Daily Resilience: Beyond Survival

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by stress that you find yourself just reacting?

Have you ever found yourself reacting impulsively when something reminds you of a past trauma?

These are possible situations where our body is in a survival zone. When we are feeling overwhelmed by stress, experience a trauma, or our body detects a danger our brain signals our body to release stress hormones to get to safety. The danger could be emotional, mental, or physical and our body is working to get to safety through enacting a survival response. This is a good system our body has when we are in danger and needing to get to safety. But when we stay in these zones for long periods of time it can have impacts on our brain and body. It impacts how our brain perceives safety and may cause our body to be in a survival zone when we are actually safe. This can impact our decision making, our ability to accomplish our goals, our relationships, and the way we perceive safety within ourselves. We will briefly look at the four survival zones and then discuss how to move beyond our survival modes when we are safe.

Survival Zone

The survival zones are fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. For most of us we probably experience a mixture of these survival reactions in our lifetime. There is not a linear answer when looking into our own stress and survival responses.

Fight

• Emotionally reactive
• Physically and verbally acting out in aggression
• Being stuck in this survival zone can cause the body to release excess stress hormones

Freeze

• Feelings of numbness and disconnection
• Not being able to physically or verbally respond
• Being stuck in this survival mode may result in it being more difficult to work through the stress

Flight

• Emotional reactivity
• Physical or mental reaction to get away
• Being stuck in this survival zone can cause the body to release excess stress hormones

Fawn

• Seeking safety by pleasing the people around you
• Satisfying others at the expense of your own needs to feel safe
• Being stuck in this survival mode for long periods of time may cause excess stress hormones when interacting with others we are trying to please.
• In this survival response our safety is linked to appeasing other people which could impact how we experience safety within ourselves.

Beyond Survival

Working through our stress and trauma involves a variety of steps and looks different for all of us. Here are some possible considerations when working through our own survival responses, stress, and building resilience.

• Working to increase calm in our mind and body on a regular bases. We can do this by practicing resilience skills like grounding, focusing on things we love, and shifting our attention when we are getting overwhelmed.
• Consider talking to a mental health professional. This can be a really helpful option to work through past and present issues that are impacting your stress levels.
• Practicing yoga. I am a big fan of yoga specifically for increasing calm in our mind and body. Practicing yoga gives us a safe space to tune into our body and to release stress and tension through slow movements. This can be a great thing to add into your life to release some of the stressful energy and to incorporate into your daily calming techniques.