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Lisa Graff-Marsh LCSW, San Diego, CA (2025)

03/25/2025

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08/24/2022

02/10/2022

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We have all heard of the fight, flight, or freeze responses to a threat as a means to cope. Well, the same goes for trauma. When we are faced with hardships and traumatic events, our bodies choose a coping mechanism. Each coping mechanism will manifest as different characteristics in responding to the trauma.

If you lose a loved one, there are several ways an individual could respond. You might find yourself getting extremely angry and lashing out at others when trying to cope with the loss (fight), you may try to distract yourself with work (flight), or you just find yourself staying in bed and completely isolating yourself from other people (freeze). These three responses are all valid when dealing with a threat or trauma.

A simple example to demonstrate our threat or trauma responses from a scientific perspective goes like this: imagine you accidentally stepped in front of a fast an oncoming car. This information is processed from your eyes and ears and will arrive in the amygdala (the part of the brain associated with emotional processes), which then sends stress signals to your hypothalamus. Once these signals have reached your hypothalamus, messages continue to be sent to the rest of your body through the autonomic nervous system, which causes our body to respond to the oncoming car by choosing fight, flight, or freeze (Harvard Health Publishing, 2020).

If you find yourself struggling to manage one of these responses, you could try relaxation techniques to engage your parasympathetic nervous system. These activities include deep and mindful breathing, meditation techniques, and visualization (Nestor, 2020). Alternatively, you could also engage in physical activity to reset your stress response.

Keep in mind that our body automatically reacts to threats and traumas in these ways to keep us safe. It is difficult to predict how our brains will react in a certain situation, so it is important to be aware of your threat responses and practice techniques that allow you to manage your responses and regain control of the situation.

[Taken from "The Fight-or-Flight Response" article on our PositivePsychology.com blog.]