Fight-or-flight response
The fight-or-flight response is the automatic physiological activation that prepares the body to confront or flee from threats. It involves the release of adrenaline and cortisol, increased heart rate and blood pressure, blood redirected to the muscles, pupil dilation, and the suspension of non-urgent functions such as digestion and immune activity.
This response is adaptive in the face of real threats — but in anxiety disorders, it is triggered chronically or in contexts that pose no real danger. The result is physical anxiety symptoms (heart palpitations, shortness of breath, muscle tension) without an objective threat.
Beyond fight and flight, recent research has identified additional response patterns — 'freeze' and 'fawn' (appeasing) — both commonly observed in social anxiety and PTSD.
💡 Practical example
A person with social anxiety triggers the fight-or-flight response before having to give a presentation — the same mechanism that would be useful for escaping a predator. The heart races, hands shake, the voice falters — not because there is any real danger, but because the nervous system doesn't distinguish social threats from physical ones.
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