Protecting Our Bodies and Minds from Chronic Fight or Flight in 2020
If we exert influence over our nervous system, we can guide our emotions and strengthen our immunity. A calm nervous system is our best defense against panic and pathogens (including viruses). 2020 has been riddled with intensity. From COVID-19 and the widespread job loss to the struggle to end systemic racism to the Australian wildfires and the ever-unstable and deceptive political climate—many people feel overwhelmed by the wash of frightening stimuli. The long-lasting anger and fear that has erupted for many people is a natural and healthy response, but it can cause our nervous system to remain for long periods in a state called “fight or flight” mode. Extended periods of fight or flight will weaken the immune system, unhinge the mind, and impede our ability to stay proactive. We can learn to tame our fight or flight response and, by doing so, strengthen our emotional and physical resiliency in these uncertain times.
What is Chronic Fight or Flight:
Fight or flight, also known as “hyperarousal,” is our physiological response to stress inherited from hunter-gatherer ancestors who needed extra speed and alertness to attack, defend, and run from predators. It kicks in naturally (often without us even noticing) as a reaction to environmental or perceived threats. It acts as a survival mechanism, preparing the body to react to dangerous circumstances.
During fight or flight mode, the body’s heart rate rises, muscles tense and breathing quickens. Short periods of FF (like during strenuous exercise) are healthy, assuming the body is allowed the time to recover and return to a state of equilibrium afterward. However, in our modern, fast-paced world, our fight or flight mode is often triggered too often and for too long.
The body of an activist involved in protesting or rioting would likely move into FF mode as the person recognizes the probable danger and aggression posed by police. This is an example of a time when your body very much benefits and can utilize the excitable FF state to protect itself. It’s after and before the marches, all the time at home and going about daily life, that we need to allow our bodies and minds to descend from that heightened state of anxiety. This can be extremely difficult due to the onslaught of news, videos, and interpersonal energies of worry and rage that can threaten to keep us stuck unhelpfully in FF. Feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, etc. are all valid and understandable (especially now), and devotion to a cause is the only way to bring about justice. If those feelings linger in the body without being processed, it will harm the person experiencing them and inversely limit that person’s ability to continue to participate in the protest and do good.
I came to understand the significant effect the nervous system has on our health through my experience with chronic illness. For years I suffered from autoimmune and Lyme disease. While a specialized diet and herbs were essential parts of recovery, I struggled to stabilize and always relapsed. Eventually, my nervous system became affected. I developed light-sensitivity, tics, shakiness, tingling, sleep issues, and cognitive decline. I found that breathing exercises (which I learned through decades practicing yoga) were the only thing that brought extended relief. Breathing exercises worked because of their ability to activate my nervous system’s rest-and-digest mode. It was so effective I began to study other ways to influence our nervous system and to teach these tools to others who suffer from similar illnesses.
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
Extended periods in fight or flight mode are especially detrimental to the body because our bodies cannot digest appropriately during FF. When the body’s nervous system is unsettled, we can eat the healthiest meals and still face digestive problems. For those who suffer from chronic illnesses, their illness often actually activates their fight or flight mode indefinitely, creating a negative feedback loop where the body’s stress response halts its healing processes. An allergic reaction or an overactive immune system can both activate our fight or flight. Additionally, the daily social stresses of trying to raise children, work and maintain relationships exasperate the body further - the body kicks into FF - sensing that it needs the extra spurt of energy to take on these tasks. In this way, fight or flight mode, though its purpose is to rescue us from harm, can be activated too often and hijack our strength, misappropriating our precious vitality when our body needs that energy elsewhere.
Chris Kessler (author, podcaster, director of CA center for functional medicine) has worked with thousands of people who suffer from chronic illness and autoimmune illness. Kessler notes:
“A chronically activated fight or flight response is going to interfere with the motility of the gut and cleansing action of the peristaltic wave, which keeps bacteria from growing in the Small Intestine.”
By this, he means fight or flight slows down the movement and elimination of food through the digestive tract and encourages the growth of pathogens. And so, by sabotaging the body’s natural cycles of exertion and necessary recovery, extended fight or flight prioritizes itself and leaves the body less nourished and more vulnerable to illness. This dismantling of the immune system and digestion is especially heinous in the shadow of COVID-19, as we try to build up our bodies’ resilience to viruses.
Psychological Effects of Extended Fight or Flight:
Our thoughts are an expression of the nervous system. Extended periods of fight or flight are not only harmful to the physical functions of our bodies but can also cause psychological distress. Because the brain is connected to our nervous system, when the nervous system is in a state of upheaval caused by extended FF, it uncenters the mind and can lead to anxiety and depression. Even before the 2020 pandemic or the public outcry in reaction to the tragic and continuing tradition of police brutality in America, many people lived in a constant state of low-grade fear.
It made sense for the onset of anxiety and FF mode to activate one another in our ancestors' lifestyles for whom potential threats lay around every corner. In the modern world, the way anxiety and the FF mode feed into each other can lead to a psychological /emotional negative feedback loop in which stress triggers FF, and the panicked and exhaustive effects of FF trigger anxiety and depression, so on and so on. This cycle keeps our minds locked in fear, and thus, our immune systems vulnerable. In people with chronic illnesses, the fatigue, indecision, and discomfort of trying to tend to their illness as a result of our compromised immune systems can then activate our FF and our anxiety. This unhealthy spiral is difficult to break.
Many people may find themselves whipped into fight or flight mode during the pandemic's communal anxiety. The atmosphere of cultural dread and worry often manifests as a fight or flight reaction in our bodies, harming our biological functions, deteriorating our mood, and disrupting our immune system. This is counterproductive because the best thing we can do for our bodies to armor against viruses like COVID-19 is learning to quell them out of FF to create the space and time they need to mend and build defenses.
People often attempt to calm their panic and anxiety through self-reassurance. They remind themselves of all the reasons they should not worry. This is ineffective mainly because if tension has already reached a physical pitch in the body, if muscles are tensed, or breath and heart are racing, we need to engage our bodies, not only our minds, in the relaxation process to reach a fully-realized calm.
Both western and natural medicine agree remaining in FF too long causes harm to our physical and emotional well-being. It increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and contributes to immune system repression.
To summarize: extended fight or flight mode weakens the body's ability to fight off viruses and often causes a psychological spiral into unhealthy and exhausting emotional patterns. In this cycle, the body never descends to a slow enough pace to stabilize and take care of itself, and anxiety and depression can manifest.
Transformation & Hope:
We can interrupt this negative FF pattern and create a positive feedback loop through natural methods. We have way more control over our nervous system than most people realize. Through various straightforward practices, we can choose to calm our nervous system.
Our 'rest and digest' mode (or RR) is our body's relaxation response. As flight or flight's counterpart, it is responsible for recovery, relaxation, repair, and digestion. It slows the heart rate, increases intestinal activity, and relaxes the GI response. As we activate our rest and digest response, our body recovers, our mind calms, and our immunity boosts. Brian Mackenzie (creator of CrossFit) has said he doesn't believe in "over-training," I only in "under-recovering." We can train harder, exercise more, work harder, heal more efficiently, and complete and be more proactive (such as protest ) if we allow ourselves to recover profoundly. We can only deeply recover in RR. If we learn to detect when we are in 'fight or flight' and calm our bodies into rest and digest, our minds will naturally follow suit.
Though external influences often throw off our natural equilibrium, we possess innate mental wellness. Poor nutrition, wrongly or overly prescribed medication, environmental stressors, and trauma are some external factors that can imbalance our nervous system and, by extension, put us out of touch with our bodies and upset our minds. When we calm the nervous system, more optimistic, peaceful, and level-headed thoughts follow. This way, a positive feedback loop can be established. Learn to sense and influence our nervous system, a stable baseline of bodily and emotional calm can be more easily maintained, and external influences will be less able to throw us off.
Learning to Influence Our Immune Systems:
Knowledge + Action = Power & Change.
You can interrupt the painful cycle of extended FF's negative feedback loop through simple methods. With practice, you'll learn to sense nervous system shifts in your body, including the early onset of FF mode. You are capable of navigating your body and mind into a positive feedback loop!
Because FF diminishes the function of the brain's prefrontal cortex, which is essential for wise and productive decision-making, it is necessary to guide yourself into RR to make decisions with clarity and insight. While FF is helpful to spark the urge and emotion essential for fundamental change, to be proactive for this planet in the long run, we need to be rested, and we need the ability to think clearly and make the right decisions. This centeredness can only happen in RR. Something I've always taught people chronic illness is never to make health decisions (or any major life decisions) in a state of panic. Wait until you can calm yourself first, then can you build a course of action from a stable place, that will prove more fruitful in the long run.
There are many physical ways to activate our rest and digest mode in the nervous system. Some of these include mediation, restorative yoga, walking, internal martial arts, and barefoot grounding. While vigorous exercise (like running) temporarily activates the fight or flight, its overall effect on the nervous system is profoundly calming as long as you give your body time to slow down and recover after.
Modern psychology also uses physical practices to activate the rest and digest response, such as somatic therapy; EFT and EMDR are types of somatic therapy. Patients recall a traumatic or stressful experience as a therapist guides them through a physical practice. The trauma begins to resolve once a patient can remember the painful experience in a relaxed nervous state system. A nonprofit called "The Veteran Stress Project" conducted a study that found 8 out of 10 veterans who completed 6 one-hour-long EFT sessions no longer tested positive for PTSD. Through somatic therapy, we can rewire our physiological triggers and train our bodies to resist falling into long, harmful periods of fight or flight.
Square Breathing/Yogic Breath/Box Breathing Instructions:
This type of breathing engages a pause after the in-breath and after the out-breath. The in-breath, out-breath, and pauses are all practiced for the same amount of time. If you have never engaged in breathwork before, start with four seconds. It will look like this:
Breathe in for the count of four.
Hold for the count of four.
Breathe out for the count of four.
Hold after the out-breath for a count of four.
5-10 minutes of this breathwork is suggested to engage the rest and digest response deeply. Even just a few rounds of square breathing can help to calm the body and center the mind. As you become more comfortable with breathwork, you can gradually increase your practice. Below you'll find two links to other breathwork videos I like.
Conclusion:
I've spent more time focusing on the benefits of calming the nervous system than practical tips because the practice can be simple. Activating your 'rest and digest' mode can be as easy as taking a walk, lying in corpse pose, getting a massage or a short breathing exercise.
My desire is that by understanding the benefits of a calm, nervous system, it will inspire you to integrate these practices into your life. With practice, you can detect the subtle shifts in your nervous system and exert significant influence over it. With time, attending to your nervous system and changing your reaction to stress will bring you a deeper mind and body comfort.
Helpful Resources:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/relaxation-techniques-breath-control-helps-quell-errant-stress-response Harvard Study on Breath Work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzCaZQqAs9I Whim Hof Breath Work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRPh_GaiL8s 4–7–8 Breath Work
Written by: Emilie Rose