What are Stress Responses? And How to Harness Their Power?

Is it only FIGHT and FLIGHT? And how to make them work for you?

If you search for the term “stress responses” online, you will probably come across a lot of articles describing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system in humans, as well as how they work from scientifically point of view.

Well, I’ve seen this working live, real-time, in the office, right in front of my eyes! And this article is all about what I’ve learned.

What is Stress?

In short: an event that human brain classifies as unknown. And by default, “unknown” means “danger” to our brain. From here we activate the sympathetic nervous system and we enter into the state of “choosing” how to respond. But that is all happening on an unconscious level.

Here’s an example: If you stand on the street and you see a car approaching towards you, you move instantly away to save life. You do not take your time to hesitate, or analyze how and when or even IF to move or not. You just simply move. Because this is a dangerous, in this case even a life-threatening event that needs to be addressed immediately.

From the example above, we can assume that stress is actually a good thing — something that makes us protect our lives. Really? Let’s see…

Remember the popular saying: “No pressure, no diamonds”? That is what stress is in the workplace — makes us better. But this happens only for those who can stand this pressure. I share this “secret: further in the article. But before that…

How do We Address Stress?

Here comes the theory about the stress responses. Now, if you read the most popular articles you will come across the FIGHT — FLIGHT response theory. Here’s a link to a great book on Amazon if you like to explore the topic:

Here is also a link to the article on Wikipedia:

You might also find a lot of theories that extend the responses to three: FIGHT — FLIGHT — FREEZE. And this is all covering the childhood trauma and how to deal with it. Here’s another best-seller from Amazon on the topic:

The Basic FIGHT-FLIGHT and FREEZE Responses

In short: this is how we respond in the face of danger. Like in the wild, if we see a wild animal in the woods, we usually run(flight) if we sense that we have no chances of fighting and winning this fight, or we start chasing it (fight) if we sense we do have a chance of winning. And we definitely freeze, or simply shut down and wait for the danger to go away.

But we do not have bears or wolves or tigers and lions in the office. Not real ones at least! But what do we do? Exactly the same thing!

1. FIGHT. Can you think of angry colleagues showting? Many, right? When we show aggression toward colleagues in the workplace, we actually feel threatened and try to protect ourselves. What are the main reasons: something went wrong (or at least not in our favor), somebody showed disrespect (or at least that was what we perceived), something was unfair (or at least that was what we felt). If we deep-dive, we will recognize the danger here:

• Something went not in our favor: so something else we care about is now at risk.
• Something was unfair (to us or others) — then we need to protect that person (from this unfair danger) and make things right.
• Someone showed disrespect: so we are at risk of being kicked out from the tribe, people do not like us and that is “the end of the world”. Is it? I’d add few more words here to explain, because I have seen this to be so common that in is actually amazing how people fail to put this in control. So Why do we care for other people’s opinion so much? Human baby is the only one mammal that needs attention and care for that much time after birth — about a year. Without the mother’s (or some other person’s) care, the baby will not survive. We are social creatures. So from birth it becomes encoded in our DNA, it becomes one of our basic instincts — to be dependent on other people in order to survive. Most of us, we simply fail to re-write the code when we grow up, because it is on the unconscious level. So it becomes reality. Some try to deny — can you think of people who try to stay away from everybody stating that they do not need anybody’s help? Many, right? That’s denial. We do need each other. But not all of the people around us.

How to recognize these people in the workplace: Look for activity in the hands, restless hands and upper body. Can you think of someone who is always doing something with the hands, or always playing with something in the hands? Many, right? That is FIGHT response to what is currently happening. This is often unconscious, so any attempt to reveal, especially in front of other people, will worsen the condition even more.

2. FLIHT. The reasons and the circumstances are very much similar to the FIGHT response. The only difference is in the level of trust in ourselves. So, if we feel we are losing the fight, we leave. We quit.

How to recognize these people in the workplace: Look for activity on the feet, restless feed and lower body. Can you think of someone with nervousness in the legs, moving then restlessly during a meeting? This person’s desire is to immediately leave. This is also unconscious, but sometimes it can be a behavior reflecting some personal issue.

3. FREEZE. This never happens in the face of danger. At least, not only danger. It usually happens in the face of life-threatening event. And nowadays a life threat is any event that leads or endangers a relationship with a loved one. Because of what I described above: the cause-effect relation that we build during childhood, which is actually happening generations over generations to pretty much all humanity (so it is very hard to be overcome (but still possible)).

In both of the above responses the human brain simply does not feels safe, or at least it perceives so.

How to recognize these people in the workplace: Look for the passive ones. Those who are unwilling to act most of the times. Those who feel that any action will destroy a relationship with a dear colleague. Can you think of some? I can. Of many actually. Those are at the core of slow company progress, because they fail to speak up against the many corporate malfunctions. Especially in large corporations. Because they feel that speaking up will hurt someone they have already become close with, OR they will cause themselves problems within the workplace, which they’d very much like to avoid. Like for example gaining enemies. That is life threatening on an unconscious level. The human brain simply does not feel loved, or at least it perceives so.

What is the FACE response?

So what happens if we feel safe and loved but we still face danger? We simply face it. We address it. We perceive it as CHALLENGE. Scientifically proven fact is that adrenaline is released both in great danger, like falling and in great challenge, like sport for example. What makes the difference is how we perceive the event: as danger or challenge.

How to recognize these people in the workplace: Look for the active ones. Those who are willing to act upon pretty much everything. Those who many other people “hate” for being “bootlickers”. But they’re simply not. They’re just trying to do the right thing most of the times. And when combined with a growth mindset, this becomes a formula for never-ending success. Like a self-fulfilling prophesy. I have another article about growth mindset here:

The Answer to All of the Stress Problems is:

Simply make sure you feel safe and loved. Yes, it’s that simple. You may have seen all the hormones of happiness and how to boost them. If you take a close look you will recognize two main fundamentals or pillars if I may call them that: relationships with others (people, pets, laughter, social activity) and staying safe (eat, sport, relax on the beach).

Is it Really THAT Easy?

NO! At least not to most of the people I know, including myself. But if you are meditating daily, if you are doing yoga regularly, if you are good in intuition or practicing Silva method, you’ll probably won’t find this difficult. That is because all of these activities tap into the subconscious which is our connection with the unconscious mind and from there we can definitely re-write any of our “programs” in our brains. But please, make sure you do train yourself before trying.

But if you, like me, are a regular average person who wants to become a better human, you can do that too. As I said, this works on an unconscious level so just knowing these things is not enough. You may need to work with your will power and re-write your beliefs. Here’s a simple practice I developed for myself and use whenever I feel unwell emotionally.

Yes! Emotions are the Key!

These states and pretty much everything in our lives happens due to emotions. Here’s what I wrote about emotions:

My practice:

1. Analyze and dig deep to understand what made you feel bad. But really, find it and get to the bottom of it. Go through the whole day or back to the time from when you started feeling that way.

2. Analyze every situation and event, every person you met. Every conversation. Usually it’s something some person said. At least in my case.

3. Now when you find it, ask yourself how important is that to you. It happens so that I find myself worrying about what a person said to me and I don’t even care about that person. At all. But if you do, then re-frame.

4. Reframing is a popular technique from the NLP. Simply put the person and yourself in a different context, or situation which is favorable to you. It also must be true. Do not make-up fake stuff, your unconscious is not stupid (in fact it’s genius), so it will simply not pass. Example: Someone said I’m stupid, so it made me feel bad. But I then remember that this person had achieved much less than me so far so I assume these words might be out of envy and actually aiming to make me feel bad, and this person may not even mean them. But even if they do, I simply do not care. I have a life to take care of :)

5. If you do care about that person, think of areas where you are smarter than them, better than them. Than think of how you can help them. They might actually need help and try to hide that. Do not offer your help you feel not like it. Simply stay in that context for a while until you feel better.

That’s it!

Ok, so are there responses all there is?

I don’t think so. We as humans are complex creatures. Scientific theories and studies try to classify us, to label us, but the truth is we are processes. We do change in every situation. One day we are stupid and the other we are genius. Here’s my truth: it’s all in the balance. All of the above responses involve intense stress. And staying only in the stress, even when challenged, is devastating to our health. It is like driving a car on first or second gear all the time. Eventually it will wear off and start decomposing if you don’t turn to a higher gear on the highway, right? That is what stress does to our health if we do not balance it. That is why we need sleep and rest and laugh and fun and everything that just makes us feel safe and loved. I call this “stress response” the…

FLOW. The state where you keep everything in balance. Where you are aggressive but that is on purpose and done under sole responsibility with a specific intention to invoke a specific reaction in other people. When you are really utilizing your emotions, when you are at your center, at your core, in love with everyone and yourself, and nothing is ever enough at the same time. When positive and negative are the two polarities of the balanced core. When your life you your own personal responsibility, and you know that no one owes you and that’s ok. When you love what you do and do what you love, and that is ok for everyone around you, because you made sure you have the right people around you.

And there you have it: My own theory for the THE 5 STRESS RESPONSES, or THE FIVE F-s, developed from my decades of experience in large corporations working with people, both as a leader and as a regular employee.

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