You’ve Heard of Fight or Flight… But What About Freeze?
Written by: Emily Beck
September 15, 2023
You have probably heard about the fight or flight response; the instinct to either fight off the threat or run away from it. People talk about fight or flight all the time. What we talk about less often is the freeze response. The freeze response is the instinct to freeze in place, do nothing and be completely still and hope the threat abates on its own. This can be seen when certain animals “play dead” in the face of a threat.
Fight, Flight, and Freeze are the three responses that are biological instincts to protect us when our lives are in danger. However, what we find sometimes is that we experience fight, flight, or freeze even when there is not a threat to our lives. This seeming overreaction is especially common when we have experienced trauma and are being reminded of that trauma. Even if you are not actually in danger, your brain and body might feel like you are. You might notice after a bad car accident that your heart races when you get behind the wheel of a car, and your instinct is to get out of the car. Even though you are no longer in danger, your body is still telling you that there is a threat, and the safest thing is to run away.
What does Freeze look like?
A freeze response can look several different ways. Here are some examples:
Zoning out and not remembering a traumatic experience
Eating, drinking, or using substances to help manage especially intense emotions.
Feeling tired when you get anxious or overwhelmed.
Feeling disconnected from your body, also known as dissociation
All these things can happen when our bodies go into freeze, but sometimes we are so accustomed to this feeling that we don’t notice it happening. Despite the name, heart rate often increases with the freeze response, as it does with fight and flight.
The freeze response can be scary if you don’t recognize what is happening. Even a verbal reminder of something traumatic can cause this response, particularly in people with complex trauma. Dissociation, or disconnection from the body, is a relatively well-known type of freeze response. This can look like someone is daydreaming or not paying attention, but in reality their brain might be trying to protect them from a perceived danger.
If you notice someone is experiencing a freeze response, here are some things that you can do to help ground them:
Do a mindfulness exercise with them. This can be naming things associated with their 5 senses (things you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch), asking them to describe something in the room with them, or even asking them to count all the colors that they can see.
Engage in some sort of light physical activity with them. Going for a walk, tossing a pillow back and forth, or having them stand up and shake out their arms and legs can help to ground someone enough to come out of a freeze response.
Help them change their body temperature. Wrapping them in a blanket if they are cold, opening a window, or giving them an ice pack to put on their chest, neck, or forehead can help.
Be patient. Sometimes a person needs time to come out of the freeze response, and for their body to know that they are not in danger. It can be scary to see someone freeze, but know that, as long as they are physically safe, the response isn’t going to harm them, and you can help talk it through once they are more grounded.
Once you know what to look for with the freeze response, you might start to see it more often.
It's important to remember that these instincts are not voluntary, they are biological. Your brain is trying to protect you from harm. You cannot prevent fight, flight, or freeze from happening, but you can help yourself manage it effectively.
Interested in learning how to process and effectively manage your own fight, flight, or freeze response? Give us a call today at 217-203-2008 to schedule an appointment and start promoting peace from within.
Resources
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/fight-flight-or-freeze-response#fight-or-flight