Let’s talk about the features of fight-or-flight mode, why we enter it, and how to remain in control during moments of stress.
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be incredibly resilient and remain composed even when buffeted by formidable life problems, while others are knocked over at the slightest rock of the boat?
A oft-overlooked fact about stress and life problems is that stressors alone don’t determine our levels of stress. Rather, the key is how we respond to those stressors.
Our usual response to stressful situations has a long evolutionary heritage, and it’s called the fight-or-flight response. The challenge of better managing our stress ultimately comes down to better managing the fight-or-flight mode.
Our knowledge of it is traceable to what we call the alarm reaction.
The Alarm Reaction
The alarm reaction is the set of biological and psychological changes we experience when we face a stressor and believe our safety and well-being to be threatened.
The alarm reaction prepares us for defensive or aggressive action, and is guided by the nervous system and brain, particularly the amygdala, which activates whenever we feel threatened or thwarted.
Here’s the connection between our internal alarm system and fight or flight. When researcher Walter B. Cannon was studying the physiology behind the alarm reaction in cats, he discovered that when they are confronted by a barking dog, they experience the same physiological changes as those that mobilise the body to fight or flee: for fight or flight, hence the name.
The Fight-or-Flight Response
The fight-or-flight response works in the same way in human beings and puts us into a state of hyperarousal, in which:
- our heart rate increases,
- our muscles contract,
- we experience strong emotions,
- our blood flow increases,
- our senses become more acute.
Neurologically, this correlates with rapid neural firings and the release of stress hormones like adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol.
All of these biological changes are regulated by the Autonomous Nervous System or ANS, in particular the sympathetic branch.
These changes prepare you to use the body to alter the situation as quickly as possible and quash the threat. It gives you the extra sense of power required to act.
This automatic, pre-verbal reaction takes over, enabling you to act without having to engage your higher cognitive faculties. This mechanism simply swoops in and saves you. If you were to deliberate over the best course of action, it could be too late.
Maladaption and Habituation
This reaction is essential when we are in genuine life-threatening situations. It serves wild animals well, and presumably it served the hunter-gatherers well, otherwise our species wouldn’t have survived for thousands of years amid fearsome predators.
However, how often have you found yourself in fight-or-flight mode when it was unnecessary? How often have you been unable to control your responses while in this mode? Do you notice how this affects your health?
As we said, being prepared to fight or fly is a necessary survival mechanism when we face concrete threats from the environment. But it becomes maladaptive when we spring into fight-or-flight mode when the threat is minimal, or even imagined. We’re misusing the mechanism.
What’s more, this state of arousal becomes a habit. And the more it does, the more easily we slip into it, and the more we lose control. Remember, the fight-or-flight is automatic and pre-verbal. Your ability to decide and consciously direct is momentarily disengaged. It puts you in automatic mode.
What’s more, these patterns become neurologically wired, turning into networks that spring into action with the tiniest nudge. You start to automatically enter into automatic mode!
Eventually, we perceive every stressful situation, whether minor or major, as a threat to us. Our temper is short, we feel anger constantly, and we can’t help but act on it in dysfunctional ways.
There is no shortage of such stressors if we look for them, so we end up in a constant state of hyperarousal. In other words, we experience chronic stress.
This has a slew of nasty health effects, such as gene deregulation, high secretion of inflammation-producing chemicals, increased aging through telomere shortening, skin problems, and more.
The good news is that we can learn to modulate our stress response and reprogramme ourselves not to enter into fight-or-flight mode so easily. And it doesn’t involve taking tablets or getting brain scans.
Though this topic will require a separate article, know for now that the solution is to learn to regulate your emotions and to develop self-awareness, particularly in moments of stress. Meditation is the main tool I’d recommend for for this, and there are many ways to learn it, like local classes, online meditation classes, or internet resources.
Trust that it is possible to unwire your patterns of chronic stress to an extraordinary degree, such that you can face challenging situations while remaining calm and collected, just like those people who stay centered in the face of extraordinary life challenges.