The stress responses conversation has been ramping up on social media as we move closer to becoming a more emotionally intelligent and trauma-informed society. But what are stress responses, how do they work, how can I recognize if I am in one; and is it me, or do they keep changing? These are all valid questions that we will try to break down in this blog series.

By now, most of us have heard the terms “fight, flight, and freeze,” to describe unconscious reactions to stressful situations. You may have also started hearing words like,“fawn, tend – and -befriend, and flop on social media. That’s a lot of words to use to say that our bodies naturally react to highly stressful situations and that you can never be sure which response your nervous system will choose at any given time. Let us break it down for you.

This article will walk you through the freeze response when faced with a catastrophic life-threatening event, or what we call a “Big – T” trauma. The freeze response presents differently in social situations. We can look into that later, but first please be warned that this article may be graphic for some readers. Trigger warning! 

The Freeze Response: Startle, Flee, Freeze, and Flop

Why did I start with this one? Isn’t this your nervous system’s very last response when the others do not work? Well, yes and no. The freeze response actually has a few stages that we will break down for you. The very first piece of this response is called “startle.” Let’s say you are enjoying a peaceful hike through the woods when you hear something moving in the bushes. The first thing that you do is stop, hold your breath, tense your muscles, and tilt your head toward the noise so that your nervous system can use its neuroceptive abilities to detect if this noise is a threat.

Neuroception is just a fancy word to describe your nervous system’s tendency to scan the environment for threats. This is your body’s way of deciding what it will need to do next. This is happening at a subconscious level and it happens within milliseconds. This can go one of a few ways. We’ll take the easy route first. Let’s say as you turn your head towards the bush a cute fluffy chipmunk runs out from underneath and up a tree (it’s okay if you don’t like cute fluffy chipmunks, just imagine your cute fluffy animal of choice). Once the message that the chipmunk is not a threat reaches your brain, your nervous system will reset itself and move back into the ventral vagal system (that is just a fancy way to say your safety or social engagement system).

You can notice that your nervous system reset itself because you might let out a sigh, shake out your hands, stretch your neck or shoulders, or make some small movement with your body that we often do not take note of. This is your body’s way of “discharging” that “frozen” energy that just took over your system. Is this sounding familiar so far?

But what if it’s not a fluffy chipmunk, what if a huge brown bear comes stalking out of the bushes? This is when your nervous system chooses between fighting, fawning, or flopping (tend and befriend come later after the event is over). Since we are concentrating just on the freeze response here, l will not go into the others in too much depth.

Let’s say your body decides to run or flee (if you are faced with a bear in the woods, fleeing is NOT the suggested way to handle the situation, but your nervous system might not have got the memo). The second that your nervous system decides to run, your adrenal glands release a host of hormones (cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. Sometimes people just lump these last two together and call them adrenaline), to help you escape. Your heart rate increases, your mouth goes dry, your blood pressure hits the roof, and all of a sudden you have the energy of an Olympic athlete, and you can’t think straight.

You can feel your heart pumping through your chest, in your neck, and your airways open up to allow more oxygen to flow into your lungs as you start pumping your arms and legs to run. But you can hear the beast behind you and it is close! The thuds of its giant paws against the ground, and the low growling noise it makes as it chases after you become louder and louder. As the sweat rolls down your back and forehead your body knows that this bear is catching up. You can feel the pounding of your heart in your ears, and your muscles feel strong and powerful as you bound over tree trunks and bushes that stand in your way.

Take a second right now as you are reading this and check in with your body.

• Are you noticing any subtle shifts?
• What is your heart rate like now compared to before you started reading this?
• Scan your body and notice any new tension that was not there or that got worse from just two minutes ago.
• What is your breathing like all of the sudden? 
• Now listen. What do you hear? Are you hearing all of the little sounds that are surrounding you that you were unaware of before? The humming of the refrigerator, birds outside the window, your dog chewing on your new shoes in the next room?

If you are noticing any of these subtle shifts it’s not because I am the next Stephen King, it’s because your nervous system and brain stem cannot tell the difference between a real and a perceived threat. On some level, your body is getting ready to escape from the bear in this article, even though you are sitting safely in your home. It’s okay, I can help you here.

• Take three nice deep cleansing breaths. Inhale for the count of 4, hold your breath for 4, and exhale to the count of 7 or 8….repeat three times.
• Next, fill your mouth with saliva or if you have water next to you take a sip and swoosh it around in your mouth. 
• Now take note of what changed inside of your body. Is your heart slowing? Is your focus returning? What does your stomach feel like? Pretty cool, huh? You just reset your nervous system!

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program. As you’re running through the woods, hopping over branches and trying to keep your footing there’s a fallen tree directly in front of you! As your nervous system detects this next threat, suddenly you hit the ground. Disclaimer: your nervous system again has a choice to make. It very well may choose to fight, but for the sake of consistency, we will stick with the freeze response.

It seems like someone hit the slow-motion button on the remote control as your body falls to the ground. You can see the shrubbery and its berries, you can see a squirrel climbing up a tree in the distance,  you smell the wet damp earth, and you can’t seem to hear anything! It is all happening so slowly now. As you look up and see the bear’s sharp snarling teeth dripping with hot saliva, its deadly claws protracting from paws larger than your head, and its thick brown fur towering above you, all you can do is FREEZE!

You want to move but you physically cannot move a muscle. PS – when you are watching a horror film and screaming at and berating the victim who is cowering in the corner as the slasher approaches her, it is this freeze response she is experiencing. She literally cannot move and deserves an academy award for accurately portraying the stress response, BRAVO, BRAVO! You can’t move, you can’t hear, you can’t breathe, and every muscle in your body is tight and tense and it feels like you are no longer in your body. It has somehow become a scene you are watching from above. You have reached the freeze response. 

In this stage of the freeze response in a life-threatening situation, what you are likely experiencing is dissociation. No matter how much you might want to fight or run you cannot control your body. You are stuck with nowhere to go, so your nervous system steps in to protect you. By disconnecting the brain from the body on a subconscious level, and making the experience feel unreal or like it isn’t really happening, your nervous system is doing its best to protect you.

During this time your pituitary gland and hypothalamus will release a blast of endorphins (the body’s natural pain reliever), and your acetylcholine is released from your basal forebrain. Acetylcholine helps your brain and body prepare for the attack by decreasing your heart rate, contracting the gastrointestinal system, and affecting your attention and memory during the event. 

As the bear violently jumps towards your body you “flop” (sometimes called collapse). This is often likened to “playing dead,” but you are not playing (and neither is the opossum)! Your body is quite literally preparing to die and it wants to protect you from any pain and anguish you might experience. It’s called flop because your muscles go loose and your body becomes floppy like a ragdoll. Your body may release certain functions to save energy, and you cannot feel pain. The flop stage has been beneficial to survival for centuries in the wild. This response can “trick” the predator into believing you are already dead and predators want fresh meat, not meat that has been sitting out in the hot sun. 

Congratulations, you just survived a hypothetical bear attack thanks to your nervous system’s evolutionarily innate intelligence and quick response. Next time we will look at how the freeze response manifests during situations that you are more likely to experience in daily life. After that we will move through fighting, fleeing, fawning, and tending – and – befriending. 

Written by Autumn Walsh, MSW. Autumn is accepting patients at our Pittsburgh location as well as online. Contact us at 412-322-2129 to schedule an appointment.