How the fight-or-flight response leads to panic disorder. Stress responses: fight or run or freeze

Let's first separate the stressors from the stress itself. Your stressors are anything that stimulates your stress response: spending, family, work, sex worries, and the like. Stress is a system of changes that activates in the brain and body in response to stressors. It is an evolutionary adaptive mechanism to respond to perceived threats. At least he was adaptive when the main stressors had fangs and claws and were running at 50 kilometers an hour. Now the lions do not seem to be chasing us, but our body still reacts to, say, an incompetent boss in much the same way as it would react to a lion. The physiology hasn't changed much. And as we will soon see, this has a huge impact on the sex life.

When talking about stress, it is often assumed that it is expressed in the “fight or flight” response, but there is a more precise definition: “fight/flight/freeze”. Let's see how this is implemented in practice.

When the brain receives a threat signal from the external environment, serious changes quickly occur in the body at the biochemical level: the content of adrenaline and cortisol in the blood rises sharply, the heartbeat and breathing become more frequent, blood pressure rises, the immune system and the digestive system are suppressed, the pupils dilate, all attention is directed to the current situation. All these changes are like warming up the engine before starting or taking a deep breath before jumping into the water: preparation for action. The action itself depends on the nature of the perceived stress, that is, on the context.

Let us assume that the danger is a lion coming at you: it was precisely such threats that our ancestors had to deal with during the formation of the described psychological mechanism. The stress response cycle begins when we notice the lion: “I'm in danger! What to do?" Within a fraction of a second, the brain tells you that the lion is the kind of threat that is best to run away from. So what will you do when you see a lion approaching? Feel the fear and start running. And what will happen next? And then there are only two options for the development of events, right? Either the lion will kill you, and then nothing matters anymore, or you will be saved. Imagine that you successfully broke away from the lion, returned to your settlement, call for help, everyone runs out and kills the lion together - and then you eat it together for dinner, and in the morning bury parts of the skeleton that are unnecessary in the household with honors. Now what do you feel? Relief! You are happy to be alive! You love your family and friends so much right now! This completes the cycle of stress: the beginning ("I'm in danger!"), the middle (action) and the end ("I'm safe!").

Now suppose the threat is a nasty guy sneaking up on your friend from behind with a knife in his hand. Your brain will decide that this is a danger and that you must fight to survive. You feel angry (“I am in danger!” - as we will see below, all people close to us are perceived at such a moment as part of ourselves, the same “I”) and start to fight. And again you either die or live; either way, you go through a full cycle of stress, engaging in behavior that aims to eliminate the stressor and experience the stress itself.

These two responses, hit or run, are stimulated by stress: the sympathetic nervous system begins to work - the signal "forward!" in response to stress. You enter the fight when your emotional "power ring" determines that the stressor needs to be dealt with. You run if the "ring of omnipotence" determines and suggests that it is better to run away from the stress factor.

Suppose now that you are faced with such a stressor that your brain decides that you will not survive if you run or if you fight: let's say a lion is already clicking his teeth very close. Then, in response to stress, the inhibition mechanism is activated: the parasympathetic nervous system - the “stop!” signal, which is activated under conditions of the highest degree of stress. The body simply stops functioning; you can even experience a state of tonic immobility, also called "feigned death", when a person is not able to move at all. It happens that animals freeze and fall to the ground - this is their reaction to extreme stress in order to convince the predator that the victim is dead. Psychiatry professor Stephen Porges has hypothesized that these behaviors in response to stress contribute to a painless death.

If an animal manages to survive after such a threat, something amazing happens to it: it trembles, even shakes its paws. Then he takes a deep breath. And then he gets up, shakes himself again and runs away.

We see how the inhibition response interrupts the “go!” response when an animal or person is running or fighting, and all this mass of adrenaline remains in the body. When the animal is shaken and exhaled, the body "releases the brake", completing the "beat" or "run" type process. The cycle is complete. This phenomenon is called "self-regulated termination".

A friend told how her son was recovering from general anesthesia after a minor operation on his finger. He yelled hysterically, flailing his arms and legs, then shouting how he hated her and everyone around him, then again flailing his legs as if he were riding a bicycle, and shouting: “I want to run away, I just want to run away!”

Waving legs and such screams are an attempt to run away from danger. Hatred for everyone around is an attempt to fight the stressor. Anesthesia is drug-induced inhibition: when animals in stress behavior studies come out of anesthesia, they behave exactly like my friend's son. I call these sensations, since all this happens in the body without an obvious external cause: the child was not in reality in danger, but he had accumulated a lot of sensations that needed to be thrown out. And his mother did everything very right: “I tried to remain as calm as possible. I hugged him, told him again and again that I love him and that everything is fine, there is no danger. And he gradually calmed down so much that it was possible to dress him (he tore off almost everything from himself) and take him away. When we got to the parking lot, he already calmly told me that he loved me very much, and when we got to the house, he immediately collapsed and fell asleep.

The child went through a cycle of stress and was finally able to relax. Only sometimes in everyday life the exit from the state of inhibition takes such forms. But on a smaller scale, the stress response cycle works exactly like this: beginning, middle, end. It's all built into our nervous system and works great - when it's in the right context.

stress and sex

You won't be too surprised if I say, "The more quality sex you have, the lower your perceived level of stress." You can also say that "exercise is useful" or "good sleep is important for everyone." Well, of course. Everyone already knows it.

But more than half of women say that stress, depression and anxiety lead to a decrease in interest in sex. These same factors prevent the onset of sexual arousal and orgasm. Chronic stress causes menstrual irregularities, decreased fertility and lactation, increases the risk of miscarriage, suppresses the genital response, and causes increased pain during intercourse.

How exactly do hormones and stress-related neurochemical processes interact with hormones and neurochemical processes associated with sexual behavior - inhibit or stimulate sexual behavior? Nobody knows until the end of this, but we know something.

We are aware that people under severe stress tend to interpret any stimulus as a threat, just like the rats in the experience with bright lights and Iggy Pop at full volume. We also know that the brain can only process a certain amount of information at a time. That is, stress can be viewed as an excess amount of information that the brain is no longer able to process, and it seems that too much is happening at once. The brain tries to somehow sort it all out, prioritize, simplify, and simply ignores something.

As you know, the brain sets priorities in accordance with the logic of ensuring the survival of the organism: it is important to breathe, avoid predators, maintain the right body temperature, drink and eat enough, stay within your social group - these are the highest priority needs. And of course, priorities are determined and changed according to the current context. If you are very hungry, you are more likely to decide to steal a piece of bread from a neighbor, even if you are aware of the risk of being excluded from society. If you can't breathe, then no matter how long you haven't eaten, you won't even feel hungry. And if you are overwhelmed by typical modern problems, then almost everything will be a priority than sex: for your brain, any stress is a lion running at you. And what kind of sex is there if the lion is getting closer?

Let's summarize:

* anxiety, excitement, fear, horror - this is a manifestation of stress like “The lion is running! Run away!";

* irritation, dissatisfaction, confusion, anger and anger - this is a manifestation of stress like “The lion is running! Kill him!";

* emotional insensitivity, the desire to withdraw, despair - these are manifestations of stress like “The lion is running! Play dead!"

In none of these cases does the brain receive a signal that it would be good to have sex right now.

Stress is directly related to the struggle for survival. Sex brings a lot of benefits, but certainly does not directly contribute to personal survival (except as discussed in the appendix). Therefore, for most of us, in a state of stress, all the brakes are activated at once - with the exception of 10-20% of people, which include our friend Olivia: her stress stimulates arousal. (Remember: the same elements, but organized differently.) But even for such people, although stress stimulates the growth of interest (impatience), it blocks sexual pleasure (enjoyment). Sex under stress is not the same as joyful, easy sex. And it’s clear why: it’s all about context.

To reduce the impact of stress on your ability to get sexual pleasure and general interest in sex, so that sex becomes more pleasant, easy, playful, learn to manage stress.

Although, of course, this is easy to say.

When Olivia is under stress, her sexual desire grows - and it is because of this that she and Patrick have conflicts, because he is in a state of stress, on the contrary, does not want sex. Not only that, but sometimes it is because of this stress-induced sex drive that Olivia seems to be out of control at all.

How can she deal with her feelings? You need to learn to complete the stress response cycle.

In scientific language, Olivia's sense of loss of control can be described as maladaptive behavior in order to manage negative impacts. Simply put, this means that she is trying to cope with uncomfortable emotions (stress, depression, irritation, loneliness, rage) through actions that have a high risk of undesirable consequences. One example of such activities is compulsive sexual behavior. And here are other examples:

* alcohol or drug abuse;

* destructive relationships, for example, the desire to cope with their own feelings, switching to the feelings of someone else;

* an attempt to be distracted by something non-constructive, say, non-stop watching movies, when it is more correct to do other things;

* unhealthy attitude to food: restrictions, eating without end or complete refusal to eat.

Of course, all this can be done - but in a constructive form and without extremes. But if we only do things like this instead of working with feelings and completing the stress cycle, we risk getting a negative result. Some of the possible consequences are not so terrible, and some are associated with mortal danger. All such activities should help us deal with feelings. A person is especially prone to such activities when they do not know how to end the cycle of stress, or when the feelings are too painful.

During adolescence, Olivia's maladaptive stress management strategy manifested itself in the form of an unhealthy relationship with food. She overeated, and then to exhaustion went in for sports. I overeat and again tortured myself with physical exertion. After coping with her eating disorder, Olivia realized that it had almost nothing to do with physical fitness: television and other media, I thought that all the rage should be directed to my body. In fact, in such obsessive behavior, an attempt was made to cope with too strong emotions.

Olivia managed to get rid of the symptoms of unconstructive eating behavior for several years. Nevertheless, she herself says: “I still sometimes go through the door sideways, because again it seems to me that I am too fat. If I notice this, then I force myself to turn around and walk like a human being, because I realized that it’s not my body that is afraid of excess weight at all, it’s my anxiety.

Now Olivia regularly runs and relieves stress and releases excess energy and anxiety, and she set a limit: no more than one marathon a year.

I tend to overdo everything, and I find it helpful to set boundaries for myself.

It seems to me that you are not just setting boundaries for yourself. I think you're completing the cycle of stress by exercising, which keeps your brakes off. You can do the same with sex.

Certainly.

She bit her lip and shook her head.

There's just something I don't understand.

After reading chapter 5, Olivia will understand everything.

Similar information.

• 15. 03. 2018

Hit, run, freeze. Psychologist Svetlana Bronnikova on how human neurophysiology reacts to sexual harassment and why victims of harassment often do not resist

Svetlana BronnikovaPhoto: from personal archive

We humans are caring beings.

We are especially caring in regard to opening the eyes of our neighbor to his mistakes and oversights.

Tolstoy, we will definitely say that he is fat. And then suddenly he, fat, is not in the know. Every morning he looks at himself in the mirror and does not see. Disorder. We must report.

We will say to a fallen child: “So you need it. Did your mom tell you not to run? She spoke. You ran, and then you fell. Will know". After that, the child will immediately stop running and falling forever. Maybe even refuse to walk.

If someone loses their wallet, or scratches the car there, it is also always clear who is to blame and what to do. "Where did you look?" we ask. “And you didn’t forget your head?” we ask.

So when someone starts talking about sexual harassment, we also have questions.

"Why didn't you resist?"

"Why was she silent?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

Indeed, why? Why do victims of sexual harassment so often go into a daze instead of kneeing the abuser in the right place? What prevents you from screaming, being indignant, fighting back, as a self-respecting lady should? The answer to this question is simple. Biology gets in the way.

There are few response options. Actually, there are only three of them: hit, run and freeze

There is a panic button in the human brain. No, not a button - a whole control panel. It exists only in case of crisis situations. Her name is the amygdala, or amygdala. The amygdala is involved in the generation of emotions and the storage of memories, and also controls our behavior in case of danger. This structure is very ancient, so there are few response options. Actually, there are only three of them: hit, run and freeze. All three are carefully filtered by evolution effective ways to save drowning people with their own hands. Bay is for predators, the best form of defense is an attack. Run - for the long-legged and timid representatives of the ruminant fauna. Freeze - for everyone else, even the smallest and dumbest. Poke the beetle with a stick - it will tighten its paws and roll over on its back. Do you think we are very far from the beetle? Think again.

In the first seconds, the victim of sexual harassment experiences everything the same as a person who finds himself in any crisis situation. The amygdala, with the help of the hormone norepinephrine, sends SOS signals throughout the sympathetic nervous system, the adrenal glands are activated, and the hormone adrenaline is released. There are no failures in the work of the amygdala, that's why it is a reptilian brain - everything has been worked out for thousands of years, simply, confidently, reliably. The nervous system is on full alert, alarms are working, a feeling of panic is growing. And here it would be to beat, or run, but the victim freezes, as if voluntarily allowing him to do with himself whatever the rapist pleases. In nature, hares and roe deer freeze in case of danger, due to their natural coloration "merging" with the background and becoming invisible to the predator. In addition, many predators do not eat those they have not killed themselves. Freeze and he won't touch you. This often works.

Fading - an attempt to merge with the background, go unnoticed, pretend to be dead - a characteristic feature of the victim of harassment

To be fair, those who are able to hit or run do not fall victim to harassment.

Despite all the centuries-old effectiveness of the amygdala, it has one unpleasant property. When the brain's alarm system kicks in, it shuts down cognitive functions completely. In other words, it deprives us of the ability to think, to think adequately. Hence the confusion, the feeling of an “empty head”, the inability to react and anger, shame and self-hatred later - why didn’t I realize to scream, make noise, knock over the table ...

Another characteristic experience of the victim is the feeling of being outside the boundaries of his own body, as if what is happening has no direct relation to him. Sexual harassment is not about sex, but about power. Sexually frustrated do not harass subordinates, they watch porn and buy the service "phone sex". Hungry for power, greedy for control, insatiable for submission. Therefore, the victim is often younger and lower in the social hierarchy. Sexual signals from a person with whom relations do not imply such, but imply respect and piety, are perceived as something purely wrong, categorically socially unacceptable. After all, in a human herd - a tribe - the higher-ranking members must protect the weaker ones, otherwise the tribe will not survive.

The psyche of the victim is unable to cope with this experience and begins to defend itself. "No, it's not with me, it's not happening, it's not really." This primitive psychic defense mechanism typical of infants is called "dissociation" and means experiencing a separation of mind and body - no matter what happens now, I'm not here.

And another major psychological component is disgust and shame. What is happening is not just humiliating, there is an unauthorized invasion of intimate space - the boundaries of the human body, an invasion that has a sexual context. At this moment, the victim ceases to feel like a person, a person - you become an object whose needs and desires can be ignored.

In other words, you, as a person, simply do not exist for a rapist.

It is curious that, like any emotion, the emotion of disgust was evolutionarily formed in order to induce a person to a certain action. If mother evolution had not formed the emotion of anger, we would all have been devoured by saber-toothed tigers along with their offspring. And so they ate only those who did not stand up in time to protect their offspring.

The emotion of disgust was formed in order to teach humanity to stay away from contagious diseases. Feces, vomit, frightening skin ulcers and ugly tumors - all this, causing disgust, forced a person to bypass the sources of infection by the tenth path and thus improved survival during epidemics. Sympathy - a more complex and highly organized emotion - will appear later and will also serve the survival of mankind, helping to cure the sick and thus preserve valuable cultural experience.

The disgust that victims of harassment experience, in fact, has the same psychological meaning: stay away from him. Get as far away from the perpetrator as possible as soon as possible. Disgust tries to save us from destructive, like leprosy, psychological experience.

Shame, in turn, reflects the experience of what is happening as a violation of all conceivable and unthinkable social rules, laws and norms. “That’s not possible,” shame screams. "This shouldn't happen."

"Why didn't you resist?" we ask. "Because I'm human" is the correct answer. In the centuries-old, filigree system of human response to external stimuli, the category of “sexual harassment” is not provided. After all, this behavior, between us, is not at all human.

Svetlana Bronnikova - psychologist, full member of the Netherlands Institute of Psychology

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Stress training is often used in the preparation of NASA astronauts or emergency workers - so they are taught not only to survive in difficult situations, but also to act as efficiently as possible. Psychologists call it stress inoculation. In February, Alpina Publisher publishes a book by a Stanford University professor, Good Stress as a Way to Get Stronger and Better. T&P publishes an excerpt in which she explains how "good" stress differs from "bad" stress.

How did stress get a bad rap?

In 1936, the Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye injected laboratory rats with a hormone isolated from the ovaries of a cow. The results were very unpleasant for rodents. The rats began to develop bloody ulcers. Their adrenal glands swelled, while their thymus glands, spleens, and lymph nodes—parts of the immune system—were shrunken. They were very sad and sick rats.

But was the bovine hormone really to blame? Selye set up control experiments by injecting one rat with a saline solution and another with a hormone from the cow's placenta. And they showed the same symptoms. He tried using extracts from the kidneys and spleen. And those rats got sick. No matter what he injected into the rats, they got sick, and with the same symptoms.

In the end, Selye had an insight: the rats were not getting sick because of the substances they were injected with, but because of what they were experiencing. They just didn't like being stabbed with needles. Selye discovered that he could cause the same symptoms in rats by exposing them to various unpleasant influences: extreme heat or cold, incessant physical exertion, loud noises, the action of toxic substances. Within 48 hours, the rats lost muscle tone, developed ulcers in the intestines, and began to suppress the immune system.

Then they died.

Thus the science of stress was born. Selye chose a word to describe the state he put rats in, as well as their physiological response to that state (we now call it the stress response). But what does all this have to do with you? Before starting his research, Selye was a physician. Then he saw many patients whose body began to fail for no reason at all. They showed some general symptoms - loss of appetite, fever, weakness - that could not be called characteristic of specific diseases. They just looked extremely tired of life. At that moment, Selye called this condition "the syndrome of suffering."

Many years later, when Selye began to conduct his laboratory experiments, sick and dying rats reminded him of his patients. Maybe, he thought, the body is weakening from the loads that one has to cope with in difficult life situations? And here Selye made a giant leap from experiments with rats to the study of human stress. He suggested that many health problems, from allergies to heart attacks, could be the result of a process he observed in rats. This analogy for Selye remained purely theoretical; he studied laboratory animals all his life. However, this did not prevent him from building hypotheses concerning man. And in making this speculative logical shift, Selye made another decision that forever changed how the world viewed stress. He gave it a definition that goes far beyond laboratory methods of working with rats. According to Selye, Stress is the body's response to any impact on it.. That is, it is not just a reaction to painful injections, traumatic injuries or harsh laboratory conditions, but a response to any impact that requires response or adaptation. By defining stress in this way, Selye laid the foundation for the negative attitudes towards it that we see today.

Selye devoted his entire subsequent career to promoting his ideas about stress, was nicknamed "the grandfather of the science of stress" and was nominated ten times for the Nobel Prize. He even wrote what could be considered the first official guide to stress management. Sometimes he received research funds from unexpected admirers. For example, tobacco manufacturers paid him to write articles about the harmful effects of stress on human health. At their request, he even gave a speech to the US Congress on how smoking helps fight the dangerous effects of stress.

But Selye's main contribution is that he first convinced the world of the dangers of stress. If you tell a colleague, "I'm going to get an ulcer on this project," or complain to your spouse, "This stress is killing me," you're paying homage to Selye's rats.

Was he wrong? Not really. If you are in the same position as his rats - subjected to deprivation, torment and other negative influences - your body will undoubtedly pay for it. There is a lot of scientific evidence that very severe or traumatic stress can damage your health. However, Selye's definition of stress is very broad: it includes not only injuries, violence and abuse, but also almost everything that can happen to you. For Selye stress was synonymous with the body's reaction to life as such.

Over time, Selye realized that not all stressful experiences lead to illness. He started talking about good stress (which he called eustress) and bad stress ( distress). In one of the later interviews, the scientist said: “We experience stress all the time, so the only thing you can do is try to make it useful for you and those around you.” But it was already too late. Thanks to Selye's work, a general attitude towards stress as a very dangerous condition has taken root in society and the medical environment.

The legacy of Hans Selye was developed in stress research conducted with the help of laboratory animals. Until today, much of what you hear about the negative effects of stress, scientists learn from experiments on rats. But the stress these animals experience actually has little to do with everyday human stress. If you are a guinea pig, then your day will look something like this: you will be shocked unexpectedly; thrown into a bucket of water and forced to swim until you start to sink; they will be put in solitary confinement or, conversely, in an overcrowded cage with very little food, for which you will have to fight fiercely. It's not stress; it's the Hunger Games for rodents. […]

Is the stress response normal?

Hans Selye is often blamed for the bad reputation of stress, but he is not the only culprit. There is also Walter Cannon with cats and dogs. Cannon, a physiologist at Harvard Medical School, first described the fight-or-flight stress response in 1915. He studied how fear and anger affect the physiology of animals. In order to anger and frighten the test subjects, he used two methods: pinching the cat's mouth and nose with his fingers until her breath was disturbed, and putting dogs and cats in the same room to fight.

According to Cannon's observations, frightened animals release adrenaline and they find themselves in a state of increased sympathetic activity. Their heart rate and breathing quicken, their muscles tense up - thus they prepare for action. Digestion and other physiological functions that are not required at the moment slow down or stop. The body prepares for the fight by storing energy and mobilizing the immune system. All these changes are automatically triggered when a threat to life occurs.

The fight-or-flight instinct is not unique to dogs and cats; it is present in all animals. He often saves lives - both animals and humans. That is why it is so stable in evolution, and we should be grateful to nature for writing it into our DNA.

However, many scholars point out that close combat or a hasty escape are not the best strategies for situations that modern man faces every day. How can this reaction help you survive traffic jams or the threat of being fired? What will happen if you simply run away from relationships, children, work when any difficulty arises? You can't beat a late mortgage payment and disappear whenever you have a conflict at home or work.

From this point of view, you should suppress the stress response at all times, except in cases of purely physical danger, such as escaping a burning building or rescuing a drowning child. In all other situations, this is just a senseless waste of energy that interferes with the successful response to stress. Talks about it mismatch theory stress reaction stress situation: the reactions that saved our ancestors are not suitable for you and me. A stress reaction that has no adaptive value in the modern world only hinders us. […]

Let's be clear: a reaction that supports only two survival strategies - fight or flight - really does not correspond to modern life in any way. But it turns out that the reality of human stress responses is far more complex. They have evolved along with man, adapting to the changing world over time. The stress response can activate various biological systems that support various behavioral strategies. Thanks to this, you can not only run out of a burning building, but also understand problems, receive social support and learn from the experience. […]

There are several types of stress responses, and each has a different biological profile that motivates different strategies for coping with stress. For example, goal response increases self-confidence, motivates to action and helps to use the experience gained, while response of concern and friendship stimulates courage, generates a desire to care for others and strengthens social bonds. These responses, along with the fight-or-flight response, make up your body's complex stress responses. To understand how stress stimulates these very different responses, let's take a closer look at the biology of stress.

Stress gives you strength to deal with difficulties.

As Walter Cannon noted, the fight-or-flight response is triggered by the activation of your sympathetic nervous system. To make you more alert and ready for action, this system forces your entire body to mobilize all available energy resources. The liver releases fat and sugar into the blood for fuel. Breathing becomes deeper to bring more oxygen to the heart. The heart rate speeds up so that oxygen, fat and sugar reach the muscles and brain more quickly. , such as adrenaline and cortisol, help the muscles and brain use this energy more efficiently. As a result, you are ready to overcome any obstacles.

It is this response to stress that provides a person with exceptional physical capabilities in special situations. It's not uncommon to see reports in the news of the incredible strength that a person acquires in stressful situations - for example, the story of two teenage girls from Lebanon, Oregon, who managed to lift a 1.5-ton tractor, under which their father was trapped. “I don’t know how I was able to lift it, it was very heavy,” one of the girls told reporters. “But we just took it and raised it.” Many people experience something similar when they are under a lot of stress. When something very important is at stake, the body uses all the energy resources to do what is needed.

The energy that stress gives you not only helps the body, but also stimulates the brain. Adrenaline sharpens the senses. The pupils dilate to let in more light, and hearing becomes more acute. At the same time, the brain processes the signals coming from the sense organs faster. Unnecessary thoughts are turned off, less important tasks temporarily lose their relevance. Attention is concentrated, you absorb and process more information.

A chemical cocktail of endorphins, adrenaline, testosterone and dopamine kicks in. This is one of the reasons why some people like to experience stress - it gives them a pleasant arousal. The combination of the above substances increases your sense of self-confidence. You can act more purposefully and strive for what can give you satisfaction. Some scientists refer to this aspect of stress as "delight and awe." Skydivers, skydivers, and lovers also experience such sensations. If you have a pleasant chill running down your spine from gambling or trying to complete a difficult job on time, then you know what it is.

When it comes to true survival, these physiological changes are most pronounced, and you can have the classic fight-or-flight response. But if nothing directly threatens your life, the body and brain switch to another state - goal response. Like the fight-or-flight response, this stress response empowers you and helps you perform in challenging environments. The heart rate increases, adrenaline levels soar, the muscles and brain get more fuel, and “feel good hormones” are released into the bloodstream. But this reaction differs from the previous one in several important ways. You feel focused, but not fearful. The level of stress hormones is also different, in particular, the level of DHEA is increased, which helps to recover faster from stress and learn useful experiences. As a result, your stress response growth index rises - that is, there is a favorable ratio of stress hormones, which determines how harmful or beneficial stress will be for you.

People who are completely immersed in what they are doing and enjoy it show clear signs of a goal-seeking response. Artists, athletes, surgeons, gamers, musicians, completely surrendering to their favorite pastime, experience just such a reaction to stress. The best in these fields of activity do not at all remain cold-blooded under the pressure of difficult circumstances; it would be more accurate to say that they have a stress reaction of striving for a goal. It gives them access to mental and physical resources, which, in turn, provide increased confidence, concentration and performance.

Stress Helps Communication and Stimulates Social Bonding

Your stress response does more than just provide you with energy. In many situations, it also forces you to connect with other people. This side of stress is predominantly controlled by a hormone. Oxytocin has become widely known as the "love molecule" and "cuddle hormone" because it is actually produced by the pituitary gland when you hug someone. However, in reality, the functions of oxytocin are much more complex. It's a neurohormone that fine-tunes the social instincts in your brain. Its main function is to create and strengthen social attachments, which is why it stands out during hugs, as well as during sexual intercourse and breastfeeding. Increased levels of oxytocin make you reach out to people. It generates a desire for personal contact - through touch, SMS or meeting over a glass of beer. In addition, oxytocin helps the brain better understand what other people are thinking and feeling. It enhances empathy and intuition. With high levels of oxytocin, you are more likely to trust and help the people you care about. Oxytocin makes the brain more receptive to social contact and thereby enhances the warm feeling you get when you care for others.

But the functions of oxytocin are not limited to the social sphere. It is also the hormone of courage. Oxytocin suppresses the fear response in the brain - the instinct that makes you freeze in place or run. Not only does this hormone urge you to seek someone's hugs; he makes you brave.

Oxytocin is as much a part of the stress response as adrenaline, which makes your heart race. During times of stress, the pituitary gland releases oxytocin to stimulate social bonding. This means that stress makes you a better person without additional investment in personal growth and socialization training.

Released during the stress response, oxytocin causes you to turn to those who can support you. It also strengthens the connections that matter most to you, making you more responsive. Scientists call it response of concern and friendship. Unlike the fight-or-flight response, which is primarily about self-preservation, this response forces you to protect those you care about. And most importantly, it gives you courage.

When you feel like talking to a friend or loved one, this stress response prompts you to seek support. If something bad happens and you immediately think of your children, pets, relatives or friends, this stress response motivates you to protect your “tribe”. When someone is dishonest and you rush to stand up for your team, your company, or your community, it's all part of the prosocial stress response.

Oxytocin has another amazing quality: this so-called love hormone has a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system. The heart has special receptors for oxytocin, which promotes the regeneration of heart muscle cells after microtrauma. If your stress response involves the release of oxytocin, stress literally strengthens your heart. We usually hear that stress can cause a heart attack! Yes, stress-induced heart attacks really sometimes happen, and they are usually caused by a sharp release of adrenaline, but not every stress reaction causes damage to your heart. I found one study that showed that when rats are stressed and then chemically attacked, they exhibit a very significant sustainability to heart injury. However, when rats were given an oxytocin-blocking substance, stress no longer had such a beneficial effect on them. This study reveals to us one of the most surprising aspects of stress. It turns out that the stress response is our innate mechanism for maintaining stability, which makes us care for others, but also strengthens our heart.

Stress helps you learn and develop

The last stage of any stress response is recovery, bringing your body and brain back to a state of calm. The body needs stress hormones to recover. For example, cortisol and oxytocin fight inflammation and support the autonomic nervous system. DHEA and neuronal growth factor (NGF) increase neuroplasticity so your brain can learn from stressful experiences. You may feel like your body needs to heal. after exposure to stress hormones, but in fact the opposite is true - it is these hormones that have a restorative function. People who produce more of these hormones during times of stress tend to recover much faster and with minimal consequences.

Recovery from stress does not happen instantly - it is a process that takes time. In the first few hours after a strong stress reaction, the brain rewires itself, remembering and assimilating the experience. At this time, the activity of stress hormones in those areas of the brain that are responsible for learning and memory increases. The brain processes the experience, which is why you can't stop thinking about what happened. You may want to discuss this with someone. If everything ended well, you replay what happened in your head, remembering everything you did and what it led to. If the result was not very successful, you try to understand what happened, imagine what would have happened if you had acted differently, and mentally construct a positive outcome.

During the recovery process, a person often experiences strong emotions. He's still bubbling with energy, and he's too excited to calm down right away. After stress, you may experience fear, shock, anger, guilt, or sadness. But you can also feel relief, joy, or gratitude. Moreover, these emotions can fill you at the same time - this is part of the process of understanding the experience with the brain. They encourage reflection and learning from experience, which in turn helps prepare for future stresses. In addition, thanks to emotions, you better remember what happened. These emotions are caused by chemical changes that make the brain more flexible - it can rewire itself based on experience. Thus, the emotions that accompany the recovery process from stress help you learn and find meaning in what is happening.

Based on all the above processes, the brain and body are trained to cope with stress. It leaves an imprint in your mind, thanks to which the next time you will know how to behave. It doesn’t happen with every little misfortune, but if you face a really difficult task, your brain and body will definitely learn from it. Psychologists in such cases say that a person receives inoculation stress. This is a kind of "vaccination" for the brain. That is why stress training is one of the key training methods for NASA astronauts, emergency workers, professional athletes and other professionals who need to learn not only to survive in stressful situations, but also to operate as efficiently as possible. Stress inoculation is used in preparing children for emergency evacuations, job training to adapt to harsh working conditions, and even teaching communication to autistic children.

If you recognize that stress gives you the positive experience you need, you will be more comfortable with each new challenge. Research shows that when the benefits of stress for learning and resilience are recognized, the physiological response to it can also change. As we saw with Alia Crum's work, watching videos of the benefits of stress increased participants' DHEA levels before and after the mock interview. Other research also shows that perceiving a stressful situation as an opportunity to hone one's skills, improve one's knowledge, or become stronger elicits a goal-seeking response rather than a fight and flight response. And this, in turn, increases the chances that the experience gained will bring significant benefits to the person in the future.

Fight or run

The fight-or-flight response to stress is the way the body responds to perceived threats, whether the situation poses a threat to life (like an accident) or self-esteem (like an exam). In any case, the body is ready to protect itself from the approaching danger. In this case, the following physiological changes occur:

The heart begins to beat faster to send blood to the muscles and brain. As a result, blood pressure rises;

The person begins to breathe deeply and quickly. Such breathing supplies the body with oxygen so that it can produce energy from increased blood sugar;

The pupils of the eyes dilate so that a person can better see the danger.

Although women also trigger such reactions, men experience the physiological response to perceived stress much more strongly. Hence - unexpected actions when a man is faced with what he perceives as a threatening situation. That is why people need to be taught from childhood to manage strong emotions: if no one showed the boy how to control strong reactions, his behavior is likely to become problematic, and in adulthood he will not be able to understand why others interfere with his outbursts.

The one part of the stress response that is easiest to learn to manage is breathing. Slowing the breath makes it easier to slow down other body responses.

In a school lesson, if a boy answers while standing, it helps him think better and answer better. There is a growing body of evidence that getting back on your feet or getting out in the fresh air are ways that can actually improve men's ability to think clearly.

Recent studies show that women are less likely to respond to stress with a "fight or flight" response. And although everyone is capable of this reaction under certain circumstances, women are more likely to have a different response - conventionally called "reach out and support." They are more likely to turn to other women for support in times of stress, as well as protect each other from perceived threats. Social support helps women manage their response to stress. However, women's tendency to rely on public support can do them a disservice in certain situations, such as passing an exam (whether at school or in the traffic police), where asking a friend for help would be inappropriate and be seen as an attempt to get answers from the other.

Worst of all, it can sometimes be difficult to detect when a girl is upset as she becomes very quiet. Signs are noticeable when she shows them, such as crying or not being able to answer a simple question. With the described reaction, the blood goes to the center of the body, farther from the muscles, and therefore it is more difficult for a woman to move, she becomes "heavy to lift."

These issues have attracted the attention of many researchers. For example, they were worked on by S. Taylor, L. Klein, B. Lewis, T. Grunewald, R. Gurung, J. Updegraff, who presented the results of their work in the article “Behavioral response to stress in women: stretch and support, not hit or run." S. Taylor's further work on this topic is "The behavioral basis of the union under the influence of stress" and "Regulation of cortisol levels by psychological resources."

From the book Make Yourself Support author Svetlova Marusya

Don't run... The key wouldn't turn in the lock, something was stuck there, and she stupidly poked the key again and again, trying to turn it. in a hurry running away from home, did not close

From the book Brain. Instructions for use [How to use your capabilities to the maximum and without overload] by Rock David

Walk Cautiously Forward, Run Away In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt writes that we are all descendants of people who paid close attention to even the slightest rustle in the bushes. In a world full of dangers, the over-vigilant and over-cautious survive.

From the book All Ways to Crack a Liar [Secret CIA Methods Used in Interrogations and Investigations] author Cram Dan

Hit, run - or STOP! As a result, the body leaves the once blissful state of homeostasis and enters an overexcited, almost superhuman state in which blood flow and blood oxygen saturation increase dramatically, reaction time decreases, muscles

From the book Mindsight. The New Science of Personal Transformation by Siegel Daniel

Barrel signals: Attention! Fight, run or freeze? We access our body through interoception, which literally means "perceiving from within". Try to pause for a second right now and feel how your heart beats and how the breaths are replaced by exhalations.

From the book How to love your own body author Dufresne Troy

Mechanism: Run, Catch or Kill Avoidance is one of the adaptation mechanisms in the world. No wonder we are so good at it. It was extremely important for cavemen to stay away from animals or phenomena that posed a threat to them - from this

From the book Do not retreat and do not give up. My incredible story by Rensin David

Run if you want to live Louis runs for the University of Southern California, 1938, when he set a National Collegiate Athletic Association record by running a mile

From the book Perfect Parents in 60 Minutes. Express course from the world's parenting experts by Mazlish Elaine

Run if you want to live! The mother from the parent group, led by child psychologist Dr. Chaim Ginot, was visibly agitated. “Dr. Ginot,” she said, “this morning I was so angry! I didn't know whether to hit my son or kill him! If the question is this way,

In a situation of danger, the instincts assess the situation long before the mind can make a plan of action, and mobilize the body for actions that help us survive: prepare the muscles for fight or flight, prepare massive infusions of hormones into the heart and body to lower the pain threshold and provide us with strength and endurance beyond our normal limits, as well as the ability to lie perfectly still, pretending to be dead, even in a state of readiness of all internal systems to fight or run.

If we were able to avoid death by fighting or running away, then the chances that we will develop chronic anxiety are much lower. The very fact of physical action allows us to utilize all the hormones and muscle readiness for action, plus our brain and body receive hormones of pleasure as a reward for successful actions that ensured survival.

If you had to use Die, Freeze or tactics Submissions attacker, survival depends on the ability to temporarily enter a frozen physical and numb psychological state. This occurs when the instincts decide that active physical action will significantly reduce the chances of staying alive, and in the eyes of the attacker or predator, one must appear motionless, dead, or willing to do anything. At the same time, the activation of all systems continues inside the body: the heart is pounding, there is a lump in the stomach, the muscles are tense - in case you need to urgently rush off into a fight or on the run. Emotions at the same time, too, are all put on pause.

Die is the most extreme form Freeze", that is, a fainting state. In this case, the instinct of self-preservation cuts down the body in order to avoid living a painful death. Often in such states a person needs urgent medical care, otherwise he will really die. "Frightened to death" - this is just about it.

Not only direct physical threat, but also psychological trauma cause reactions in the body Hit, Run, Freeze, Die. After such an injury, the body and emotions may remain partially frozen for days, weeks, or even years, and this often goes unnoticed. Such people usually say that they feel "stuck" in life and that they cannot move in the direction they want. Trauma patients who survived thanks to Freeze or Die, often blame themselves for not running away or engaging in combat, even though at the time of the traumatic event, this type of vigorous physical action could very well result in serious physical injury or death. And besides Freeze and Die there was really no choice.

Panic and anxiety is a human problem

Anxious animals or animals with panic attacks are rare in the animal kingdom. A hare that manages to escape a fox or escape death by pretending to be dead recovers quickly and continues its normal life. People are different. The human brain cannot shake itself off and live on, because it begins to constantly play out experienced dangerous situations, especially if the body is still partially frozen. Phenomena, people, events, smells, objects that remind of the trauma experienced immediately cause the same acute reaction as at the moment of the initial trauma, even if the conscious part of the brain does not fully understand what is happening.

Techniques for removing the body from the "Freeze" state

These three actions can help when the trauma had to be endured with the help of " Freeze":
1) Turn your head around to look for possible sources of additional danger
2) Tremble and tremble (as mentioned earlier, both are signs that the danger is over and the body has begun to recover)
3) Movements from the "run" or "hit" series (even if they can only be done in a microscopic amplitude)

Just saying a terrible event and getting support in this case is not enough - you must definitely include bodily actions in the process.

On an emotional level, the feeling of endured danger can be expressed in tears. It is part of the natural process of rebalancing after an injury. Feelings of sadness or rage may also appear.

Our body is not designed to constantly replay situations of trauma from the past, it is designed to find the fastest and easiest way to restore physical well-being.

Anxiety Reduction Techniques

The first step is to evaluate your stress level. Move from your head to your body and study the sensations caused by stress to assess its level: low, medium, high, acute. Pay attention to the heart rate, in the palm of your hand, the sensations in your stomach and the temperature of your whole body. Then choose one of the exercises:

1) Setting for safety (all levels of stress)
Breathe deeply and look around. Tilt your head to the right and left. Look up and down. Turn back. Mark anything that looks safe, beautiful, and soothing. Pay attention to the body if it is too cold or too hot and take care of it. Check how comfortable you sit / stand. Repeat all steps if required.

2) Decreased Intermediate Anxiety
Use the VIVO exercise from the previous post

3) Reducing acute anxiety
The task of the exercise is to activate the parasympathetic system.

a. Imagine that you are an alien who first booted into a human body and knows nothing about it. Tune in to the feeling of security "I am now calm and safe." Look around for signs of safety.

b. Find in the body only those sensations that seem pleasant. Look for them in your arms, legs, palms, and ears. They can be very small and inconspicuous. Sit comfortably in a chair or armchair. Place both feet on the floor so that they feel a hard surface. You can also hug yourself and rock back and forth as if lulling.

If pleasant sensations are not detected, make yourself a cup of herbal tea or take a warm bath, and then scan the body again. If it doesn’t help, you can remember something pleasant in every detail: where, how, what you were wearing, what the weather was like.

in. You need to focus on pleasant sensations for three minutes, and then get up from your chair and move for three minutes. Shake your arms and legs. Make different sounds - from growling to loud inhalations and exhalations. Make sure you are not cold or hot.

d. After completing the exercise, keep your attention on the pleasant sensations. Give yourself the task of paying attention only to them, and avoid focusing on unpleasant sensations or thoughts.