Nature built into humans a powerful tool to help ensure our survival, and that tool is adrenaline. Adrenaline has the power to prolong local anesthesia, such as novocaine. It has the power to restart a heart. It is potent and literally cannot be ignored. We don’t really have a choice about how we feel once adrenaline is released. Sometimes, when we are acting unintentionally, we behave in ways that don’t make us proud when we look back later. It’s difficult to control your own behavior in the face of adrenaline and it can be learned. This is not an excuse to behave poorly. This is an opportunity to learn and grow. Learning your primary response style is helpful when you are trying to learn intentional behaviors.

Intentional behaviors are hard in some of these situations. It takes time, sometimes. We should be able to acknowledge and/or apologize when we have behaved in a negative way. This is really difficult. These reactions are wired into our brain via survival mechanisms. Still, patience with yourself, and with others who are trying, is really important. If someone isn’t trying, then it’s important to examine your connection with that individual and see if it serves you. Let’s look at what can occur, and why.

Adrenaline has four basic ways that it can manifest in our behaviors and attitudes. Those are:

• Fight
• Flight
• Freeze
• Fawn

Let’s talk a little bit about how each of those things can look, or “present”, and what they mean.

Let’s start with the reaction of “Fight”. Fight can present as defensiveness, anger, physical attacks, loud voices, or confrontation. When a person feels adrenaline coursing through their veins and lashes out, that’s the Fight response.

Why do we do this? Our subconscious mind signals to the adrenal glands that there is danger afoot. This threat must be met with a show of force. This is not a conscious process. Your subconscious mind has identified a cue that it associates with danger, trauma, learned bad experiences, or some other undesired situation. It sends a hormonal signal through the bloodstream to the adrenal glands. The adrenals then release adrenaline, and it seems that almost instantly a person wants to bare their teeth, confront the problem, and destroy it.

People who are quite mild in their intentional behaviors can create quite a surprise when they raise their voice, physically move closer, put their hands out threateningly, or even hit someone.

Let’s move on to Flight. Flight is the need to get out of that situation at almost any cost. It could be via walking or running away, it could be by deflecting and redirecting, it could be by lying, and it can also manifest as disassociation. 

Why do we do this? Our subconscious mind signals to the adrenal glands that there is danger afoot. This threat must be avoided. This is not a conscious process. Your subconscious mind has identified a cue that it associates with danger, trauma, learned bad experiences, or some other undesired situation. It sends a hormonal signal through the bloodstream to the adrenal glands. The adrenals then release adrenaline, and it seems that almost instantly a person wants to leave, to avoid the situation, to run away, or they may just behave very automatically when their mind just goes away instead. 

This results in a person not behaving in a very “present” way. Either they are constantly trying to leave, or their mind is disengaged and has already left. They may not remember events when they are in this state. They may feel safer when in a place that they associate with comfort. Above all, they need to get away from that cue.

Next, let’s discuss Freeze. This is the reaction that just stops. This is the “deer in the headlights” reaction, inexplicably unable to move to safety.

Why do we do this? Our subconscious mind signals to the adrenal glands that there is danger afoot. This threat must not notice us. This is not a conscious process. Your subconscious mind has identified a cue that it associates with danger, trauma, learned bad experiences, or some other undesired situation. It sends a hormonal signal through the bloodstream to the adrenal glands. The adrenals then release adrenaline, and it seems that almost instantly a person wants to stay still to the point of immobility. They seem locked in place. This can happen physically, emotionally, and mentally.

This results in no further dangerous cues, and it also stops progress. There is no movement towards anything at all. There is just being still and hoping you aren’t noticed. Many animals, such as the deer in the headlights, are food for animals that have motion as a trigger for prey drive. The possum pretends to be dead. Predators chase when something moves. If nothing moves, there’s the chance of surviving. In people, this can even show up as sleeping, because catalepsy and strong emotion can signal narcolepsy. Sleeping as a stress reaction may seem strange on the surface, because a lot of people cannot sleep while stressed. Discuss with your doctor if you have a strong sleep response to stress.

Finally, let’s talk about Fawn. This is a fairly newly identified part of the adrenaline reaction, and yet you probably know someone who responds to stress this way. Fawn is the reaction that tries to please people, to help them be happy with you. Fawn is the response that forces people to adapt to another’s expectations instead of moving forward in their own behavioral integrity. Fawn is also most often identified with other people as the source of the danger.

Why do we do this? Our subconscious mind signals to the adrenal glands that there is danger afoot. This threat must like us or be happy with us. This is not a conscious process. Your subconscious mind has identified a cue that it associates with danger, trauma, learned bad experiences, or some other undesired situation. It sends a hormonal signal through the bloodstream to the adrenal glands. The adrenals then release adrenaline, and it seems that almost instantly a person identifies what will help the source of the threat relax, feel good, be happy. The person can make them laugh. The person can make them their favorite meal. The person can say the things that need to be said (even if they are untrue) to calm the person. It can entertain, distract, refocus, or placate.

This results in being in the current good graces of someone, rather than being the target of some form of aggression or other unpleasantness. Other people might not matter; they may even put someone else in the position of receiving the aggression. They immediately go into Pleasing Mode and as soon as they have made sure the person is happy, they feel safer.

It’s important to note that when this process is happening, people can not access their higher cognitive functions. They can’t think, in the traditional sense of the word, because blood flow to the prefrontal cortex has been minimized in favor of the muscles and heart. Blood vessels to the brain constrict, and blood flow to muscles is maximized to allow for a survival-level response. This is what allows parents to lift cars off of their babies. Do they have sore muscles after? Yes, they do. Could they sit down and do higher math immediately? No, because their body is still prioritizing their survival over their higher functioning.

People are complex, and rarely does a person engage just one behavior set. They might have one behavior set for work or school, one behavior set for family, and another for feeling safer in public. Sometimes it’s difficult to identify the type of reaction from outside the individual, and sometimes it’s really clear what is happening. Confronting a person in this reactive state is not helpful, as they are locked into the hormonal responses that are inspired by adrenaline. However, allowing some time to pass, allowing the person to settle down and compose themselves, will make a conversation more productive.

What happens after the adrenaline? That really depends on how you are able to process the feelings. If someone has to just move on to the next thing, and they don’t get any time to reflect on the experience, then they internalize the stress for processing later. 

What happens when we interrupt this process is that your body remembers that it’s holding onto that stress, and the reaction to the cue might be as big or even bigger the next time. Your conscious mind may not remember, but your body does. Your subconscious mind does. However, maybe you need to get back to work. Maybe you have to drive somewhere. Maybe there’s some other really important Thing You Have To Do and you can’t indulge yourself there and then with a wave of emotional processing. That’s real. You can access it later, possibly on your own and possibly with the help of a counselor or therapist. You might also just ignore it, as it passed, and just revisit it in a later adrenaline surge.

If you allow the adrenaline to process through its cycle, you might find your limbs or even your whole body trembling or shaking. You might find your teeth chattering, or your breathing harsh. Your hands might get cold. You may feel hot. People sometimes experience it in different ways. It’s really kind of unpleasant to be shaking for a reason you might not recognize right away. Allow these reactions to proceed and you will come out the other side of the cycle, a bit tired perhaps, but alive and able to learn. Keep breathing and telling yourself that it’s finite; it has an end.

What if you are mistaken? What if you double take and that isn’t actually the person you feared it was? By the time you could think ”oh, wait that’s not it at all” the adrenaline has been released and what you do next is usually what you have practice doing in your life. That’s your pattern. Allowing the adrenaline to process through the cycle is giving yourself the time and space you need to grow.

Identifying if/how each of these manifests in your life is the first step to allowing the cycle to continue without interruption. Learning the patterns of your responses to stressful situations allows you to think of it as a challenge you can meet, rather than a problem to be endured.