Relax, Fight-Flight and Freeze

Three Brains

When we understand how fear is created in the body, it is helpful in releasing the grip of anxiety and fear patterns. This is basic information on how the body's physiology is affected by fear and trauma and how that is exploited by dark forces.

Our biology has three distinctly different processors of energy and information, two conscious and one functioning below radar. We are aware of our thoughts and emotions, but we are less aware of what the survival brain is doing, and how this is affecting the way we feel.

The survival brain is the one that takes your hand off the stove, before the other two brains realize that you have burned your hand. It is incredibly fast at responding to what is happening in our environment, in order to keep the body safe. It’s like each human body comes with a pre-loaded software program that says keep this body alive. So what is going on in the lower brain, below conscious radar?

Software: Survival programs

The lower brain basically runs in three modes: relaxed, fight-flight, and freeze. Again to keep it very simple, using a stoplight as a model. (from Stephen Porges, Poly-vagal Theory).

When we are in green, we are relaxed our heart and respiration are slow, we can digest our food, we can nap, we enjoy being with loved ones and can relate to them. The moment the lower brain feels there is danger; it moves the biology into yellow. The vagus nerve shuts down all the organs below the diaphragm, and speeds up the ones above the diaphragm. We get an immediate increase of available energy, or superhuman strength, enough to lift a small car off of a child. This is an amazing thing the body can do in a split second. Our bodies were designed to do this for very brief period. We don’t want to get stuck in yellow, where we cannot digest our food, we cannot sleep, and we cannot enjoy or relate to our loved ones. There are usually two reasons we get stuck in fight-flight. We are living in an unsafe situation and the accurate assessment is that we are in danger. Or we have an unresolved Trauma from the past, which the lower brain feels is happening now, in the present moment.

Being in the Red zone is more rare. This is where the lower brain perceives that the body is not going to survive the experience and shuts it down. The body becomes immobilized to play dead, anesthetized to minimize suffering, and the consciousness often leaves the body or is disassociated from it. Again, this is an amazing biological accomplishment in a split second. We see this with high impacts, with early and chronic abuse such as SRA, and in war and torture. The eyes are vacant the voice is monotone and the body is lifelessly still, meaning there is no fidgeting or normal movement in the body.

Creating Conditions

The issue with the survival brain is that we cannot fake it out. If we want to relax, we actually have to create the conditions for the physiology to move into green. If we live with a predator, if we work under a predator, if we do not have our basics needs met, we are going to be in yellow. So part of being able to clear fear means making choices that help the Brain and nervous system register that we are safe.

See Also

Overcoming Fear

Bio-Neurology