Fight or flight

• Fight or Flight response


  The body's response when someone is threatened, preparing for action (e.g fighting or running away)
• Hypothalamus


  • Helps coordinate the fight or flight response
• Amygdala

  • Responds to sensory input and connects it to emotions associated with the fight or flight response (e.g fear or anger)
  • Sends distress signals to the hypothalamus
• Fight or Flight response

  1. Amygdala responds to sensory input

  2. Sends distress signals to hypothalamus

  3. Hypothalamus triggers activity in sympathetic nervous system

  4. Adrenal medulla releases adrenaline and noradrenaline
• Effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline

  • Heart rate and blood pressure increase
  • Breathing rate increases
  • Pupil size increases
• Ending the stress response

  1. Parasympathetic system dampens down the stress response

  2. Slows down heartbeat

  3. Reduces blood pressure

  4. Allows digestion to begin again
• Tend and Befriend response for females
• Tend and Befriend response


  Involves protecting themselves and their young through nurturing behaviours and forming protective alliances
• Women having a different system for coping with stress may be because their response evolved in the context of being a primary caregiver of their children
• Fleeing too early might put the females offspring at risk
• The physiological responses associated with fight or flight may be adaptive for a stress response that requires energetic behavioural responses
• The stressors of modern life rarely require such levels of physical activity
• When the stress response is repeatedly activated e.g in ongoing chronic stress, cortisol may assist the body in fighting a viral infection or healing damaged tissue, however too much cortisol suppresses the immune response, shutting down the very process that fights infection
• Freeze response


  The first phase of reaction to a threat, involving the animal being hypervigilant and alert to the slightest sign of danger
• The advantages of the freeze response for humans is that it focuses attention and makes them look for new information in order to make the best response for that particular threat