Stress and the Fight or Flight Response
Sometimes life events can overwhelm you, stress you out, or make you sorrowful. You may even find it difficult to cope with them. Maybe it is the deadlines on your work or school calendar, the pile of bills you haven’t paid, or the loss of a job or a loved one. Whatever the cause, these experiences can drain your energy, leave you feeling frustrated and confused, and trigger your body’s hard-wired survival mechanism, known as the fight-or-flight response.
What do scientists mean by the fight-or-flight response? Let’s imagine an individual strolling through the wilderness. They might hear grass and leaves rustling behind them and turn around to come face to face with a bear. In order to survive, this individual has to pick between two options: fight the bear or run away as fast as possible. Hence, the name fight-or-flight response.
Regardless of whether the individual chooses to fight the bear or escape from it, they will need all the focus and energy they can muster. And this is precisely what the fight-or-flight response does. Once triggered, it prepares the body of this individual for the task ahead. It reallocates the body’s resources, increases focus and alertness, and boosts energy (Dhabhar, 2018). In other words, the fight-or-flight response is akin to an emergency plan for our bodies, which reprioritizes bodily functions and shifts our resources toward processes that increase the chances of beating the odds.
Obviously, most of us will never face a bear except when visiting a zoo or a wildlife refuge. Yet, our fight-or-flight response can’t distinguish whether the danger in front of us is a big growling grizzly, a demanding boss, deforestation, or the cancer diagnosis of a loved one. In other words, no matter what adversity we experience, our bodies respond to them with the fight-or-flight response.
Physical Impacts: Stress Hormones
The fight-or-flight response owes its energizing effects to several key hormones, including adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol. Collectively, these hormones are often referred to as stress hormones.
You might be wondering how hormones have anything to do with reacting to a bear or a pile of unpaid bills? Consider stress hormones as messengers of danger. Once you feel threatened by adversity, the specialized glands of your body release these hormones like a memorandum to tell its citizens (i.e., cells of most organs) to get ready for an emergency.
As a result, the organs that have received the message generate specific actions to prepare your body for strenuous activity. For instance, adrenaline and noradrenaline instruct the heart muscle cells to constrict more frequently. As a result, your heart starts beating faster and increases your cardiac output. Similarly, cortisol causes the constriction of your blood vessels, which elevates your blood pressure so that your muscles can have speedy access to blood’s nutrients and oxygen (Hamer and Steptoe, 2012).
These hormonal changes and the fight-or-flight response ensure that your body can handle the demanding situation and get out to safety in the short term. Unfortunately, if the demands persist, so does your body’s reaction. Worse, imagine you don’t have an effective way to deal with adversities. In that case, the fight-or-flight response and its associated changes can remain elevated as if your body is in a permanent state of emergency. This may damage the affected tissues and organs. As a result, physiological and emotional symptoms of long-term stress may sneak into your life.
Factors for Reducing and Managing Stress
Some of the Factors that can reduce stress, include:
- Create more Well-Being
- Healthy Work-Life Balance: Set clear boundaries and find ways to relax and unwind outside of work.
- Social Support: Seek comfort and companionship from friends, family, and coworkers during challenging times.
- Positive Mindset: Cultivate optimism and practice gratitude to reframe stressful situations and maintain a positive outlook.
- Effective Problem-Solving: Develop strong problem-solving skills to tackle obstacles efficiently and reduce stress levels.
- Resilience skills are essential for reducing and managing stress. Coaching can teach clients techniques such as mindfulness, problem-solving, and effective time management, which all contribute to stress reduction. Resilience allows individuals to face stress with composure and resourcefulness.