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 If you need suddenly to get out of danger (avoiding the path of an oncoming car, for example) your body instantly sets in motion the Fight or Flight mechanism. In a fraction of a second stress hormones are released into your system to help your body deal with the threat.
Changes immediately take place, including:
- large muscles (legs, arms etc) tense up, ready for action,
- heart rate and blood pressure increase to supply more blood to the muscles,
- breathing quickens to take in more oxygen,
- skin sweats to maintain body temperature,
- pupils dilate to take in as much light as possible,
- blood glucose level increases for extra energy,
- non-essential systems (such as the digestive and immune systems) shut down to allow more energy for emergency functions.
These responses help you survive the danger by enabling you to fight or run for your life (hence "Fight or Flight"). Strenuous physical action is taken and the relaxation response calms you down after the danger is past.
However, although very occasionally we may need to leap into action like that, the challenges facing us today are much more likely to be mental than physical:
- hostile colleagues at work,
- being in a difficult relationship,
- a visit to the dentist,
- financial problems,
- chronic illness,
- lack of self-confidence
and so on - the list is endless.
Unfortunately your body can’t tell the difference between the two types of threat.
That means that the same mechanism can be set in motion even by the thought of someone or something we are frightened of or feel threatened by. So:
If this response is triggered dozens of times a day, in the short term it can lead to a wide variety of symptoms such as chronic hyperventiation, panic attacks, headache, palpitations and diarrhoea. (For a full list, click through to Unexplained Symptoms). Our bodies literally stew in the stress chemicals they have inappropriately produced.
Over the long term this can lead to all sorts of more serious problems such as heart disease, migraine or irritable bowel syndrome and can, in rare cases, be life-threatening.
But with self-awareness, information and practice, we can go a long way towards helping ourselves:
will all help to provide a front-line defence against the negative effects of the Fight or Flight response.
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Fight or Flight 
