Tag Archives: depression

The 4 Stress Responses & Their Effect on Relationships

…And the three elements that help shift them.

Stressed women curled up stress response

The 4 Stress Responses

Understanding the 4 stress responses and their effect on relationships is crucial because when we experience stress, our bodies go into a state of alarm when we experience stress, our bodies go into a state of alarm. This is a natural response that helps us to prepare to deal with threats. Not everyone experiences stress in the same way, but everyone experiences different variations of the same general responses. It is important to know how to manage stress symptoms when it comes to our personal lives and in our relationships. There are four main stress responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

No doubt, you have heard of them, at least a little bit. However, many people are unaware when they themselves are in a stress response. What’s easier and more common is to see the stress response in someone else rather than in yourself. This happens in couples all the time. Let’s look at each of the four stress responses and how to manage them. First, from an individual perspective, and then from the perspective of a relationship.

Fight

Fight is the most common stress response and often our first go-to reaction. When we fight, our bodies release hormones that increase our heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension. This prepares us to physically confront the threat. These changes over time can lead to common physical experiences such as chest pain or tightness, sweating, and breathing changes, such as shallow breathing or rapid breathing. Internally, the primary characteristic of fight is judgment or criticism.

If you find yourself thinking that you have been wronged or that you are bad or wrong, you’re probably stuck in fight. There can be an obsession with the wrongdoing of others and feelings of injustice. Fight can also be turned inward and experienced as self-criticism and eventually depression. With a spouse or family member, you can notice other signs as well. Changes in facial expressions, such as frowning, grimacing, or clenching the jaw are common. They may become more fidgety, or avoid eye contact. You might also notice changes in their voice, such as speaking more quickly or quietly, or with a higher or lower pitch. Your partner may become suddenly withdrawn, irritable, or angry, or make more mistakes than usual.

Flight

Flight is another common stress response. When we flee, our bodies release hormones that help us to run away from the threat. This is a more adaptive response than fight when the threat is too dangerous to confront. It is a natural reaction to a perceived threat, and it involves the body preparing to run away from danger. Internally, you may notice some of the same symptoms that you would when you are in a fight response, however, the internal experience is different. Increased heart rate and blood pressure, muscle tension, and rapid breathing are just some of the physical signs. The main characteristic of flight is obsessive thinking.

Worry and obsessive thoughts are the most common feature. Thoughts tend to center around either what could go wrong in the future, planning or preparing for it, or what went wrong in the past and ruminating on it. There is an avoidance of the present moment and a quickening pace. You can notice this in others in their speech and behavior patterns. Your partner or family member’s facial expressions might look fearful or panicked. They might fidget or pace, and avoid eye contact more than usual. They might also appear grumpy or short-tempered, but the underlying emotion is fear. With the flight response, the impulse to get away or escape is real.

Couple in Flight Stress Response

Freeze

Freeze is the least common stress response in the general population and it is the most common stress response when it comes to trauma. This is especially true with medical trauma, sexual trauma, and early developmental or relational trauma. However, even without trauma, we all experience freeze at times. When you freeze, your body goes into a state of immobility. This is a survival mechanism that helps you to avoid detection by predators.

Some signs of the freeze response include shallow breathing and rigid or overly loose muscles. You may feel like you are stuck, unable to move or speak. Or you may feel like you are witnessing yourself from a distance. Some people describe feeling like they are not really there or that things are not real. Numbness, confusion, or lack of feeling can also be a sign.

Fawn

Fawn is what happens when you feel threatened by someone, but it’s not safe to fight or run. You choose to stay and try to keep the peace no matter what. This makes it one of the more complex stress responses. Instead of fighting back or freezing up, you focus on making others happy—sometimes even when it hurts you. If someone is upset, you rush to fix it. You agree with things you don’t believe. Or you may agree to do things your body doesn’t want to do. You may smile when you’re uncomfortable. On the outside, you seem easygoing, helpful, and extremely nice. Inside you might feel anxious, scared, exhausted, or even invisible.

Your body reacts too. Your heart might race, your stomach might feel tight, and your brain might get busy figuring out how to stay on everyone’s good side. This is different from a traditional Fight response, where you get angry and push back. However, it does have some similarities to fight. Instead of fighting for your life, you are fighting for the relationship at your own cost.

Like the Freeze response, there may be parts of your body or experience that shut down. However, it is not a complete freeze response in that you are still actively fighting to preserve the relationship. With Fawning, you move toward the threat instead of away from it—trying to stay safe by being likable and avoiding conflict. Over time, this can make it hard to know what you really want or how you really feel. This is because you’re so used to focusing on others. But the good news? Once you notice it, you can learn to reclaim your true feelings, set boundaries, say what you think, and take care of your needs too. The best part is you can learn to do this without self-sacrifice.

Couple Fight Stress Response

Stress is not your enemy!

As you probably know already, not all stress is bad. Each of the stress responses has its own way of protecting you from harm, in ways that are helpful and even life-saving. For example, the Fight response is necessary when you need to assert yourself. Whether that’s expressing an opinion in a meeting or telling a child to get out of a busy road. In these instances, your fight response is a friend and can be helpful in dealing with short-term threats. The problem is we can get stuck in our stress responses and overdo it. A stuck fight response can also lead to aggression, violence, or even chronic pain symptoms. Flight can be effective in dealing with long-term threats, but it can also lead to anxiety and avoidance. Freeze can be effective in dealing with overwhelming threats, but it can also lead to dissociation and detachment.

How Your Stress Response Affects Your Relationships

Our stress responses can have a significant impact on our relationships. When we are stressed, we may become more irritable, withdrawn, or aggressive. We may also have difficulty communicating effectively or problem-solving. This can lead to conflict, misunderstandings, and distance in our relationships.

It is important to be aware of how our stress responses affect our relationships both individually and as a couple. If we can learn to manage our stress healthily, we can improve our communication, reduce conflict, and strengthen our relationships. One of the best things to do if your partner is in a stress response is simply to express your concern.

To Communicate or Not When Under Stress

Someone who is in a stress response may not be ready to communicate right away. It’s important to respect and honor that. If they are open to talking, you can ask them how they are feeling and if they are aware of any of the signs of stress. If they are not aware of their stress signs, sometimes it better to leave any conversation to rest for some time until the stress is over. Some couples (or even family members) like to give each other permission ahead of time to gently point out when the other person is under stress. This can be helpful, so long as both people agree in advance. Pointing out a partner’s stress without a prior agreement will probably only increase it. You can also offer them support and encouragement either verbally or non-verbally.

But what if you, yourself are caught in a stress response? Then it’s probably best to focus on yourself before focusing on another person. Read on for how to do that for both yourself and as a couple.

child stress response

3 Approaches to Recover from Stress

There are many different approaches to healing from stress. Some common approaches include:

1. Time

Sometimes, the best way to heal from stress is to simply give yourself time. Allow yourself to take a short break from any current pressures in your life, even if it’s just for five minutes. This allows you the time you need to rest, recover, and process the stressful event. Over time, your body will naturally return to a state of balance. Parents often give kids a time-out for this reason. Adults sometimes need timeouts too. In my work with couples, I often encourage both partners to take a time-out for at least 20 minutes when emotions run high. Twenty minutes is the minimum amount of time most people need for their nervous systems to shift out of the stress mode and into something new. Though, many people need more time.

2. Space

Another helpful approach is to create space between yourself and the stressors. This could mean taking a break from work, spending time in nature, or getting away from the situation that is causing you stress. With couples, this often means physically creating separation between the two of you for a short period. Perhaps moving into different rooms if you live together or leaving the house briefly until the stress has settled a bit.

3. Perspective

Often, our stress is caused by our perception of a situation. Many people experience stress when they feel a boundary has been crossed. The tricky part is sometimes a boundary has not actually been crossed. Misunderstanding can make it seem this way. In this case, there may not be a real physical threat, but the experience can still feel threatening.

The important thing to know is that under stress your perspective will change. Your focus narrows and there may be a tendency to look for fault and to blame. This is the case even for simple misunderstandings, which are common in all relationships. Sometimes taking both time and space to calm down is enough to regain a wider perspective. Then, from a wider perspective, you can actually move beyond blame into a real conversation that might actually be helpful.

Having a wider perspective can be enough to reduce your and your partner’s stress levels. This ultimately can lead to the ability to re-frame the situation in a more positive light or accept that you cannot control everything.

If you are struggling with stress, please know that you are not alone. There are many resources available to help you. Please reach out for help if you need it.

Relationship stress is unavoidable.

Stress is a normal part of life. And it’s also a normal part of all relationships. However, when stress becomes chronic, it can have a negative impact on both your physical and mental health as well as the health of your relationship. It is important to learn how to manage stress in a healthy way. Both with yourself and with your partner. There are many different approaches to healing from stress, and the best approach for you will depend on you and your partner’s individual needs. If you are struggling with chronic stress, please reach out for help.

Stuck in a Stress Response?

A therapist can help you to understand your unique stress response, develop healthy coping mechanisms, and improve your relationships.

At Dance of Change, we use a variety of mindfulness-based stress reduction approaches including Somatic Experiencing (SE), yoga, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and many other approaches customized to your needs. Many of these can be applied to Individual, Family, and Couples Therapy.

Contact our office to get connected to an experienced Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who can help or go to our booking page to request an appointment.

We are located in St Louis, Missouri, and serve couples in both Saint Louis City and Saint Louis County. Give us a call at (314) 827-5448 or email us at admin@danceofchange.com.

When Anger Gets Stuck: One Man’s Story Of Transformation

When anger gets stuckJohn* was a likeable, and successful lawyer in his late thirties who studied photography on the side. As he sat across from me in the chair in my office he spoke quickly as though in a hurry, yet his eyes were tired, his skin thin and faded. His body appeared hunched over on itself as he propped his head up on the arm of the sofa in my office. He came to me because of an anger problem and sleep disorder that was “messing up” his life.

Though he had admittedly always tended to hold a grudge, his anger quickly got out of hand when his serious girlfriend of four years left him to be with his best friend.  That was two years ago. Though he had thought that he had gotten over it, the anger flared up once again when he found out through a mutual friend that they had become engaged. That’s when the sleep problems started.

The Vicious Cycle

No matter how much he tried to calm himself and get a good sleep, he could not. During the day he would do just fine. There was enough going on at work that he could put his mind on other things, and almost forget about it for a while. But the thoughts and rage seems to flare up again as soon as his head hit the pillow. The next day at work he was tired and irritable. Even the littlest thing would set him off. It was to the point that it was starting to affect his work performance.

John did not want to be so tired and angry all the time, but he felt powerless to do anything about. He was caught in a vicious cycle and needed out quick. Not only was he angry at others but he was angry at himself. How could he have let things get this bad?

Mind Trap

He felted betrayed by the two people in his life he thought he could trust and was plagued by violent fantasies almost daily. The fantasies frightened him and contributed to his poor sleep which set of a vicious cycle of dependence on sleep medication and alcohol in order to “calm down and get to sleep”.

He wanted out of his own mind. Or at the very least not to be plagued by violent fantasies. He wanted to know if I could offer him some techniques to manage his anger and also to get a good night sleep.

Mind Trap: The roots of anger

The Roots of Anger

Suspecting that anger had been a problem for him long before the issue with his Ex, I asked some questions about his history. I wanted to know if anger was a problem for him in other areas of his life. How had he been managing up until now? Did other family members also struggle with this issue?  He described his father as a “rageaholic” that would often be verbally abusive. This was disheartening but also not a surprise. There has been a fair amount of researching documenting the negative affects of parental verbal abuse on children’s brains. Also, a strong connection often exists between excessive anger and  depression. This is especially true for men. So much so, that some people actually don’t make a distinction between the two. The affects of both anger and depression can also have a long lasting impact on families for generations.

In his own family, john was clear he did not want to follow in his father’s path.  As a teenager, he  had watched his father, a successful business owner, lose everything to a combination of rage and alcohol. He was terrified that he too was on this same trajectory. It turns out that anger had also cost John a job and was the main reason for his self-employed now. An avid Kick boxer,  he had successfully channel this anger into his sport  for a period of time. But now he wondered if it was actually making things worse. Also, as he got busier attending kickboxing classes was less of an option.

Taking The Edge Off

I also evaluated his strengths: He had a good relationship with his mother and felt that this was a relationship he could trust. He also had begun to practice a mindfulness based mediation practice that had helped him “take the edge off” from work stresses. We evaluated his sleep medication use together and determined that it was actually a helpful support right now in order to get the sleep that he needed to be less reactive and this was being monitored by his doctor. We both agreed that getting good sleep was an essential part of anger management. And once the pattern had shifted for him, tapering off the sleep medication would be a secondary goal.

What is healthy aggression?

My initial goal with his was to help him understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy aggression. I made it clear: our goal was not to get rid of anger: that would be impossible. Anger is one of the five basic emotions wired into us. We can’t help but get angry from time to time. What he needed was not to “manage” his anger to try to control or stop it, but rather to transform it. Before he can transform anger he first recognize the difference between anger that’s unhealthy and the healthy kind. A lot of people get confused about anger. They thing all anger is the same. And it’s all bad. But it’s not.

Heathy vs Unhealthy Anger

Anger gets such a bad rap, most people can’t tell the difference between the healthy and unhealthy kind.

From Thought to Action: A Bottoms up Approach

Traditional approaches of working with anger often involve cognitive interventions. This can be helpful. However, for many people, cognitive interventions along are not enough. That’s because when we are truly angry, our cognitive abilities actually go offline. It’s seems our brain is wired to have a physical response immediately, before the slower moving rational part of our brain even has a chance to kick-in. This is why a body-based (often called “Bottoms Up“) approach is often helpful when it it comes to dealing with states of stress. Including traumatic stress states such as anger and rage.

Letting the Body Be the Guide

Once john understood the difference between healthy vs unhealthy anger, at least intellectually it was time to learn how to access the healthy kind. He had to learn how to embody it. Many approaches focus on going for the jugular. The idea is to leap right into the fire pit of anger and expose your self to it, but use mental tools try to think or see it differently. In my experience, while these kind of experiences can be catharsis, they are often short lived. For this reason, I held off on doing any kind of trauma work initially. Instead, we let his body be the guide.

I knew that John was trapped in a paradigm of unhealthy aggression that touched everything. It seeped into his view of himself and the world, and also how he experienced these relationships. As he walked around my office I noticed how this paradigm played out in his physiology. He had a stiffness and rigidity in some parts of his body, yet other parts were collapsed and disconnected from the whole. I knew that if we started to connect these parts one by one, he would start to experience himself differently. He would began to not only feel different, he would actually be different. He would embody, perhaps for the first time, a healthy side of himself that he did not know existed.

A Better Foundation

I have many toys and tools in my office. One of them is called the Smovey Ring. A ring shaped tool filled with ball bearing. I worked with John’s posture initially to help him establish a sense of support that was neither rigid nor collapsed. Then guided him to move the rings in a way that established a rhythmical pattern. John laughed initially at the ridiculousness of it. He was expected to do “serious work” and to “confront his demons”, but this felt more like play.

I assured him that we would be addressing his demons, but in order to do that he needed a better foundation. Without that foundation, I predicted, he would end up in the same place, once stress got high enough. He agreed and was game. When he got good at this we added some sounds. Initially a low open sound that he held out for a length of time and then we added some other sounds to stimulate different parts of his nervous system.A New Dance-Dance of Change

A New Dance

It took several months of both play and hard work but eventually I noticed John start to hold himself differently. His movements were more integrated and smooth and his professional relationships were starting to change for the better. One day john shared with me that had successfully handled a conflict with a colleague. What normally would have “sent me over the edge” and resulted in more resentment, broken trust and an even larger problem, now was something all entirely different.

John had stood his ground and had successfully addressed his concerns, yet he had been able to do so with a flexible, open posture that invited more of a back and forth conversation. Unlike  the past, when john might have lashed out, or quickly shut down, he was  doing a different dance. He had learned the dance of healthy aggression. This changed everything for John. Both his relationships with himself and others felt different. They were sources of connection and possibility rather than loss, betrayal and disconnection.

Building Trust Over Time.

Of course there were times when the betrayal and old wounds still got triggered. John still had occasional nights of bad sleep, but he was less worried about them. He knew he could recover and find his balance again. He had earned a sense of basic trust with himself.  It was a trust that he could depend on more and more. This is what some people in the field of psychology call “healthy dependency”.

Once this healthy dependency grew, he realized he was ready to let go of the unhealthy kind of dependency. It was time to let go of his use of sleep medication and alcohol to sooth his nerves. After consulting with is doctor, he began to taper off both.  A new chapter of his life was beginning to unfolded so were new possibilities. He started dating again and eventually became serious with a woman with whom he felt a strong connection. Friendship with other people that he had abandoned in his “angry withdrawn phase” needed to be repaired. And thankfully now he had the energy to do it. Not everyone was receptive, but many were. Finally, the support they he most needed and wanted in life, was there. He was learning to trust others again, but more importantly he was learning to trust himself.

*The names and characteristics of the people in this story have been changed and some details have been altered to protect privacy and confidentiality. This story has been written with full permission and consent. Any characteristics or identifying information that appear to resemblance real people either in or outside of the therapy office of Danielle Kiesler, LMFT is strictly coincidental.

Do you have Anger or Depression?

Are you ready to get control of your anger?

Contact our office to make an appointment:

Give us a call at: (314) 827-5448 or email us at danielle@danceofchange.com

We offer in person sessions in our office in Saint Louis, MO in Webster Groves as well as video (Telehealth) session for anyone located in the state of Missouri