When our ancestors encountered a predator, their nervous systems immediately prepared them to either confront the threat (fight), escape to safety (flight), or become still and unnoticed (freeze).

The sympathetic nervous system drives the fight-or-flight response, while the parasympathetic nervous system drives freezing. How you react depends on which system dominates the response at the time.

The fight, flight, or freeze response is an involuntary reaction to a perceived threat that causes physiological changes. Learn more here.

Most people are familiar with the autonomic nervous system’s ‘fight or flight’ response to threats – Veronica writes about the ‘freeze’ response when the body’s heart rate, blood pressure and ...

There's a widespread push to change the well-known idiom "fight or flight" to "fight, flight or freeze." In a recent commentary piece in Nature Human Behavior, Ebani Dhawan and Professor Patrick ...

The sympathetic nervous system controls action. When this system is dominant, it can feel like a burst of energy directing you either toward the threat or away from it a.k.a. fight or flight.

The fight-flight-or-freeze theory was developed in the early 1900s. Here's an update you need to know.

We all experience fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, but for those with trauma history, these responses to stress can become harmful.

Feeling numb but still functioning? You might be in functional freeze. Learn what it is and how to start thawing out.