Fight Flight Freeze sounds like some surreal schoolyard playground game, some weird mix of Red Rover and Simon Says.

Yet is another take on the Fight Flight Response. I think viewing our response to a (potential) threat as Fight Flight Freeze Response is a more accurate and provides some insight, I believe, into what many would call the political apathy in this country.

I think everyone is aware of the notion of Fight or Flight, and that it was a emergent feature of our evolution in an effort to survive and reproduce. One of our distant ancestors crosses a path with a tiger and his or her body goes into a response that among other things increases the heart rate and prepares the muscles. He or she is ready to either fight or flee as fast as his or her feet can manage. Freezing was rarely seen as third option in this response to a survival.

Common sense would tell dictate that is probably not a smart move. As Taylor Clark explain in his book Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool: 

…this freezing response probably seems somewhat wrong headed; wouldn’t it be better to get a head start and dash away from the potential threat immediately?  Actually, no.  In the wild, many predators react to movement, and if you abruptly go rigid there’s a chance that the tiger that you just spotted won’t notice you.  Think of freezing as a state of defensive preparation.  The body gets the same jolt of adrenaline that readies it for fighting or fleeing, but the brain has calculated that at least for that moment, your best odds of survival come with no action at all.

Of course, most of us in this modern rarely have to deal with tigers on a regular basis. Our threats are of a different nature. One example that I have experienced recently experience is the infamous job interview for a position you really, really want.

The interview is going along swimmingly. You're poised, provide concise to-the-point answers, making good eye contact. The one of the interviewers asks you question that comes from out in right field, not only that, but also is, in your opinion a really stupid question and has nothing to do with the job or how one would handle the responsibilities. Obviously you can't fight the person verbally, and definitely not physically, and still keep you in the running for the job. Fleeing the interview would take you off their list of potential candidates in the blink of an eye. Yet all of the fight or flight response has taken over, which means your lower (reptilian) brain is in control, not your frontal cortex.

So you freeze. Unable to fight or flee, you sit there in an almost catatonic state. The adrenaline (or more accurately the epinephrine and norepinephrine) is flowing. There still enough of the conscious mind active to realize that sitting there and not giving a response is a incredibly bad occurrence. But your frontal lobes just aren't working that well, so you stammer out something, which you probably can't remember after the interview except for bits and pieces, like trying to remember a dream.

As someone who has, among other things, general anxiety disorder. I am more likely than the average person to perceive threats and, thus, go into this Fight Flight Freeze state. One key point to remember is that is not just a threat to one physically that can kick this response. A threat to one's identity or sense self-worth or faith or community is more likely to be encountered in our day-to-day lives. One the issues it brings up is working or just plain living in conditions that kick in the Fight Flight Freeze response on a regular basis, but neither of the three are going to help you survive. It may even cost your job or send your relationship with a wonderful person spinning down.

So what does the Fight Flight Freeze response have to do with political apathy? A lot. One watches the news or reads some news websites and all one sees is the country and the world going down to hell in a hand basket. Even if you truly understand the threat of global warming, you do nothing, in effect you freeze, because you see the reality of human societies and countries as being such that it is hopeless no matter how much you reduce your carbon footprint. And since one doesn't have a rocket ship, one surely can flee it.

In this information age, the apathy might just be a case of the Freeze response as one is flooded with war, water shortages, global warming, politicians bickering rather getting anything done, earthquakes, crime in the streets and so on. A person who is deluged with all the awful things happening or about to happen in a sense goes into a Fight or Flight Response and all its physiological manifestations. The person can't fight, or at best he or she can focus on one thing like homelessness or malaria around the globe, maybe two causes, and still meet all the demands of daily life. So the person Freezes and the physiological responses still remain. To stay in such a state is basically not healthy nor enjoyable.

So rather than experience the Freeze, the person just doesn't watch or read about the news or what is happening politically, except for checking out some looting after a peaceful protest. News becomes Tom Brady getting suspended for four games because deflate gate. Apathy, thus, can be seen as reaction to avoid the Freeze. The only way to "wake people up" and "get them involved" is, in many cases, to facilitate a sense that it actually is going to make a difference in the long run, rather a futile gesture of a world collapsing in on itself.

[photo was created by Graficny]