The 4 Stress Responses - Part 3: Freeze (Video transcript)

Hi everyone. I'm Kristen, the anxiety therapist, and today I'm going to be talking about part three of the four part series I'm doing on the fear responses as a reminder. Those are fight flight, freeze and fawn. So today we're going to be focusing on the freeze response.

If you want more information about how these manifest in our brains or our nervous system, go ahead and refer back to the first video. I talked a little bit more about that, but today, like I said, we're going to be focusing on the freeze response, which is our body's tendency to be very still and quiet in response to a perceived threat.

So, if we're going back to evolutionary theory, it's believed that it's our brain's attempt to avoid detection by predators by holding very still. So our body literally shuts down our ability to move and we feel frozen or stuck in place until the danger or the threat passes in more modern times. An example of this would be if you're home alone and it's night time and you hear sort of an unexpected noise in the dark, you might freeze until you have further information about how to act.

So on the one side, some theorists believe that the freeze response happens when we feel we don't have the option or fighting or fleeing. Other theorists believe it's sort of a precursor to that, so that it's our brain's way of sort of pressing pause or or stalling until we figure out whether fighting back or fleeing the scene is a better option.

Another example of how this shows up in more modern times is with extreme or severe social anxiety. Sometimes there will be some selective mutism and um what happens is the vocal cords actually become paralyzed until the anxiety passes, and so the person has the inability to speak until that anxiety subsides.This is obviously a very extreme and very rare example, but just another way that the freeze response is linked to anxiety and can show up in modern times.

So what are some some signs of the freeze response?

It includes a possible sense of dread, pale skin, you might feel stiff, heavy, numb or cold and you might experience a loud pounding heart or the opposite, a decrease in heart rate.

And so over the long term, this can start to resemble sort of a mask that we use to protect ourselves if we feel that that fighting back or escaping distressing situations are not an option. And so this can look like mentally checking out of situations. We can use fantasy or imagination to sort of escape day to day distress.

We could crave solitude or avoid close relationships, we might have a lot of difficulty sharing our emotions and feelings, so we keep them pretty hidden or we might physically detached, so we might sleep excessively or isolate ourselves in our rooms as a way of sort of protecting ourselves.

And if we're looking at people who have experienced pretty severe trauma, such as a a sexual assault or something like that, um this can actually turn into what's called a flop response, which is um the scientific term is tonic immobility and this is when the body will um completely shut down in response to a trauma.

So you might pass out and as an attempt to sort of um enter your aggressor. And so they won't be as forceful and you won't have any recollection of the trauma, you might completely disassociate, which means that your body is experiencing the trauma, but mentally and emotionally you are somewhere else.

And so you don't actually have as many memories of the trauma. So this is again called the flap response, but it sort of falls under the umbrella of the freeze response in more, more severe traumatic experiences. So I hope this video was informative and helpful and you know, if you can relate to anything or if you see this showing up in in your life and it's pretty pervasive and persistent, it might be time to speak to a professional, so feel free to follow me on social media at cathartic space counseling.

I also have a website if you want to learn more about me or my practice and I have other videos on there and that's cathartic space counseling dot com. And next week I'll be back talking about the fond response. Have a great week, everybody see you next time.