The Hidden Impact of Unresolved Fight, Flight, or Freeze Responses
When our natural threat response cycle is interrupted, it can easily be mistaken for other issues. By understanding the threat response cycle that all mammals experience, we can gain better insight into our reactions and overall mental health.
What is the Threat Response Cycle?
Imagine you're out for a walk and you hear a twig snap, or you see an unexpected movement out of the corner of your eye. Maybe you’re at work and you get an alert for an impromptu meeting, etc. These instances kick off a process known as the threat response cycle:
Notice Something New: This could be any sudden change in your environment—sounds, smells, sights, or even digital notifications.
Orient to the Novelty: Your attention shifts to this new stimulus.
Assess for Danger: Instinctively and automatically, your brain evaluates whether this new thing poses a threat.
Activate Response: If it’s deemed dangerous (this is not a conscious decision), your body kicks into one of the three F’s: fight, flight, or freeze.
Return to Normal: If it’s not a threat (like realizing that "snake" is actually just a garden hose), your body relaxes, and you return to your normal state.
But what happens if your response to a threat gets interrupted? Say, you feel intense anger but can't express it, or you're scared but can’t escape. If your fight, flight, or freeze response isn’t completed, that energy gets stuck in your system.
Why Does This Matter?
Unresolved fight, flight, or freeze responses can cause various issues. They might be mistaken for problems with self-control, personality flaws, or even physical ailments. For instance, feeling inexplicably anxious or irritable could be the result of a stuck fight or flight response, not a personal failing.
Understanding this cycle is crucial for mental health. It helps us recognize that these reactions are natural and part of our biology. Completing these responses, even if it's after the fact through therapeutic practices, can help us return to a state of balance. Somatic Experiencing is an effective way to do this.
Final Thoughts
Recognizing and addressing stuck fight, flight, or freeze responses is essential for mental and physical well-being. By understanding this natural cycle, we can better navigate our reactions to stress and create more room for healing and growth. If you think unresolved responses might be affecting you, talking to a counselor can be a great step toward resolving these issues and finding peace.
Social situations are the new stalking lions in our lives. How can we survive?
The brain can’t tell the difference between physical threat and emotional threat. It is going react (ie fight/flight/freeze) to both the same. Important takeaways!
The bullets:
The brain reacts the same to emotional threat as to physical threat.
Threat takes us out of the game and majorly decreases our creativity.
Knowing you're in threat is powerful to combating an unnecessary threat response.
There are some steps you can take to help restore peace.
The brain can’t tell the difference between physical threat and emotional threat. It is going react (ie fight/flight/freeze) to both the same.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU'RE POSSIBLY IN THREAT
Heart speeds up
Sweating Blood will flow to larger areas like your legs to prep you to run away
Hearing negatively effected (less middle frequency)
Ability for eye contact goes down
Ability to think smoothly and reflectively diminishes
Becoming more reactive
Less creativity
Vigilance (noticing every little problem)
Thoughts that see others as a threat (likely in the form of judging people) and yourself as vulnerable (likely in over inflating yourself or under inflating).
2 STEPS TO CONSIDER FOR RESTORING PEACE:
Awareness: notice that you’re in a threat response without judging yourself. This is MASSIVELY different than just being IN a threat response.
Shift from inside focus to outside focus: this comes from Somatic Experiencing. We take 80% of our content in from sight. Using your vision, let your eyes go wherever they want. SLOWLY. You are trying to not think and just notice the outside environment: colors, lighting, textures, objects, details, shapes, etc. Doesn’t matter why you want to look at anything. The point is to shift from the brain focusing on the inside to focusing on the outside. This literally shifts which part of the brain is activated and can give your nervous system a chance to reset. Notice if you spontaneously take a deeper breath or sigh or yawn or want to stretch. It could help to tap your feet while you do this.