Fight, Flight, Freeze Explained

Why Your Body Reacts the Way it Does 

As a follow-up to the last post, let's delve a bit deeper into the specific responses to stress. Remember, these reactions are not conscious choices but rather your brain’s way of trying to protect you. By befriending these responses, we can change how we relate to them and ease the emotional burden they carry.

Fight Response
The fight response involves an aggressive reaction to a perceived threat. It takes on the stance of “I can overcome this.” When triggered, hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flood the body, causing an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. Blood is directed away from the brain and digestive systems to your muscles, preparing you to take action. This is a sympathetic nervous system response.

Fight reactions can manifest as yelling, hitting, throwing, or defending oneself. Whether it’s reacting to a snake in the grass, responding to an attack on social media, or defending yourself during a confrontation, this response is driven by the amygdala—your brain’s threat-detection system. It bypasses higher reasoning, focusing solely on survival. (It's important to note that this doesn’t excuse harmful behavior like abuse.) Fight responses are often more socially acceptable in men, but can also bring feelings of guilt and shame.

Flight Response
Flight is the urge to escape or avoid the threat. Like fight, it triggers adrenaline and causes an increase in heart rate and breathing. You might experience fidgeting, shaking, or feelings of panic. The belief here is “I can outrun this.”

Flight responses can manifest as literal escape, isolating from social interactions, burying yourself in work (workaholism), perfectionism, or constantly checking for exits. Again, it’s important to focus on understanding this as a survival instinct, not something to judge yourself for.

Freeze Response
Freeze is a parasympathetic response—a way to avoid danger by becoming still, hoping it will pass. Think of playing dead when facing a bear. Unlike fight or flight, freeze causes a decrease in heart rate, respiration, and body temperature, while muscles stiffen and the body releases pain-reducing endorphins.

Freeze often manifests as turning the other cheek, dissociating into fantasy (e.g., video games or books), emotional numbness, procrastination, indecision, or even oversleeping. Though this response may be more socially acceptable than others, it’s important to remember that no one response is inherently better than another.

Fawn Response
Another response worth mentioning is fawning. This strategy involves attempting to appease or befriend the threat in order to avoid conflict and establish safety, common in situations of childhood or long-term abuse. Fawning might show up as being overly agreeable, neglecting your own needs for others, lacking boundaries, having trouble saying “no,” or being overly responsible for others. This response is often more common in women due to social conditioning and can be a dynamic in codependent relationships.

No matter which response you identify with most, remember that it is your brain’s attempt to protect you. To begin befriending these responses, try thanking your brain for its brilliant and creative ways of keeping you safe.

In the next newsletter, we’ll discuss ways to find regulation when under stress, especially chronic stress.

Till next time, 

Eva