Fight or flight

Hi all,

Are there any techniques to use to limit the effect of (or avoid) 'fight or flight' reactions if they are inappropriate?

To put the question into context there are times in meetings, presentations, social occasions etc that when non physical pressure (or percieved pressure) comes the body still kicks into full on 'I am ready to go' mode and that manifests itself physically. The blood starts pumping, the hands get clammy, the pale blue shirt you put on that morning all of a sudden becomes a poor choice and you really want to kill the Lynx advertising guys for getting it so wrong.

Fight or flight may be great when you are standing in front of somebody that is looking to do harm but is not great in a room full of suits where avoidance and / or concentrating on something else is not an option. (Trying to imagine everybody naked would also be a no no).

This is not strictly a self defence question I know but clearly you guys know your stuff when it comes to the body's natural reactions to adverse situations from a physical confrontation point of view but I would be interested on your views and if you know of any techniques to apply elsewhere?

G'day Matt,

As far as controlling the actual Fight or Flight (FoF) (Aka Acute Stress response), there's not much you really can do. it is an automatic response and is controlled by the Sympathetic side of the Automatic Nervous System (ANS). Once it is triggered it is triggered it's kind of like trying to control a bullet that has been already been fired.

But there are things you can do that can influence the intensity and nature of the response as well as returning your system to a natural state quicker.

The first thing is to recognise that FoF is an Emotional response that is elicited most often by "E" situations for e.g. Emergency, Embarrassment, Exercise and Excitement. it is most often the emotional response to the emotion of fear. Emergency and Embarrassment produce fear, fear of dying, getting injured, pain, fear of humiliation, failure, loss of status, loss of identity and so on. With regard to exercise and excitement it is not so much fear the elicits the response ( and the response although physiologically similar or identical is psychologically different ) it has been suggested that exercise, for e.g., produces a FoF response because the exercise itself produces physiological (bodily) stress that is similar to that and associated with the actions of fight and flight, which is what FoF prepares the body to do. so just like smiling can produce a happy emotion, so can exercise. basically the body goes shit I must have missed something I better give this fellow a hand, enter FoF. this theory is supported by the notion of the "second wind" or "hitting ( and getting over) the wall" in running etc.

Also humans tend to turn to emotional motivation to continue performance, to push them selves that little further this could also explain the triggering of FoF for exercise and excitement.

....... wait a sec I'm going of track here lets get back to your question

Public speaking, presentations, sales pitching, and all of these things elicit the emotion of fear. You've probably heard that most people rate public speaking as more fearful the facing death (mind you I believe this is because most can't actualize facing death whilst speaking in front of a group is easily actualized. level of fear depends on the perceived degree of expectation and reality of the feared outcome, our own defence mechanisms often prevent us from acknowledging our own mortality ....... anyway back to topic)

We can do very little to control the FoF response once it is triggered, however we can reduce the intensity of the response by adjusting our perceived threat of the stimulus. this is what triggers the response, our perceived level of threat of the inducing stimulus. If we perceive a stimulus as a great threat then we experience a higher intensity FoF compared to a stimulus that is perceived as being only mildly threatening.

To reduce the intensity of FoF, what we need to do to is to regulate our emotion (fear) so that the threat is seen as less. Actually it is more accurate to say we need to regulate the induction of the emotion by the stimulus. ie to control the intensity and duration of FoF we need to change the emotion (or reduce it), to do that we need to change the perception of the stimulus.

there are a couple of ways to do this, and they apply to the regulation of most emotions especially those considered to be negative (fear, anger, sadness, guilt etc). there are 5 basic ways of doing this

-Situation selection
Here you basically avoid the fear (and thus response) inducing stimulus. not real helpful in the world of business through. you choose stimulus or situations that don't elicit the response, you may attend meetings but not voice an opinion, or you may find excuses to not attend or so on. As you can see this doesn't really do much for you if you have to attend and present at these meetings. personally this is a bit of a cop out method, It might be OK for those with intense phobias where the induced fear results in extreme/harmful stress, but then again those individuals wouldn't be in a position to have to attend these meetings anyway, they would have already used situation selection to find employment that does not require exposure to the stimulus..

-Situation modification
This is where you actively try to modify the situation/stimulus or alter it's emotional impact. Adrenal stress training in RBSD is one example of this, so is the treatment of phobias. Familiarization can lead to a reduced emotional response, the phrase "practice makes perfect" can be restated to "practice makes it easier." Familiarisation essentially provides reinforcement that the feared outcome is unlikely to occur. you could attend Toastmasters or some other public speaking group to help change the emotional impact of public speaking.

alternative you can change the stimulus itself, maybe you could run it in a more familiar location, in your domain so to speak. you can introduce other strategies such as providing a morning tea during the meeting, this will provide a more social atmosphere, thus changing the stimulus. You can change the format , location, time, atmosphere, the presentation type, rearrange the meeting room to make it less hierarchal, more open and so on. The idea is to not avoid the situation but change it in a way that allows a less powerful emotional impact.

-Attentional deployment
Here you distract your perception so that it does not produce an emotional response. concentrate on the job at hand rather then the possible thoughts of others. Thought stopping is an active stopping of the thoughts of that elicit fear, you simply stop thinking about the things that elicit the emotion. distract yourself with the info your providing. we can't think of two things at once so plan it so that you do not think of the emotion eliciting thoughts at all. this isn't the same as thinking about them naked (though if it works) it's more about guiding your attention towards the relevant thoughts instead of allowing them to drift. You deflect your attention away from potentially threatening stimuli.

-Cognitive change
This involves re-evaluating the situation/stimulus and thus changing the emotional response. Does it REALLY matter? is it really that scary? do they really care if I stuff up, or forget what I'm saying? are they really going to judge me or is it the idea they are judging, do you really care what they think?

One way to reduce the emotional impact is to use downward social comparison, instead of upward comparisons. in these meetings you are probably presenting your ideas to people who are above you in status or rank with in the organisation. these people may out rank you in the office but what about other aspects of life, do they out rank you in Martial Arts, are they better then you or just more experienced. remember that there are people lower then you are on the corporate ladder, the reason you are in front of the big wigs is because you are further up the ladder, and because you have something to offer. they may be higher rank but you are the leader of the meeting, in there they are lower ranked then you.

Reframe the situation, it is not a career ending meeting but an opportunity to show others what you have. Each meeting is but one of many that you will give. if you stuff up what is the worst that can happen, and how bad of a stuff up would it really have to be to make that come true.

Reduce the Importance of the meeting, it is not the last thing you will do on earth, remember they have asked you for the presentation because they think you can provide them with solutions ideas etc, not because they think you're going to fail.

-Response modulation
This is an after attempt to regulate the emotional impact, where you directly try to control or influence the emotional response. you can't stop a fight or flight and you can't change the intensity of it after it kicks off. but what you can to is attempt to influence the Para-sympathetic nervous system (the system that returns you to a normal state, among other roles).

Deep breathing, relaxation, wiggling the toes pacing etc anything that helps relive the sensation of the FoF response (the first two I mention are biggies). You can even turn to cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs but this would be considered a negative thing. What you want to do is convince your body that the threat is over, by consciously relaxing and attempting to restore your natural state. you do the things opposite to what happens in FoF i.e. instead of short shallow breaths you take long deep ones, use up the energy in your legs in a relaxed controlled manner, stretch to loosen the muscles and promote and re-establish full body blood circulation.

Obviously you can combine the above in any way. I've been specific to office meetings but you should be able to see how to transfer this to other emotional response eliciting stimuli.

Hope that helps.




noe tell the truth did you actually read it all.

I do lots of presentations to large groups of people and when I started doing this I found it quite daunting as my previous presenting experience was very daunting and very much under criticism.

I find that you do want to just make your excuse and run like hell, but, I go in, take a deep breath and talk slowly. If I talk quickly it makes me more nervous and then the "errs" come into play giving away that I am nervous.

If I stay calm and don't use notes then I am fine.
It doesn't get any better. Each time I do it I get nervous.

I am better in a confrontational situation to be honest.

My normal reaction is to fight as opposed to flight in this case. Wierd how the two can differ so much.

G'day miller your tactics are spot on. Deep controlled breathing and Relaxation are basically counters to the effects of FoF. That is the physiological actions are opposite to that of FoF. if done prior to introducing the stimulus (in this case public speaking), it acts as a reducer to the intensity of the Stress Response, if during after it acts as a catalyst to homeostasis (returning to normal).

This is used in one method of Phobia treatment. eg fear of spiders (Arachnophobia)

The person is encouraged to consciously relax when presented with the stimulus. Often the presenting of the stimulus will be done gradually, (first a picture of a spider then a dead spider in a container then out of the container then a live one in the container etc), eventually the relaxation becomes condition to the stimulus (this is classical conditioning e.g. Pavlov's dog), when presented with the stimulus the participant automatically relaxes, (as relaxation is now a conditioned response to the stimulus), relaxation being the physiologically opposite to FoF, results in a lower intensity response.

you can probably tell I love this stuff

Thanks for such a considered response,

I have read it all the way through (in 2-3 sittings admittedly) and it will really help when speaking to some of our guys when they need to present and / or hold a meeting where they may come under some pressure.

I worked with a colleague recently whose presentations really improved just because he started a new routine prior to presentations / big meeting days. We chatted about some of his concerns and in the end we made a few adjustments:

a) he practiced the presentation
b) he got up earlier earlier in the morning of the presentation to give himself time to shower earlier and relax
c) he had breakfast
d) he read a book on something completely different to his chosen topic
e) he wore a white shirt with slightly oversized collar (or no tie)
f) he had a glass of water on the podium (not great if it spilled) but sipping water gave him an excuse to take time out, regulate his breathing, consider his answer and respond.

The effect was pretty much instantanious. The issues may still be there in the background but more controlled.

Are there any questions that you would advise to ask to get to the route of any underlying issues?

Hey Matt,

You basically need to get to the route of the fear, obviously a trained Psychologist would be the optimum way to do this, and many professions seek psychologist to assist in this sort of thing, along with a plethora of other issues that may be a barrier to success.

Mind you most don't.

One technique you can use is the onion approach. basically fear often presents in layers much like an onion. you start by establishing the outer layer. this would be their answer to the question:

"what is it you fear about/feel uncomfortable with presenting meetings?"

This is only the surface presentation of the fear, you then need to peel that layer back, to discover the underlying fear.

For example the surface fear may be that "I'll make a mistake and look foolish"

Peel back that layer and find out what it is about looking foolish that the person fears, it could be loss of status or identity, or even the sense of failure.

Peel that layer back and find what is the underlying fear, simply ask what is it about loss of status that scares you.

A trained professional will be able to peel it back to the core of the problem, this can range from abandonment issues, over bearing and high expectations from parents, failure as a youngster, and so on. You may not be able to draw out the core, but you should be able to reveal some of the deeper underlying issues.

But this only reveals the underlying fears it doesn't treat it, sometimes just being aware of them allows the outer layers to take less hold of the individual, revealing the lower levels allows the individual to deal with those fears, or with the stimulus that produced the core fear. obviously trained psychologists can do this best, but humans do have the ability to work things out themselves, particularly if they cause is relatively sedate. if the core is major such as child abuse etc then encourage professional help, it will improve many aspects of the persons life.

in general the deeper you go the more serious the fear, and it will more then often be responsible for many behaviours not just the public speaking.

some of most common fears related to public speaking include, fear of loss (of job, status, identity, face), fear of failure or under-performance, embarrassment (which is a broad fear), and so on. these are often outer layer manifestations of the core fear.

The reason that the FoF response is so strong for public speaking is that there is a perceived risk of death, not physical death, but a death of some aspect of the self (eg The persons status, ego, title, respect, group membership and so on) it is a threat to the persons way of life if you like.

I don't know if that helps at all, but the least you can do is help the person to discover some of the underlying fears and then work at overcoming them, leave the deep seeded fears (which he/she will unlikely divulge anyway, this is were the Psychologist is preferred) to the professionals to treat. but we can rationalize the surface fears.

Cheers Drew,

I will not delve into the centre of that onion but trying to understand how to help with the outer stuff will be great.

Thanks for the considered replies, they are much appreciated and I'll bookmark this page to read up prior to speaking to our would be presenters / meeting chairmen

Hi Matt,

Wouldn't possibly try to add to the stuff that Drew has already posted. Once of the most informative posts on FoF I've read in a long time.

But, as part of my job, and most of my previous jobs over the years, I have to do alot of presenting, sometimes to high level CEO's of companies like Boeing, Red Bull, Airbus, Rolls Royce, etc.
Sometimes to just large numbers of people.

Some presentation do's and don't that have helped me:-

Know the material inside out, the more you know your subject the more the presentation is like telling a story to your mates in the pub

Try not to use a script (reading from a script is awful to the viewer), instead use keywords on small notes, or better still, nothing at all. This is good if you are using slides, they should be sufficient to jog your memory

Rehearse and rehearse again - talking out loud so that you get a good pace, not too fast or too slow - you can get a good idea of your presentation timing as well as working out what you are going to say

Keep any slides simple - I was told that doing everything in 3's is a good way to keep the interest of the viewer - so 3 key headings, 3 bullet point beneath, etc
(However, I've been to some presentations where the presenter has obviously followed this rule to the n'th degree and didn't work very well)

Don't use a laser pointer if you can help it. They are the worst things in the world for showing just how nervous you are as the little red dot dances all over and around the actual thing you wanted to point to.
An alternative is one of those extendable pointers, if you're nervous you can simply press is harder onto the wall and stop the shaking.
I do use pointers now - but only when I am feeling relaxed. I would rather use the mouse on the screen of my laptop to highlight stuff.

Don't have anything in your pockets, especially keys or chains. If you're nervous it's very easy to put a hand in your pocket and start jangling your keys. Best to leave your hands out of your pockets to prevent you jangling anything else too

If you must, perhaps hold a pen, but be very careful not to play around with it too much, can be off-putting for the audience and nothing worse than dropping it on the floor mid sentence

For slides, don't put everything on them - keep them simple. It's easier to keep the audience's attention if you only have key points and then you give them the extra info, rather than letting them read it off the slides - particularly if you are reading it off the slide to them.
If you have alot to tell them this is more important because if you have a really busy slide, they will be able to figure out how long it's going to take you to get to the end of the page and that can switch them off

There's lots of places on the web to find other presentation tips - these are not the only ones by any means, just the ones that have popped into my head.

The main thing, as with everything, is to know your subject and rehearse well.
Then do as many presentations as you can.
You may never get rid of the nerves or the fear but you will get more used to it and will be able to better control the feelings and work whilst they are present.

That's all the Animal Days, the doorwork, the presentations did for me. I just did lots of it. I still get incredibly nervous, about pretty much everything. I'm a natural worrier. But I understand those feelings, they are very familiar to me and so I know how to work whilst they are present.

So perhaps that is an alternative appraoch. Instead of trying to understand where they are coming from in order to prevent them. Just accept them and get used to and comfortable with them....

Good luck, and anything else I/we can help with, feel free to ask mate

Take care

AL

Cheers for the note Al,

Really appreciate the response.

Matt