Category: Triggers

The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response

Anxiety, Coping Strategies, Mental Health, Panic, Trauma, Triggers

The fight or flight response has been around as long as human beings have been around. It’s the body’s hardwired alarm system. If you think of the human body as a computer, the fight-­or-­flight response is an essential part of the operating system. You couldn’t really function (or live that long) without it.

When you encounter a dangerous or threatening situation, this alarm system goes off, and your body goes through a number of changes. For example, during the fight-­or-­flight response, you may experience the following symptoms:

  • An increase in heart rate
  • Perspiration or sweating
  • Narrowing of field of vision (also called “tunnel vision”)
  • Muscle tension
  • Sensitive hearing
  • Racing thoughts
  • Shortness of breath
  • Goose bumps
  • Dry mouth

These experiences aren’t random; they all serve a very important purpose. They prepare you for immediate action. They are preparing you either to flee the situation to avoid any harm or to fight if escape is not possible. In situations where fleeing or fighting is not necessarily a good option, your body may also freeze (kind of like a deer caught in a car’s headlights).

This response is automatic. It occurs without thinking. This is important because it allows you to respond quickly when you are in a dangerous situation. For example, let’s say that you are walking through the woods and come across a bear. Your fight-­or-­flight response will be activated, and you will likely freeze or flee. The sudden and automatic changes that your body goes through will help keep you alive in this dangerous situation. Now, if you had to think about the situation before the fight-­or-­flight response was activated, you would waste precious time. You would have to evaluate the size of the bear and the sharpness of its claws and teeth. And, by the time you figured all of that out, you would probably be supper for the bear! Therefore, the fight-­or-­flight response is incredibly helpful and adaptive. We likely wouldn’t be alive as a species today without it.

Sources: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety

Dealing With Trauma Triggers

Anxiety, Flashbacks, Mental Health, PTSD, Trauma, Triggers

Most of us are aware of the larger trauma triggers. We can recognize some of the people, places, and things that harmed us, and do our best to avoid them all. For example, if our trauma had something to do with the beach we can avoid any area with sand or any sounds of the beach. We can sit down with our therapist and make a list of all of the things that we know trigger our trauma response or bring us back to those frightening events. But what about the unconscious triggers? The ones we don’t recognize, and often find upsetting us, pulling us into flashbacks and causing us to dissociate.

Identify Your “Triggers”

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Coping Strategies, Mental Health, Therapies, Triggers

Each person has specific types of situations that set their automatic negative path in motion; these are their triggers. To address your problems, you need to know which situations are difficult and trigger your negative path.

While many people are aware of their triggers, some have trouble identifying their specific trigger situations. For example, a person may tell you that they are “always” sad, or “always” drink too much, and can’t identify specific problematic situations. Identifying your triggers helps you start to see patterns and then know what to focus on in therapy.

A helpful first step is to monitor your problematic feelings or behaviors and see if there are some situations where your feelings are stronger or your behavior is more extreme. For example, a person came to therapy because they were always angry. When asked for examples of specific situations, they responded that they were angry “all the time.” The first homework assignment was to monitor their angry feelings and see when they were strongest. They came back having discovered that they were the most angry when their teenage son didn’t do what they wanted him to do; for example, when he did his homework at 2 a.m., broke curfew, or did not do his chores. They discovered that their anger toward her son was spilling over into the rest of her life.

Frequently, people will describe their trigger situation in vague terms, and don’t really understand what happened. They need to become more specific and concrete. A specific and concrete description includes what happened, with whom, and the specific time and place it occurred. For example, a vague description of a situation would be “My partner doesn’t respect my work”; a more concrete and specific description would be “My partner told me that they thought their work was more important than mine.”

The more specific and concrete your description of the situation, the more you will be emotionally engaged with the situation, and the more you will have access to your feelings and thoughts. Think of someone you are a little annoyed with. Now, think of a specific situation when you were annoyed with this person. Try to remember the situation in detail. Chances are that as you thought about a specific situation, you became more annoyed and your feelings and thoughts became more immediate.

Sometimes your situation is a long, complicated story. In this case, consider the whole story and then ask what was the worst or most difficult part for you. It is helpful to identify a situation that lasts from a few seconds to three minutes, any longer and you will probably have a large variety of feelings and thoughts, and it will be hard to focus on the main ones.

Sources: CBT Made Simple