{"id":72633,"date":"2020-06-17T16:44:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T16:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/72633"},"modified":"2020-06-17T16:44:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T16:44:32","slug":"fight-flight-freeze-response-anxiety-skills-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/72633","title":{"rendered":"Fight Flight Freeze Response: Anxiety Skills #1"},"content":{"rendered":"Have you ever wondered why do my hands\nget all cold and sweaty when I'm nervous? or "Why does my stomach get all tight\nwhen I'm talking to my boss?" Well today we're going to talk about our body and\nbrain's natural reaction to danger- it's called the "Fight Flight or Freeze"\nresponse. Now our bodies' have developed this amazing reaction to help keep us\nsafe. For thousands of years humans' biggest challenge was survival. They had\nto worry about wild animals, and heights, warring tribes and other dangers. So the\nbody developed this instinctual way to keep us safe. Now unfortunately in\ncurrent day we don't have nearly as many of these real and immediate dangers so a\nlot of times this reaction it just makes us uncomfortable. When faced with a real\nand immediate danger like a tiger our instincts take over- We have three main\nreactions 1.

Fight 2. Run away or 3. Freeze. These come naturally, we don't have to\nthink about it. These reactions actually turn off the thinking part of our brain-\nit's kind of like a Star Trek when the captain says "All power to shields" and\nthey lower the lights on the bridge. (Yes, I am a nerd!) Now the front part of our\nbrain-the prefrontal cortex-that's the part that is thinking, words, planning…\nthat all gets mostly shut down. And the back part of our brain which is reactive\nand instinctive gets amped up. This can be really helpful if you're facing a\ntiger because if you're facing a tiger and you take time to plan out what your\nnext move is you're most likely going to get eaten.

However this is not helpful if\nyour perceived danger is a public speech and the front part of your brain turns\noff. Or you're asking out a date and all of a sudden you can't make words come\nout of your mouth. That's when it becomes a real pain. Our body does other things\nto try and keep us safe it sends extra extra blood to the big\nmuscles which takes the blood flow away from our extremities like our hands and\nfeet so that's where the phrase "cold feet" comes from. It makes us start to\nsweat so our hands will often get cold and sweaty or cold and clammy. It\nturns on the adrenaline glands-those start pumping out, this gives us energy\nfor a quick burst to either run away or punch someone- but later on that\nadrenaline gives us the shakes. It turns off our digestive system because we\ndon't really need to be digesting that hamburger when we're running away from a\ntiger. However when our digestive system turns off that can cause all sorts of\nproblems like a decreased appetite, tight feeling in the stomach, dry mouth and\neven people could get the runs or wet their pants.

Obviously these are all\noutcomes that we don't really want. The fight flight freeze response also\ntightens the muscles. It heightens some senses like vision gets pinpointed,\ncreating tunnel vision. Our breathing rate gets shorter and shallower so we're\nbreathing faster but not deeper. And our heart rate goes up. The fight flight\nfreeze response also temporarily turns off the immune system. Now that's also a\ngood thing because again it's all power to shields where we're putting all power\nto keeping ourselves alive. But if the fight flight freeze response\nis turned on all the time then our immune system is turned off much of the\ntime, and that's why people who are always stressed out are often getting\nsick.

Now with the freeze response we sometimes see a few different things\nthan the fight-or-flight response. More frequently we'll see people feeling numb,\npeople shrinking, hiding or complying- just going along with what the person or\nthe thing in power seems to be wanting. Now this response- this fight flight\nfreeze response- could be really helpful in situations where there's\nreal and immediate danger.

And it's meant to work in short bursts. The problem that\nhappens is when we are constantly having this reaction to things that aren't real\ndangers they're just perceived threats. Like a boss asking to talk with us or a\npublic speaking event. When we are constantly in the fight flight freeze\nresponse then our body gets trapped in this elevated state for a long period of\ntime. This leads to exhaustion, insomnia, muscle tension, digestive\nproblems, and frequent illnesses. In an upcoming video we are going to\nteach you how to train your mind and body to respond differently to threats,\nto resolve anxiety, and to train your nervous system to return to calm quickly.\nFor now the best thing you can do is to just start noticing your body's reaction.\nNotice what happens when you're going into fight flight or freeze mode and\njust give it a label like "I'm having a fight response right now". I hope this was helpful thanks for watching and take care .","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered why do my hands get all cold and sweaty when I'm nervous? or "Why does my stomach get all tight when I'm talking to my boss?" Well today we're going to talk about our body and brain's natural reaction to danger- it's called the "Fight Flight or Freeze" response. Now our … Continue reading Fight Flight Freeze Response: Anxiety Skills #1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":72635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,5,781,4771,409],"tags":[37579,37598,40130,43492,43494,43486,43485,43481,43483,43484,34501,43490,43488,43489,43487,960,34488,38316,43497],"class_list":["post-72633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anxiety","category-causes-and-prevention","category-crime-justice","category-disasters-accidents","category-health","tag-anxiety-disorder-treatment","tag-anxiety-symptoms","tag-coping-skills","tag-coping-skills-for-depression","tag-coping-skills-for-kids","tag-fight-and-flight","tag-fight-flight","tag-fight-flight-freeze","tag-fight-flight-freeze-response","tag-fight-flight-or-freeze","tag-fight-or-flight","tag-fight-or-flight-definition","tag-fight-or-flight-hormone","tag-fight-or-flight-meaning","tag-fight-or-flight-response","tag-ptsd","tag-stress-response","tag-sympathetic","tag-treating-anxiety"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/72633_maxresdefault.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}