The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response

Your reaction to stress is largely generated by the so-called ‘Fight, Flight or Freeze’ response. This is very much an emergency primitive survival strategy and many of my clients are amazed to discover that we are still using stone-age tactics in our space-age world!

What you/your body does	Fight, Flight or Freeze Response
Quick intake of breath Tense muscles	Fuel reserves are mobilised and sent to the brain and muscles. Extra oxygen is taken in to burn the fuel.
Heart pounds Headaches	Blood pressure and breathing rate increases making the heart beat faster
Sweaty palms and feet	Palms and feet get sweaty to give better grip (i.e. on spear or for climbing trees etc.)
Cold feet (can still be sweaty!)	Blood is shunted away from the extremities, where it is not needed – also reduces blood loss in event of injury.
‘Butterflies’ in stomach. Loss of appetite. Dry mouth.	Energy consuming digestive processes are closed down, including the production of saliva.
Loss of peripheral vision - becoming excessively focussed on object of ‘fear’	Concentration improves. The pupils dilate to let in more light.
Feel sick Urgent need to go to the toilet	If the situation becomes really life threatening, we may even vomit or defecate to make the body lighter and less appetising.
Get ‘goose’ pimples and/or hair ‘prickles’ on back of neck	Muscles under the skin partially contract so that hair stands on end to make us look larger and more threatening to potential predators.

These physical and mental adaptations are brought about by chemical changes in the body. It is our perception of the challenge or threat that determines the cocktail of chemicals released and these in turn determine our emotional response. Contrary to popular belief, it is noradrenaline (not adrenaline) that gives rise to those lovely feelings of excitement and drive as well as physical strength. For this reason noradrenaline has been named the ‘kick’ or high performance hormone which in large amounts stimulates special areas in the brain that produce a feeling of pleasure. In contrast, the feelings and sensations associated with high levels of adrenaline are not pleasant – these are the ones generating the need to flee, leaving us overwhelmed, inadequate and afraid.

I guess most of us would prefer to feel pleasure and excitement at the prospect of competing rather than plainly petrified and of course, it does make a big difference to our ability to get good results! Clearly the place to start is where it all begins – with the way we choose to look at the whole thing, with our perceptions.

Stress Management is a personal issue

Doctor Paul Martin in his book “The Sickening Mind” defines psychological stress as

“ the state arising when the individual perceives the demands placed on them exceed (or threaten to exceed) their capacity to cope”.

This definition is useful not only because it suggests an opportunity for intervention – we can reduce the demands, increase the capacity to cope (maybe even both!) - but most importantly, it emphasises the individual nature of the perception of threat. What stresses you may not stress someone else. It’s easy to deduce that if for example, your equanimity is threatened by insufficient planning or lack of time, the best thing you can do to improve your performance is to improve your organisation. However, some people positively revel in the excitement of last-minute arrangements. My clients don’t usually need me to tell them those sorts of things – they know already! The most successful stress management strategies are those that address individual issues. In a perfect world we could all have personal coaches to enable us to realise our performance potential; since that is not always practical, then recognition that stress triggers can be personality specific is a very viable alternative.

Personality Profiling and LifeMapper

 

You can try out the LifeMapper Personality Profiler FREE on my website at www.theconsultingrooms.co.uk Its not the complete programme but it will give you some ideas and its good fun! If you don’t have access to the Internet, send an SAE to A Mind to Ride at 28, College Street, Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset TA8 1AT (with stamps attached to the value of £0.47 for the UK) and we’ll send you a free Profiler CD-Rom to load on any PC running Windows 98 or later versions.

If your primary personality comes out as Resolute (or any of the Resolute combinations), then you are probably an archetypal ‘Warrior’ equestrian. I’d guess that you’re pretty competitive, well organised and disciplined. You are most likely to feel threatened by anything that indicates danger of loss of control – of yourself or your horse, other peoples’ perceived low standards or illogicality, over-emotion of other people, failure to achieve goals. It may be that a certain lack of flexibility is inhibiting your performance potential so give that possibility some thought. Use your determination and your logical, rational abilities to help you manage your competition stress.

Perhaps you’re an archetypal ‘Settler’ equestrian? In which case, your profiler will show predominantly ‘Intuitive’ personality traits. You are an excellent communicator and good both with people and with animals. You seek to form a real partnership with your horse and will see a competition as a joint venture. Some of your competition stress may well come from worrying about what other people might be thinking and whether you are going to let others/your horse down. You can help yourself by avoiding ‘what if’ projections and keeping a tight rein (oops, another pun!) on your imagination.

Archetypal ‘Nomad’ equestrians are Charismatic – lively, adventurous, excited, often described as “the life and soul of the party”, enthusiastic, quick and with a capacity for doing lots of things at once. Not for this equestrian the worry of performing in front of others. You love the limelight; in fact it brings a real ‘edge’ to your competition abilities. The main threat inherent in a competition situation for you is the potential for loss of ‘face’ because of the high value you put on your image. However, you can use this to your advantage by acting the part - just behave ‘as if’ you can do it or pretend that you are Mary Wanless, William Fox Pitt or Pippa Funnel. It will also help if you can guard against your inclination to become rather frenetic when stressed. More likely than not, this will simply result in you upsetting your horse and making ever escalating mistakes!

Hypnotherapy can Help – ‘Equinimity’

Self-hypnosis by definition has to be a very personal experience. The art of creating a self-hypnosis CD that necessarily has the same words on it for everyone, is to be what is known as ‘artfully vague’. This means that the suggestions are crafted in such a way as to leave room for individual interpretation. Of course, it’s very much easier to do this when you are a horse rider yourself because at least you can talk the talk!

‘Equinimity’ offers the rider much more than simple suggestions for positive change; it also contains therapeutic metaphors, embedded commands, double binds, truisms and other hypnotic language patterns within a powerful intervention to persuade the subconscious mind to make those changes at a very deep and profound level. In equestrian terms this equates to the difference between simply telling your horse what to do and creating the most favourable environment in which to ask - skilfully, sensitively and successfully.

In an ideology that shares similarities with natural horsemanship, the secret is to encourage the very best of what comes naturally and to respect your ability to work in the right way for you. The objective is to resolve rather than generate conflicts, to enable you to realise your potential as a rider without compromising your integrity as a human being.

In addition to specific skills in personal development and coaching, Sue has extensive experience as a private practitioner and an integrative skills base incorporating hypnotherapy, NLP, advice and guidance, counselling and stress management techniques . She is a Supervisory Member of the Association for Professional Hypnosis and Psychotherapy, an Accredited Member of The National Council for Hypnotherapy, a LifeMapper Senior Therapist/Coach and a full member of the International Stress Management Association. For more information, visit www.theconsultingrooms.co.uk.