Ep.4 Emergency! The Fight or Flight Response

Today, I am going to talk with you about how the body responds to stress or a threat. There are a number of physical changes that take place.

This is important for you to know because problems with mood like anxiety, panic, disrupted sleep, and other things you might experience as being “keyed up” are related to this emergency response of the body.

The body’s emergency response is often called “fight-or-flight” because the response originally was to prepare the body to either run away from or to fight a danger. All of the physical changes that take place are to optimize the system to handle a dangerous situation.

Meant to be brief.

An important point is that it was supposed to be for a brief amount of time, just long enough to get out of danger, and then it was meant to subside quickly and return to normal.

For example, back in caveman days about 12,000 years ago, humans had to be able to respond quickly to a dangerous threat because there were plenty of them that could result in death. The person needed to be able to rally to fight off the threat or to escape from it. Their body would go through automatic and quick changes for this purpose. 

So let’s say the person finds themselves facing a saber tooth tiger. The person’s body would start pumping out adrenaline, an emergency hormone, which triggers changes such as the heart beating fast so more blood which carries oxygen would be present. Breathing quickly would increase to bring in that oxygen. Muscles would tighten to be ready to run or to fight. The person would become very alert and very focused. 

Basically, the emergency response would put the person into superhuman mode. 

You probably have heard stories of average people suddenly developing superhuman strength when, for example, a child is about to be crushed by a car that has rolled onto them. People have been known to single handedly lift the very heavy car, a weight they could not normally budge. A person in that emergency situation is able to lift the car off of the child and rescue the child. You can look it up and find numerous stories like this.

Now, these emergency physical changes were supposed to last only long enough to get the person out of danger. Then it was all supposed to subside and go back to a normal state allowing for other body functions such as rest and digestion to take place.

Dysfunction.

These days we see some strong emotional reactions are a dysfunction of the emergency response.

Maybe you can relate to this description:

Anxiety is the mini heart attack you receive when you're walking down the stairs and miss a step, but with anxiety, your heart never calms down and the butterflies remain in the pit of your stomach.  

It becomes a problem when the emergency response turns on too easily and stays activated. It can involve feeling that something bad is about to happen, it can mean being jumpy, it can involve nightmares and waking in the night, it can be breaking out into a cold sweat for no known reason. It can be rapid shallow breathing and rapid heart rate. It can involve unconsciously holding your breath. It can involve bouts of crying. It can be feeling the desperate need to leave a situation. It can be general nervousness or feeling keyed up. It can lead to pacing. It can be staring wide awake when you want to go to sleep. It can be racing thoughts that go on and on. 

Problems that involve the dysfunction of the emergency response can be anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, OCD, digestion problems, heart and blood pressure issues.

Physical harm.

Unfortunately, having the emergency response on overdrive for extended amounts of time leads to other physical problems. 

Over time, being in emergency mode all of the time wears out the immune system. It has been researched and shown that higher experiences of stress relate to susceptibility to getting colds. There is some evidence that having the emergency response on for extended amounts of time might be related to developing autoimmune disorders in which the immune system works too much and attacks healthy aspects of the body.

For example, in 2018, I was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis of the lungs which means my immune system attacks my lungs and can lead to scarring and reduced lung function. It has not been said that high stress caused this illness, but it is recommended to reduce stress.

Body organs and digestion can be harmed by having the emergency response turned on all of the time. This would include IBS, Crohn's Disease, ulcers, stomach pain, digestion issues, diarrhea. A person’s heart can be under too much strain for too long and there could be high blood pressure. And so on.

The human body is designed to have a protective emergency response, but when it becomes dysfunctional, it contributes to both emotional and physical disorders.

The solution to this is turning on the relaxation response which I will cover in another episode. 

In the meantime, if you have anything you do to calm yourself and to relax, do it regularly and frequently.

You can listen to this episode HERE and subscribe to the Calm & Confident You podcast on your favorite streaming service.

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Be well until we meet next time!