The Fight or Flight Response

The Fight or Flight Response

  The Fight or Flight Response is an automatic brain response your body has to a perceived dangerous situation.  The Fight or Flight Response’s purpose is to protect you from potential danger.  The problem, is that it is a primitive response and often the world we live in now does not have the same dangerous situations as when this response first developed in our brains.  We no longer have the threat of wild animals, however, the threat of writing a test or exam, or handing in an assignment, or speaking in front of a group of people still continues to illicit the same physical reaction in our brain for some people.  When a person feels threatened, the fight-or-flight response is automatically triggered, and the body changes that occur still prepares us to either ‘fight’ the threat, or ‘flee’ the threat (even though it is impractical to ‘flee’ from an assignment) the brain response is the same as if it was a wild animal. The resource includes what it is and how to manage it.