The fight response is your body's way of facing any perceived threat aggressively. Flight means your body urges you to run from danger. Freeze is your body's inability to move or act against a threat. Fawn is your body's stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict.
Fight: facing any perceived threat aggressively. Flight: running away from danger. Freeze: unable to move or act against a threat. Fawn: immediately acting to try to please to avoid any conflict.
While freezing might seem like a counterintuitive way to respond to danger, it serves a purpose, just as fight or flight does. Freezing may: Prepare someone for action: A 2017 review suggests that freezing may function as a time for the brain to decide how to respond to the threat.
Fight Response
This response may feel like an adrenaline rush, accompanied with a desire to defend oneself through fighting, yelling at, or controlling others. The thought behind this response is “I need to eliminate the threat before it eliminates me.” Behaviors that might indicate this trauma response are: Crying.
If you often feel disconnected or numb when faced with stressful situations, this may be a sign that you're going into the freeze response. Some other signs of the freeze response include: Feeling like you can't move your limbs. Feeling paralyzed in fear.
Freeze – Feeling stuck in a certain part of the body, feeling cold or numb, physical stiffness or heaviness of limbs, decreased heart-rate, restricted breathing or holding of the breath, a sense of dread or foreboding.
Furthermore, “Such 'paralyzing' psychological phenomena as phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and various anxiety states can frequently be understood as symptoms of a freeze response that never had the chance to 'let go' or 'thaw out' once the original experience was over.
The freeze response is connected to:
childhood trauma and neglect. adult psychological trauma. post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) complex post-traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD).
As already mentioned, the two main behaviours associated with fear and anxiety are to either fight or flee. Therefore, the overwhelming urges associated with this response are those of aggression and a desire to escape, wherever you are.
The 4 Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Examining The Four Trauma Reactions. According to a research on the neurobiological consequences of psychological trauma, our bodies are designed to respond to perceived threats with a set of near-instantaneous, reflexive survival behaviors.
Toxic stress response:
This is the body's response to lasting and serious stress, without enough support from a caregiver. When a child doesn't get the help he needs, his body can't turn off the stress response normally. This lasting stress can harm a child's body and brain and can cause lifelong health problems.
However, sometimes when we survive traumatic experiences; that overwhelm our ability to cope, our nervous system can become highly sensitised to potential danger and in that way we can get 'stuck' in a constant flight, fight, freeze mode, even when our rational thinking brain can recognise that we are in fact safe.
If you are frozen or feel yourself going into a freeze, taking a few deep breaths can help you interrupt the freeze response and regain control. As soon as you begin to feel frightened, try to force yourself to take 3 or 4 slow, deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.
It makes us act. Chronic stress in turn is an unwanted state where the brain concludes that we are under threat. The body is continuously ready to fight for our lives, which is a burden both physically and mentally. Chronic stress can lead to burnout and to many physical illnesses.
Fortunately, anxiety can be treated through therapy, exposure, and medication. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are how our brain keeps us safe in potentially dangerous situations. Understanding the mechanisms behind these responses can help us be aware of and regulate our emotions in an appropriate and healthy way.
The freeze response, which makes the body immobile. You might feel paralysed or unable to move. This response is most often linked to dissociation. Dissociation in humans is like when animals freeze when they're in danger.
The “freeze” response occurs when our brains decide we cannot take on the threat nor are we able to escape. Often when this happens our bodies might remain still, unable to move, numb or “freeze”. We may feel as if we are not actually a part of our bodies.
In these situations, there are techniques you can use to calm the fight-or-flight response and alleviate the symptoms of acute stress. Deep breathing, relaxation strategies, physical activity, and social support can all help if you are feeling the effects of a fight-or-flight response.
For example, you may yell at your partner for pushing you into agreeing to speak at a conference when you don't feel ready (fight). Or you avoid going to a party or leave early because you don't feel comfortable around unfamiliar people (flight). Or, your mind goes blank when your boss asks you a question (freeze).