The Fight-Flight-Freeze response is the body’s automatic, built-in system designed to protect us from a perceived threat or danger. Even if the perceived threat isn't physical (e.g. we are giving an important talk in front of a crowd, our boss gives us critical feedback, our partner is angry with us), our biology is wired to react as if it were. Basically, we can react to threat in one of three ways: - Fight: If we perceive the threat as something we can overcome or defeat our body prepares to confront the threat head-on. ==Because the fight response is the only mode that allows us to address the perceived threat we almost always want to choose this response if possible.== - Flight: If we perceive the threat as something that we can't overcome our body prepares to escape as quickly as possible. Our thinking turns toward retreat and we become less effective at addressing the threat. - Freeze: By default, this reaction refers to a situation in which we’ve concluded (in a matter of seconds—if not milliseconds) that we can neither defeat the frighteningly dangerous threat confronting us nor safely bolt from it. - Ironically this self-paralyzing response can, in the moment, be just as adaptive as either valiantly fighting the threat or, more cautiously, fleeing from it - it allows us to dissociate and "numb up" when we can't control our situation. - In practice it's extremely rare that our initial judgment about a situation being freeze-worthy is accurate, so it's worth avoiding the freeze response when it isn't absolutely necessary.