Stressed? Your stress response can help or hurt you!

We are recognizing that there’s a lot of stress going around these days. People are responding to stressful situations in their families, their communities, and the world. In our field, we realize there are different ways to respond to stress that can end up having very different results.

A stress response happens when the demands of a situation seem greater than our ability to cope with them. Also, depending on an individual’s background and past learning, perception plays a big role in what is believed to be stressful and a threat.  Therefore, people can be triggered to see different things as stressful.

Stress responses are not new. For our ancestors, a stress response meant the difference of being able to survive by avoiding a physical threat such as being a tiger’s dinner. Now our threats are not necessarily life-threatening. Stress can be good if the stress level is low or moderate. Then stress can improve focus and motivation. Stress might be helpful when you’re working on a project, giving a speech, or organizing a happy event. Stress can help us meet deadlines and make progress.

However, when stress is heavy and chronic, it can hurt you. You can feel overwhelmed. It can contribute to emotional health problems such as anxiety and depression. There are also many physical problems that can show up including elevated blood pressure, diabetes, indigestion, and obesity. Because how we respond to stress is critically important, let’s explore further.

When we perceive a threat, real or imagined, the brain hops into action to protect us. Unfortunately, it’s our amygdala (sometimes referred to the lizard brain) that jumps in first. If it interprets the stress as being dangerous, it sends a signal to the nervous system causing the body ready to react. The stress reaction triggers stress responses as we try to deal with the stressor.

Back in 1915, physiologist, Walter Canon, proposed the term acute stress response to describe the body’s reaction to stress.  He’s also credited with the term ‘fight or flight’. Now two other responses have been added, ‘freeze’ and ‘fawn’. Each of these responses may be helpful or hurtful, depending on the situation.

Fight – A fight response occurs when someone gets ready to overpower the threatening situation by fighting. Sometimes a fight reaction can be an angry, irrational response. Robert G. Ingersoll said, “Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.”

Flight – This response can happen when someone has the urge to run away. Adrenaline shoots out and people often feel fidgety, restless, and anxious. What Ben Francia said may apply here, “Running away from your problems is a race you’ll never win.”

Freeze – When someone freezes as a response to stress, it often is because they don’t know what to do. They feel stuck because they are neither fighting nor fleeing from the situation. They may experience sadness and anxiety, yet they are indecisive and may feel a sense of doom. Nell Scovell said, “When threatened, the nervous system goes into a ‘freeze response’. You assess the risk and determine that fight or flight doesn’t help you. Staying put does.”

Fawn – A fawn stress response can occur when people feel they have tried fight, flight or freeze and nothing has worked. They give up by becoming submissive. This response may show up in abusive families or where people are in abusive situations. Signs of the fawn response include people becoming very agreeable and overly helpful to stay safe. Their primary concern becomes trying to care for others and what will satisfy someone else.

In a fawn response, people may be covering deep hurt due to trauma presently, or from past childhood abuse or neglect. The abuser is seen as all-powerful and people become overly dependent. They may lose sight of who they are and what their own needs are.

Monaristw said, “Our thoughts are not our own – when in a submissive state.”

So, what about you? The goal of the stress responses of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn is to evade the threat and bring yourself back to a state of calm. Here are some ways that may be helpful to achieve that result. First, recognize if the threat is real or imagined and what you can and can’t control. Recognize your strengths and set boundaries as appropriate. Also, the basics of taking care of yourself physically and emotionally with adequate sleep, healthy diet and exercise can help bring balance to your life. Prayer and meditation are helpful. Also, reach out to a friend or a professional, if needed, so your response to stress can help you and not hurt you.

Chanhassen MN residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are success coaches and owners of The Balance Center in Excelsior. Contact them at WeCare@SharingLifesLessons.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2022 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.