Podcast Episode 2: The 7 Fs of survival response, bonk ban, and legend in my own lunchbox - Kristy Arbon's HeartWorks (2024)

FAQs

What are the 7 survival responses? ›

In this episode I explore the 7 Fs of survival response – fight, flight, freeze, faint, fawn, fix, and flop – within the context of some recent and past news items as well as my own experience. I hope you'll find this informative and maybe you'll have a laugh or two.

Besides the typical fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, there are a few more responses you may not be familiar with. Fright, flag, and faint are a few of the lesser-known trauma responses that are theorized by professionals of this field.

The 'fight or flight' response is how people sometimes refer to our body's automatic reactions to fear. There are actually 5 of these common responses, including 'freeze', 'flop' and 'friend', as well as 'fight' or 'flight'.

Water, warmth, signals, shelter and food are the commonly known top 5 priorities in a survival situation.

Stuck in a Trauma Response

Whether you spring into fight, flight, freeze, flop, or even fawn, your survival mechanism is to avoid the danger and return to a sense of control. The stress response can trigger instantaneously, but how soon your body comes back to normal varies from person to person.

Everyone responds to trauma in a different way, and different kinds of trauma can have different responses in the same people. The six main types of trauma responses are fight, flight, freeze, fawn, fine, and faint. All reactions to trauma are valid, but trauma should always be addressed in therapy.