thoughts pop up, and what do we do about it.
When Sindhushri is not indulging in clinical work, she is seen singing songs with her daughter, exploring board games with her husband, playing sitar with her mother, and creating zentangles during her alone time.
When Sindhushri is not indulging in clinical work, she is seen singing songs with her daughter, exploring board games with her husband, playing sitar with her mother, and creating zentangles during her alone time.
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