Many people describe anxiety as feeling of dread sometimes seeming to come out of nowhere and at other times associated with specific thoughts or situations. This uncomfortable emotional and physical state has been understood by science as a remnant of the primal area of the brain, the limbic system. You have probably heard the phrase: “fight, flight, or freeze”. This refers to the different ways that we can respond to danger or to perceived danger. Let me use a few different examples to explain.
It is dusk and you are driving up a mountain. Suddenly you stop short, as you come around a curve because there is a deer in the middle of the road staring right at you. The deer is frozen in fear, hence the phrase, “like a deer in the headlights.” In this case, what might be an adaptive, life-saving tool for the deer in the woods becomes a great danger when fast moving cars (human predators) are involved in the chase. Our own human, fight, flight, or freeze mechanism has throughout human evolution moved from physical action or inaction based on immediate physical threat, to a stress reaction, working on a cognitive/ mental level. Anxiety is a manifestation of trying to work out the fight, flight or freeze response, a primal reaction, as a rational matter as opposed to an issue of physical survival. Many people recognize their anxiety as feeling like a matter of life and death when, in most cases, this level of danger is not truly present. In any case, our energy becomes frozen instead of released which creates an uncomfortable sensation to say the least.
To use another example from nature, imagine a cat chasing a squirrel. The cat is slowly approaching the squirrel, which has been scurrying about, unaware of the cat, as the cat comes into view the squirrel freezes, perhaps hoping that his dark fur will blend into the tree base and that he will go unnoticed. This is an example of an adaptive freeze response. But suddenly the cat pounces, but before he has had a chance to grab the squirrel, the squirrel has used the reservoir of frozen energy to dart up the tree. He makes high pitched squeals as he reaches the safety of the branches and jumps to the next tree and the next. The squirrel was thus both frozen and on the ready with a vast amount of energy and adrenaline. Now the squirrel has utilized his flight defense. It is interesting to note how quickly the squirrel was able to move from frozen into flight energy; this is unlike most people experiencing anxiety. Anxiety might be experienced as a combination of fight and flight while still frozen. Instead of a release of energy, many people find themselves doing battle internally or trying to run away from their own thoughts and being unable to escape. The result for humans is that the energy of flight remains locked in the body, creating a physical sense of agitation related to what we call “anxiety.” These examples of animal reactions in nature versus our human experience of anxiety have much to show us about how we might better manage this feeling.
