The 4 Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn

Stressful or traumatic situations, perceived danger, and threats to your safety all trigger your body’s natural stress response. This built-in defense mechanism causes a biological and psychological reaction that’s meant to help you respond to various threats in the most effective way. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are all common stress responses.

Past experiences, your personality, and the type of threat affect how your body gets triggered and responds to a stressful or frightening situation. For short-term stressors, your stress response goes away when the threat is gone. But, long-term stress or trauma can cause these stress responses to become over-activated. For example, you may become quickly angry if you have an overactive fight response or immediately shut down during any sign of conflict if you freeze.

Fight

When your fight response becomes activated, your instinct is to cope with the perceived threat aggressively. This response physically affects your body by causing:

• Increased heart rate
• Higher blood pressure
• Rush of adrenaline
• Tightened jaw

Other signs of being in “fight” mode include: 

• Intense feelings of anger 
• Urge to physically lash out 
• Wanting to yell or raise your voice 
• Hypervigilance or feeling “jumpy”
• Feeling easily agitated

Someone who is easily triggered into a fight response might find themselves frequently getting into physical fights or verbal altercations.

Flight

A flight response triggers the urge to run away from the threat to try and save yourself. Similar to "fight" mode, a flight response can lead to a rush of adrenaline and increased heart rate as your body prepares to "run" away.

Common signs of a flight response include:

• The urge to flee a situation
• Fidgeting or having trouble being still
• Feeling trapped or as if the room is closing in on you
• Avoiding perceived or real threats
• Panicking

For people who often engage in a flight response, this can look like physically leaving stressful situations. For example, during an interpersonal conflict, someone in "flight" mode might walk away from the conversation instead of engaging and trying to fix the problem.

Freeze

While flight and fight are both active stress responses that increase the biological activity in your body, freezing is your body’s way of shutting down. Like an animal might “play dead” while being hunted, people turn to “freeze” when it feels like fighting or fleeing isn’t an option.

The freeze response affects your body by causing the following symptoms:

• Decreased heart rate
• Dissociation, or feeling detached from yourself and your environment
• Numbness in your body
• Immobility, or feeling like you can’t move your arms or legs

Other signs of being in “freeze” mode include:

• Holding your breath
• Feeling emotionally numb or confused
• Having trouble speaking or becoming non-verbal
• Not being able to take action or make a decision
  
• Lacking focus or having trouble concentrating

The freeze response is linked to high levels of anxiety and trauma. People who have experienced sexual assault and domestic violence commonly report resorting to the freeze response during a stressor.

Fawn

When it feels safer to be submissive and obedient than fight or flee, people may turn to the fawn stress response. Most similar to the freeze response, "fawning" causes someone to please and appease the needs of someone else, instead of prioritizing their own well-being. This response is common in abusive situations. For example, a child with an emotionally abusive parent might find that being agreeable is safer than fighting back.

Other signs that a fawn response has been activated include:

• Having a hard time saying “no”
• Being a people-pleaser
• Pretending to agree with someone
• Doing what you’re told no matter what
• Putting others’ needs before your own
• Not being able to set boundaries
  

What Triggers the Four Trauma Responses?

Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are all responses to fear, trauma, and stress. Short-term and long-term stressors both set off the sympathetic nervous system—the part of your body that activates your trauma and stress responses. When this happens, your body releases hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

When your sympathetic nervous system becomes activated, your body prepares first for either fight or flight. This causes your heart rate to go up and prepares your body for movement. But, your nervous system can shift to a freeze or fawn response if your body determines that fight or flight won’t be effective in managing the stressor at hand. 

Common everyday stressors that can trigger your body’s fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses include: 

• Running late to an appointment 
• Getting feedback at work
• Conflict with a loved one or stranger 
• Facing an unexpected stressor (e.g., hitting traffic on a familiar commute) 
• Losing something important

Traumatic events can also trigger any of the four responses. These include: 

• Responding to an emergency situation
• Experiencing or witnessing domestic violence, sexual assault, police brutality, or war
• Being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused during childhood

How to Cope

Experiencing some level of stress is normal—and stress responses like fight or flight can sharpen your focus, increase your reaction time, and help you prioritize. In most cases, the stress response will diminish once the threat is gone.

However, sometimes your body remains in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn state even after the stressor resolves. The following tips can help your body relax after experiencing any of the four stress responses:

• Exercise and movement (e.g., walking, running, dancing, yoga, lifting weights, and playing sports) 
• Talking about the stressful event with a trusted loved one
• Reducing your caffeine and alcohol intake 
• Engaging in hobbies that you enjoy (e.g., crafting, knitting, gardening, reading, playing video games, hiking) 
• Practicing mindfulness, meditation, muscle relaxation, or breathing techniques
• Writing in a journal

People who have chronic (long-term) stressors, a trauma history, or underlying mental health conditions like anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may also have difficulty relaxing after a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. In these cases, you might find it helpful to contact a mental health professional to get additional support.

Mental health treatments that can support an overactive stress or trauma response include:

• Psychodynamic therapy: A talk-based therapy that explores the unconscious forces and childhood experiences that affect your emotions and behaviors
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): A common type of therapy that focuses on the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and challenges negative thought patterns and feelings to help improve overall well-being
• Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT): A behavioral therapy that teaches mindfulness, radical acceptance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal skills
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): A form of trauma therapy that helps you process traumatic memories and reduce emotional distress

When to Contact a Healthcare Provider

Trauma, chronic stress, and underlying mental health conditions can make you feel like you're "stuck" in a stress response even after the stressor has passed. Overactivated stress responses can have negative physical and mental health consequences. Signs it may be time to contact a healthcare provider include:

• Anger management concerns (e.g., constantly getting into arguments with others)
• Getting into physical altercations
• Reactions that are bigger than the situation seems to warrant (e.g., snapping at a friend for being a few minutes later or leaving the room if someone disagrees with you)
• Shutting down during small signs of conflict
• Feeling disconnected from your feelings and needs
• Trouble remembering important life events or past traumas
• People-pleasing to your own detriment
• Physical symptoms (like stomach aches or chronic pain)
  

A Quick Review

Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are built-in defense mechanisms that are meant to help people respond to stressful and traumatic situations. While these responses can help you respond to various stressors or stay safe when faced with danger, they can also become overactivated, resulting in negative physical and mental health consequences.

Some ways to help your body return to baseline after your body triggers a stress response include exercising, talking to a loved one, and practicing breathing techniques. For trauma survivors or people experiencing chronic stress, it may be helpful to seek additional support, such as therapy from a mental health provider.