Mona SharmaCelebrity nutritionist and wellness advocate

Fight, Flight, Freeze | Understanding Your Nervous System Stages

15 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment, Mona Sharma explains the three-stage model of the nervous system based on polyvagal theory. She describes the first stage as the feeling of safety, characterized by rest, digestion, and a sense that life is good. The second stage is activation—fight, flight, or freeze—which people enter during big projects, stressful events, or daily work pressures; getting stuck here leads to hypervigilance. The final stage is overwhelm or shutdown, which can occur after prolonged periods in the activation state, leaving a person exhausted and disengaged. The overview highlights how recognizing and moving out of the activation stage is crucial for mental well‑being.

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So if you don't catch yourself getting stuck in that fight, flight, freeze stage, this is hypervigilance. So think about our nervous system, right? Basically has three stages. According to polyvagal theory. The first one is the feeling of safety, safety, rest, digest, life is good. And then the next one is activation. Activation is fight, flight, freeze. We shift into that when we've got big projects, when there's big events that are happening, maybe at work throughout the day, but a lot of us will get stuck there. And. And then the last one is overwhelm or shutdown, where at the end of the day, let's just say you've been living in fight or flight all day.