Fight, Flight, Fright, Freeze or Fawn? What is Your Response to Stress?

We often refer to the stress response as the “Fight or Flight” syndrome, in which we fight the threat or turn and run from it. However, other options exist, including freeze, fright, fawn, or faint.

Essentially, each phase of the stress response represents a defense or survival mechanism.

Freeze:

• A period of hypervigilance in which we “Stop, Look, and Listen” to survey a threat.
• Freezing may occur in response to a social threat or seeing an “angry face.”
• It is possible that “freezing” may even increase our chances of survival by making us less visible to a predator.
• It is characterized by reduced mobility, decreased heart rate, and increased muscle tension and may be considered “flight or fight” put on hold.

Flight:

• At this point, it’s time to escape the threat as quickly as possible.
• The body mobilizes reserves to fuel physical effort and increase blood glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate.
• Stress hormones increase, including epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol.

Fight:

• If we cannot flee, then we may need to fight.
• The body prepares to fight in the same way it prepares to flee.

Fright

• This stage may be characterized by immobility when we see no way out and no way to win a fight once direct contact is made with the threat.
• However, we may still be physically prepared to flee or fight, be hypervigilant, and even experience rapid heart rate.
• Faintness or fainting may occur due to a vasovagal response to a perceived threat and may even be a way of “playing dead” and hoping for another chance to escape.

Fawn

• This is the submissive response which serves to avoid conflict 
• It is linked to the same defense system against fear- or anxiety-inducing stimuli

Catatonia (Zingela 2022)

Signs of catatonia, like withdrawal, immobility, and stupor, may be equivalent to

• The freezing aspect of the stress response
• The negativism and combativeness of the fight response
• The automatic and passive obedience to the fawn reaction.

Source: Zingela, Zukiswa et al. “The psychological and subjective experience of catatonia: a qualitative study.” BMC psychology vol. 10,1 173. 15 Jul. 2022, doi:10.1186/s40359-022-00885-7 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

States of the defense cascade. The diagram depicts the states of arousal, flight or fight, freezing, and tonic/collapsed immobility in terms of patterns of neural activity in the different structures and pathways of the defense cascade network:

Source: Kozlowska, Kasia et al. “Fear and the Defense Cascade: Clinical Implications and Management.” Harvard review of psychiatry vol. 23,4 (2015): 263-87. doi:10.1097/HRP.0000000000000065 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND),

Paralyzed by Stress or Fear?

Stress, or our reaction to it, can be paralyzing. However, some simple techniques can help.

Consciously controlling the breath can increase vagal tone, modulate arousal, and improve stress tolerance. Other approaches to managing stress and post-traumatic stress syndrome include:

• Biofeedback
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
• Gentle stretching, yoga
• Grounding interventions
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Regular exercise
• Slow, deep, controlled breaths help reverse the stress response

Optimal Takeaways

• Fight—this entails facing the danger and fighting the threat aggressively.
• Flight—this implies running away from the threat to try and save yourself.
• Freeze—this is equivalent to playing dead through immobility until the threat passes.
• Fawn—this is the submissive response which serves to avoid conflict.
• Coping—deep breathing, mindfulness, CBT, stretching, yoga, progressive relaxation, regular exercise

References

Bracha, H Stefan. “Freeze, flight, fight, fright, faint: adaptationist perspectives on the acute stress response spectrum.” CNS spectrums vol. 9,9 (2004): 679-85. doi:10.1017/s1092852900001954

Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, StatPearls Publishing, 12 September 2022.

Kozlowska, Kasia et al. “Fear and the Defense Cascade: Clinical Implications and Management.” Harvard review of psychiatry vol. 23,4 (2015): 263-87. doi:10.1097/HRP.0000000000000065 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND),

Noordewier, Marret K et al. “Freezing in response to social threat: a replication.” Psychological research vol. 84,7 (2020): 1890-1896. doi:10.1007/s00426-019-01203-4

Roelofs, Karin. “Freeze for action: neurobiological mechanisms in animal and human freezing.” Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences vol. 372,1718 (2017): 20160206. doi:10.1098/rstb.2016.0206

Schmidt, Norman B et al. “Exploring human freeze responses to a threat stressor.” Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry vol. 39,3 (2008): 292-304. doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2007.08.002

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