Signs you may be in fight, flight, freeze or flop and what you can do to regulate your nervous system
The 5F’s - fight, flight, freeze, flop and friend are survival responses that our body develops as a response to experiencing trauma.
These responses can stick around even when we are safe, our body continues to react as if we are in an emergency situation.
We can unlearn these processes by intentionally trying to regulate our nervous system.
Over time, we can learn strategies to respond to situations rather than react.
What you can do to regulate your nervous system
Endeavor to keep cortex functioning
Encourage deep out breaths
Model slow, calm speech and breathing
Bilateral simulation (e.g. rub hands together, take a walk)
Focus on current, non-threatening, reality (e.g. “right here, right now, nothing bad is happening”)
Tense muscles (to “soak up” chemicals)
Ask simple question focused on “here and now” observable reality (e.g “what colour are the walls”)
Narrow focus (of thoughts and speech)
Signs you may be in fight or flight
Faster, shallow breathing- emphasis on inhale
Staring or scanning eyes
Dilated pupils
Pale, cold, often clammy skin (blood moving from the skin to muscles)
Increased muscle tension
Sweaty palms
Increased heart rate
Increased
blood
pressure
Trembling
Mobility
Rapid speech
Racing thoughts
What you can do to regulate your nervous system
Encourage deep in breaths
Endeavor to keep cortex functioning
Overall aim is to introduce movement
Ask simple questions focused on “here and now” observable reality (e.g. “how many panes are there in the window”
Widen Focus (of thoughts and speech)
Model more energy, lack of stuckness,.
Bi-lateral stimulation (e.g. rub hands together, take a walk…)
Focus on current, non-threatening, reality (e.g. “right here, right now, nothing bad is happening”).
Grounding
Signs you may be in freeze or flop
Slower deeper breathing-emphasis on exhale
Vacant, often confused eyes
Constricted pupils
Flushed, warm, usually dry skin
Decreased muscle tension (collapse through the spine)
Compliance/submission/passive
Paralysis
Slower heart rate
Decreased blood pressure
Feeling “numb”, “dead” or “empty”
Stillness
Slow, often apparently vacant speech or no speech at all
Disconnection
