A short educational YouTube presentation by Dr. Dawn‑Elise Snipes describing the stress response (framed as the HPA axis) and a taxonomy of common stress reactions she calls the "Fs": fight, flee, frantic, freeze, and "forget it" (eff it). She explains how each response can appear (physical, verbal, emotional, avoidance, panic-driven change, shutdown, or exhaustion/burnout), offers reflective journaling prompts to identify personal patterns, and introduces a practical coping mnemonic "BETA testing" (Breathe; Examine situation and options; Try something; Assess effectiveness). The talk emphasizes checking facts vs. emotional reasoning and identifying controllable factors before acting.
Chapters
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this brief presentation on the form and function.
Of the six Fs of the stress response. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes.
So let's talk about the stress response first. The stress response also can be thought of as your HPA axis. When your HPA axis, when your brain perceives there's a threat, the HPA axis kicks into gear and secretes a variety.
Of excitatory hormones and neurochemicals to give you energy to help you stay safe, to help you focus, to help you basically fight or flee.
But we've recognized over the years that people respond to stress differently, and it's.
Not just fight or flee. So exactly what happens when your stress response system is kicked off? The first one we'll start with is fight. Some people, when they encounter adversity, when they encounter a threat, when they encounter stress, drop back into fight mode. And this can be verbal or physical.
And it can be aggressive or assertive. Fight does not necessarily mean punching somebody out.
It can mean deciding, you know, I don't like the way this is going. So, so I am going to fight. I am going to do what I need to do. I'm going to direct my energy to trying to change the situation. So fight does not always mean aggression.
Sometimes it does.
When people feel like they are backed into a corner, or if they feel that there is a imminent threat, they may become aggressive as a means of pushing people away, pushing people back, or trying to regain some element of power and control. Flee is the next traditional option that we talk about in terms of form and function. And that doesn't necessarily mean running away. That's what you first think about when you think fight or flee. But flea has a variety of different nuances to it. You can emotionally leave the situation. Some people just flee the situation by shutting down. They shut down their emotions. They may flee the situation by avoiding it. You know that a confrontation with somebody is sort of inevitable the next time you see them, so you may avoid them. So you're fleeing or avoiding that situation.
You can also flee by choosing to let it go. And not every threat requires a response. Some things are not worth your energy.
So sometimes you may just leave the situation, either emotionally or physically by choosing to let it go.
Now, obviously, you can physically flee as well.
You can leave, physically leave situations, avoid interacting with people, etc. The third F now, now we get into some of the more newer concepts.
In terms of Fs is frantic. And one of my viewers brought this.
Up, and I Thought it was a really good point and it was an F that I added to the stress response. And it's frantic.
Sometimes when people experience that threat, they don't necessarily perceive it as fighting and.
And you could think of frantic in some ways as fighting, but frantic has an element of anxiety to it.
People who react in a frantic way.
To fears of abandonment, to fears of losing a job or whatever the case may be, when they react frantically, they may plead with the other person, please don't do this.
They may do whatever they think is.
Going to pacify the other person or change the situation. They may try to cajole the person or manipulate them.
And sometimes when you're talking about frantic, it's not necessarily even with another person.
If you get diagnosed with a illness.
You may frantically try to deal with that.
You may all of a sudden start eating a whole bunch better but, or you know, trying, starting to exercise and changing your life, just totally upheaving everything that you normally do. And that may be a frantic response to an unpleasant situation.
The next F is freezing. Um, some people freeze kind of like.
A deer in headlights.
And this is, can kind of be.
Thought of physically as an adaptive response.
When you aren't moving, you're not as noticeable.
So in some situations people freeze, they try to blend into the background, they try to not be noticed.
Other times they may freeze because they.
Just don't know what to do. They don't know which direction to go. So that is going to be important to evaluate. How do you freeze in situations?
How do you face.
Fail to respond.
Now the last one is eff it.
Forget about it, Forget it, whatever you want to call it.
And this is different than freezing because when you get to the forget it.
Stage, you're often exhausted and you just give up. You've tried, you've tried fighting, you've tried fleeing, you've tried frantic and nothing's working. It's just like, screw it, I ain't got the energy.
And we see this a lot in.
People who experience chronic stress. They get to this place of physical, emotional, cognitive burnout and they just, they just can't. Things happen in their life and they're just so burned out from everything else. They, they look at this new stressor and they're like, you know what? I just can't. And that is an indication that your body has been exposed to a extreme stressors for a lot of time and is really struggling when, when your brain says, you know what? I just don't have any, anything left to give. And it's important to start addressing that as well. Even if you're not responding to a situation, if you don't have the energy that that's a clue that other things are going to start to go amiss pretty quickly.
Journaling Prompts what does each F look.
Like for you when you're in fight mode? What does that look like?
In what ways do you flee?
Some people again, flee physically, other people may flee emotionally. Go through each of your F's and figure out what they look like for you.
How have those behaviors been rewarded in the past?
We don't do things that haven't been rewarded most of the time. So if your go to is frantic or your go to is fighting, in what ways has that response been rewarded? Why is that your strongest response and is it the most helpful?
And finally, do different things trigger different Fs for you?
Maybe certain situations trigger a fight response and other situations trigger a flee response. And I'll give you an example.
When it comes to my kids, something.
Goes wrong, Mama Bear comes out and it's a fight response. I am going to advocate for them and make sure that they are getting their needs met or they are in a situation that's safe or whatever the case may be.
When it comes to dealing with authority figures, I've always had issues with that. So. So I tend to be more on.
The flee side and I know that's one of my responses. And whenever I have to deal with authority figures, it's important for me to use a whole bunch of those other CBT tools that we often talk about to avoid automatically fleeing, to avoid making emotion based decisions. When it comes to dealing with authority figures.
Which takes us to Many people.
Respond to their HPA axis, to that perception of a threat with emotional rather than factual reasoning.
So their HPA axis kicks off, they.
Feel anxious, they feel angry, they have that threat perception going on and instead.
Of stepping back and saying, is there really a threat right now?
They just go with the feeling, I feel anxious. Therefore there must be.
The threat response is designed to alert you that there might be a threat. It's like a fire alarm. Every time your fire alarm goes off.
Does not necessarily mean there's a fire. Sometimes it means that somebody got the shower too steamy and they open the door and it set off, set off the alarm.
It's your threat response system, like a smoke alarm, like a fire alarm.
It's designed to tell you there might.
Be a threat and you need to check it out. It's important to check it out by.
Examining the facts of the situation in this context at this time. So in this situation at this workplace with this supervisor at this time, is there a threat?
Identify the controllable factors.
What aspects of this situation can you.
Affect and what is the probability in.
This context at this time?
If you do what you're capable of.
Doing, what's within your control, what is the probability that the worst case scenario is going to play out and that there's actually a threat?
Finally, mindful awareness of your feelings and.
Beta testing may help you more effectively deal with stress and beta stands for breathe. Examine the situation and your options of those options, try something.
You can't just sit there and ponder forever. You gotta take action.
And A stands for assess effectiveness.
So breathe.
Examine the situation and options, take action and assess the effectiveness.
More in depth.
Resources can be found on allceus.com the impact of stress is at allce.com stress and stress management strategies is found at allce.com stress management.
