Fight, Flight, Freeze…and Fawn?
Stress Responses
How would you define stress? I define stress as a state that either my mental capacity, physical capacity, or both are in overdrive due to a person, thing, or action in a crunch of time. Like the picture above, everything stacked on the box labeled stress literally gives me stress. Consider your definition of stress and where did you learn what it means? Was it from a parent, your doctor, or peers?
Now think about how many times you’ve heard fight-or-flight mode. Our bodies do cool things, and one of them is the instinct of survival. It just exists in us. How cool is that? The crazy part is our brain starts to equate the feeling of survival with things that aren’t so life threatening like homework, a deadline, discussing our feelings with the person we met on Tinder cause they want to know “What are we?” versus the life-threatening events like crawling out of a vehicle in a car crash, covering your children with your body in an active shooting, jumping from a building on fire, and laying completely still as possible while a bear infiltrates your campsite. I’m sure you've heard of the most popular stress responses fight, flight, maybe even freeze, but with new research developing, we’re finding out that there is a fourth stress response, Fawning.
Let’s go over them shall we:
Fight: Ready to tackle the problem, right then and there, usually accompanied by feelings of anger, irritation, combativeness.
Flight: Queue that song that goes, “She’s a runner, she’s a track star.” As you might have guessed, this is when one avoids situations by taking themselves out of the situation.
Freeze: Unable to deal with the overwhelming feeling of stress, normally the body and mind shut down, almost in a paralyzed state.
Fawn: Get ready to have your mind blown….people-pleasing to avoid conflict.
Biologically, these responses help us to survive. What happens when we stay in our stress response too long? Can you remember what your doctor or maybe a family member would warn you about stress? I think stress had a big hand in some of the deaths in my family. My dad for example, always bounced between fight and freeze with work. I watched him for years stress over a job that he didn’t enjoy doing. I know his heart was in his music but I think he believed he could do better for his family with a steady income versus mixing music. So take it from me, losing & burying a parent who was only 52 years old, stress……is not worth it. Here are some ways chronic stress affects the body:
Physical Health: headaches, high cortisol levels, high blood pressure, and weakened immune system
Mental Health: anxiety, depression, burnout
Behavior: changes in sleep & eating habits, and increases chances of substance abuse
I’ve heard it a million times from my family, “you just have to get through it, and eventually it will get better.” Welp, that doesn’t always work. Not when we’re so deep in stress, we forget that life doesn’t have to be stressful. No one is owed stress, no one deserves to be in a state of stress for long periods. So here’s what we can do:
Lean on Community: Y’all remember the song and the movie, Lean On Me, well, that message was put out to us for a reason. Find your people. Learn to lean in. It doesn’t make you weak. We weren’t meant to go through things alone. Culture has tried to teach us otherwise, but we’re more stressed than ever. So obviously, that isn’t working.
Create your Culture: Find the pieces of what already exists and make your own culture in your community. Do what helps bring you back. Is it church, is it meditation, is it getting lost in a book at a bookstore, is it hanging out with friends, and listening to music around a bonfire? Do you make music? Do you paint? Do you draw? Creativity goes a long way in bringing people together. Art has a funny way of conveying emotions/ You have a blank slate and you get to create what works for you. No one knows you better than you know you.
Advocacy: Stand up for you. We lost a sense of respect for each other in the grand scheme of things. I do see a shift happening. I see us, the lower tax bracket, standing up for each other, cause we are TIRED of the lies, manipulation, and quite frankly BS that the higher tax brackets are trying to pull. So let’s continue to take a stand and create a new culture of caring for one another based on respect and love for each other.
Digital Detox: Take a break from social media and the news. One of the largest reasons we are always stressed out is because we have so much access to stuff. There are so many platforms that are raising awareness, showing the good being done in the world. BUT there are a lot of platforms using propaganda. They’ve gotten slick, but they are there. Give yourself a 3-day detox once a month as a nice reset.
Mindfulness: It may be hard, and you may already think you’re in the moment. But a lot of us are in the moment and thinking about 30 other things that have to be done. Practice being in the now. Practice telling your brain that you understand there is a lot to do, but you can only take one at a time. The world will not end if you can’t get it all done in one day.
We got this! We can stop stress from having control over our lives. We just have to believe and be consistent in trying something other than what we’ve been doing.
-Alyssa Rochon, MFT-Intern, Reiki Master
