Fight or Flight Response Series: Part 3. Stress Responses Don’t Have to Rule Your Life- Decrease Tension, Find Calm, & Take Back Control!

Triggers, trauma, and PTSD don’t need to run your life. There are ways to have improved resilience and decrease those fight or flight symptoms when they hijack your life at unexpected and undesirable moments.

We will talk today about some of those amazing techniques- Read on with the hope and knowledge that the intensity of the stress responses you experience can, in fact, be lessened. Their intensity can be dialed down. You can manage and begin to have more control over those intense responses you feel.

You don’t have to live your life with amygdala hijack taking over at unexpected and unwanted moments.

In my last fight or flight writing, I talked in depth on my approach to the fight or flight response with regards to caring for and managing my child’s anaphylactic food allergies, when a danger was present, a future danger was possible, or when a trigger occurred from a past stressful event. If you missed it, read it Here.

This example I shared of managing life-threatening anaphylactic food allergies, is only one example, for how the fight or flight response can interact with stressful and and urgent or emergent situations. There are many scenarios and triggering events that people have that elicit this fight or flight response in their own life.

Now, let’s pivot and look more generally at the fight or flight response.

When a fight or flight response occurs, and you feel revved up, anxious, on edge, ready to do something, or adrenaline-charged, it is important to notice what is occurring in your body as you are triggered.

Be aware of and observe where the tension is in your body. Take note of the area you notice that tension. It is an important clue and helpful information.

For me, the shoulder to neck area will be tense.

Pay attention to all the aspects of your body holding the tension. Does your gut— your abdomen get tight? Sometimes, I will feel tension in my chest or gut. Not always, will the tension for me be the same space or area, though tension in my shoulder and neck area is pretty consistent for me across the board.

For some people, their jaw might clench. Other people may get a headache or notice other areas where their body feels tense. Again, you are being aware of yourself and taking notes. You are observing how your body responds to the stress and holds that tension or stress.

Once you begin to become aware of what your body is doing, you can then begin to implement strategies to help calm the responses down.

Using strategies to help the body calm it’s adrenaline charged response down will take time and focus.

Again, when the response is occurring and no danger is present, it is vital to remind yourself that you are safe. Your body will likely feel in danger and feel the need to take action.

Be empathetic and validating to yourself. Do not shame yourself or say negative things against yourself.

Talk to yourself as a trusted friend coming alongside to assist. Acknowledge what’s occurring and get curious.

“I feel anxious right now. What just happened that made me feel this way? I know this is my body trying to protect me and keep me safe from danger. What just occurred that would have triggered me into looking for a present danger?”

Knowing how to approach the fight or flight response is incredibly helpful, and you can read more on how to approach it in the first part of the fight or flight series here: “Steps To Take & How To Talk to Yourself During a Response”.

There are many different calming techniques to help calm your nervous system down to a more manageable, less intense level. Grounding techniques or specific breathing techniques can help bring down the intensity of the response.

According to my therapist, it takes the body about 20 minutes physiologically to decrease and calm back down from a fight or flight response.

Without going fully in depth right now on what occurs when the fight or flight system is activated, I will say that the sympathetic nervous system is activated and the blood pressure and heart rate increase along with increased breathing. The prefrontal cortex decreases functioning during this time when the amygdala has fully turned on this protective mode.

Cognitively telling yourself or someone else to calm down is a prefrontal cortex led statement. Acknowledging the physiological nature of what is occurring and that it will take time to go back to the pre-activated state is vital to understand, both for the person having the fight or flight response and for the people surrounding them.

When you have knowledge to understand better what is going on physiologically, you can begin to have more understanding and compassion for yourself and others. You and other people around you can create space, literally and time-wise, for that response to come back to baseline.

Knowing it will take 20 minutes (or possibly a little longer) to come back to baseline is incredibly helpful information. You can accept that it takes time and then focus to work on bringing yourself down from the triggered amygdala-led, body response. You can use calming strategies to help decrease the intensity of the response while you wait for your body to come back to baseline.

Remember, this is a protective response your body naturally does. It may be doing it now at a much higher level and intensity than is needed which is why therapy and calming techniques are crucial. This response is not one to ignore but one to acknowledge, accept, embrace, and counter-act in moments when cognitively you identify you or someone you love are not actively in danger, but instead you are having a triggered response from past stressful or traumatic events that have occurred.

I personally appreciate boxed breathing in moments when my amygdala is activated. Counting in 3’s as I breathe in for 3 counts, hold my breathe for 3 counts, and then slowly exhale for 3 counts helps to calm down anxious, tense, or stressful feelings and emotions that are present all of a sudden. I will do it a few times until my body begins to come into a calmer, less-activated state of being. The anxious, revved-up feeling may not have gone away fully (because those adrenaline hormones are still active in the body), but it is much more manageable. I can more easily focus on the task I am pursuing in that present moment, even when an unsuspecting trigger was present in my environment and diverted my focus and energy.

There are other breathing techniques that many people appreciate. Google breathing techniques and you will find many more types. Look at a reputable source. Try the techniques out and see which one works well for you. Try it out when you are not stressed or anxious so you understand how to do it. Then, try it the next time you have a fight or flight response and see if it helps in that moment. Like I said, I have to do the boxed breathing a few times or more during an activated state for myself before my body physiologically begins to calm down from the boxed breathing. It won’t take it fully away but will make it much more manageable until my physiological state calms down and my sympathetic system settles down.

Then, the parasympathetic system can take over and allow the body to be in a more rested state to recover from what just occurred.

There are also grounding techniques you can use that can help you significantly as well— taking note and being very intentional with using all 5 of your senses to ground yourself in the present and the exact present reality you are in right then. Again, google and search for grounding techniques using all 5 senses, using a reputable source, and try it out in a non-stressed, non-aroused state first. Then, you can try to use it when you are activated and see if it is helpful in the needed moment to calm your body down.

Prayer and scripture meditation or turning on worship music and praising and singing the words is another vastly helpful thing I do. Calling on God for help and being in a state of mindfulness/meditation on my God and who He is and my relationship to Him is incredibly grounding and helpful in moments of stress or moments where my amygdala is revved up. Talking to God and telling Him how I am feeling and what I know is true right then, and asking for His help is incredibly important. Listening to worship music is incredibly powerful and helpful in those moments. Also, you don’t have to just talk to God when you are stressed. He is there all the time and can hear you when you call to Him.

Trying out different ones of these techniques can help a lot. One that works well for me may not work well for you and vice versa.

To have coping strategies, tools in your tool belt, when you are triggered and feeling activated, anxious, and overwhelmed is an incredibly wonderful gift to yourself. It allows you to be present in the moment and have empathy and compassion for yourself as well as be empowered with strategies to do something in the moment to take back control, right when you are needing to calm your body’s response down.

Be patient and kind to yourself and others. Have compassion in the process toward yourself and others.

Be aware of the physiological nature of what is going on with you or a loved one.

Knowledge is power when it comes to a fight or flight response we don’t want occurring at a moment when there isn’t present actual danger.

I will say it again, be kind and patient with yourself.

Seek out an empathetic and knowledgeable therapist who is trained in EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing), a therapy that accesses the emotional memory stored in the amygdala, where trauma memories are stored, as well as many other emotions and emotional memory are stored, to help guide you through the symptoms you are having. An EMDR-trained therapist is extremely valuable to improving your health and dialing down the intensity of your responses more quickly than other therapies. It can be done integrated with other therapy approaches also.

It is vital to have therapy support: to guide, encourage, and help dial down the intensity of your amygdala responses using evidence based strategies so that you can live life more fully and freer.

I know because I have walked through EMDR therapy and other brain-body integrated therapy approaches with an EMDR-trained therapist and experienced improved resilience after only a few sessions! You don’t stop going after you begin to notice improvement—You keep going to continue healing and growing and taking back control of your life.

There are other valuable therapy strategies that focus in on the brain-body connection and can assist the emotion response of the amygdala. EMDR, Brainspotting, and neurofeedback are all ones that focus on the brain-body connection, and a therapist trained in these techniques can utilize more than one for their client to see improved, additional results. Other therapy types that focus in on the body mind connection are tapping (emotional freedom techniques), Somatic experience, somatic therapy, and polyvagal theory. I have not personally used all of these techniques. I am a strong proponent for EMDR therapy as I’ve already said. I believe the science and the evidence strongly backs it up as a heavy-hitter in allowing patients to have decreased symptoms much more quickly than with cognitive-based therapies— because it targets the place the trauma memories are stored- the amygdala. Makes sense right?

Be brave and take steps to care for yourself friend. There is no shame in seeking out therapy. Get the lie out of your head that weak people do therapy. It is the opposite. In fact, seeking out therapy and beginning that journey for yourself is one of the bravest and kindest steps you can take for yourself.

Strong people do therapy. Courageous people face their issues and hangups. Courageous, strong people face their trauma and their pain head-on with the guidance and help of someone empathetic and highly-trained to interact with those issues.

Don’t just distract yourself or run away from your issues with comfort-seeking modalities (alcohol, food, sex, hobbies, thrill focused activities, drugs, etc). In excess, any of these can add additional problems to your life and add comorbidities like addiction, to include alcoholism. Let’s not add problems with negative coping strategies.

Don’t be dismissive of your symptoms and try to exercise them away. Exercise itself is wonderful for decreasing stress but does not effect change in the amygdala.

Triggers, trauma, and PTSD don’t need to run your life. You can get back control of your life with the help of tools, strategies, a great therapist, and with God’s help.

Will you be brave today and pick that phone up to call a therapist’s office trained in EMDR? You will likely have to call a lot of offices as there are so many people trying to access care. Don’t wait until you feel desperate to make the calls. It will take time to get into a therapist. Search for and find all the offices that do the therapy you need. Call and find out who is able to take on new clients. Who has space and time on their schedule for you? Be brave today. Do a new thing for you. For your health. For your future. For your life.

You don’t have to live your life with amygdala hijack taking over at unexpected and unwanted moments. You can live empowered, friend. There is hope. You can live with resilience, but you have to do something. You have to choose to take steps toward health, growth, and healing. You only have this one life. Why would you put off living life more freely if there was a proven way to begin to get better.

In future articles, I will discuss EMDR therapy more in depth and also talk about what happens in your body during a fight or flight response. We will talk about how to find a therapist. Be blessed today and try out the calming strategies, both breathing and grounding techniques, as well as talking to God and listening to worship music. Do a search for therapists. Take that first step in both things. Share with a friend today.

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