What is Your Stress Type?

Did you know that you have a stress type?

As human beings, our life experiences combined with our neurobiology can trigger specific automatic reactions when faced with certain stressful situations. 

You might, for example:

• argue with a co-worker treating you unfairly

• flee from the path of a car running a red light

• freeze when you hear an unexpected noise in the dark

• keep quiet about how you really feel to avoid starting a fight

Do any of these sound like you?

We frequently have more than one type, depending on the specifics of the situation we are facing. And most times, our reactions happen without our conscious awareness but can have a profound impact on our experience of life.

In this series, we'll explore the four common stress types: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn.

We'll look at the Fight reaction here.

While a fight response can refer to actual physical or verbal aggression, it encompasses any action you take to stand up to a threat or negate it.

• making a public social media post to let everyone know how someone wronged you

• shouting at a friend when they accidentally mention something private about you

• spreading a rumor about a co-worker who criticized your work

• refusing to speak with your partner when they do something that angers you

Fight: Skillful Response to Practice

The Fight reaction deals with a triggered aggressive response to feeling threatened, regardless of the circumstances. Standing up for yourself in appropriate situations can have great value. Acting with defensive aggression to all imagined "wrongs" can harm your relationships and wellbeing.

Funneling the aggressive energy triggered by the fight reaction into constructive physical activity like yoga or stretching activates your parasympathetic system and defuses the reaction. It releases anxiety and helps you reconnect with others without reactively retaliating against them.

Mindful practices like these begin to build the pause, the ability to discern whether the situation actually requires defense or if a more skillful response is appropriate.

Long term practice of these activities can have a significant and lasting impact on your behaviors and relationships.

Read the next in our series - the Flight Reaction - here.

Let your wisdom lead,

Robin

P.S.

I’m heading to Spain next week! Follow along on my journey on Instagram

@mindfuladventures_elcamino