Preview

The Fight-Or Flight Response: Helpful Or Harmful?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
428 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Fight-Or Flight Response: Helpful Or Harmful?
People experience stress in their everyday lives, due to things like an overbearing workload, obstacles that are hard to overcome, difficult situations, and many more. The stress puts a person under immense pressure, and sometimes they underperform due to their nervousness. In other situations, however, the stress can be good for a person. The fight-or-flight response is a type of stress that can be either beneficial or harmful depending on the situation. The fight-or-flight response is important due to how it can benefit a person and how understanding it helps one negate its harmful effects. Fight-or-flight responses happen automatically in face of threats. True to its name, it helps prepare the body to either fight or flee the threat. As …show more content…
His body might go on high alert as his heart beat and respiration rate increase. When this response becomes severe, it may even lead to a panic attack. Understanding the body's natural fight-or-flight response is one way to help cope with such situations. When you notice that you are becoming tense, you can start looking for ways to calm down and relax your body. (Cherry 2)
This quote supports that understanding the fight-or-flight response will help a person calm themselves in situations where the response is activated inaccurately, such as when encountering something the person fears. Even though stress is viewed in a negative light, and certainly in many situations it does negatively affect a person, it can benefit a person as well. The flight-or-fight response is an example of a type of stress that can be positive, and it is important in helping someone perform well or survive a threatening situations. This response greatly affects a person’s behavior, therefore it can be harmful when the response is triggered by something imaginary. The flight-or-fight response is beneficial as an automatic response to danger, however, it should be understood for one to remain calm when the response

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    ‘Fight or Flight’ mode, the need to respond to sudden dangers that became a threat to…

    • 2096 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    During strenuous times, our body undergoes many physiological changes in order to aid our survival, and this is an inherited function (Canon’s ‘fight or flight’ theory). Stress in small doses, in fact is needed and useful to humans, however long term stress can take its toll on the body. The General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) model was developed by Selye to explain the effects of exposure to stressor. The GAS model consists of these 3 stages; Alarm – when our HPAC and SAM pathways are activated, causing stress related hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to be releases into blood, which in turn, converts to glucose, giving the body a sudden surge of energy, allowing ‘fight or flight’ like behaviours, until the stressor is gone and the parasympathetic nervous pathway activates, allowing us to calm down. Resistance – When the stressor remains however the person appears unaffected on the outside, but internally the stress related effects are occurring, e.g. stress hormones still being released and a continued elevation in heart rate. The resistance stage can harm health, as the immune system is not as effective. However the body attempts to resist disease. Further stressors make this much harder. Exhaustion – stressor still persists (and would now be referred to as Chronic stress) and Selye claimed that the body’s defences can no longer cope with the demands that are made, resources are drained, causing a drastic fall in blood sugar levels, and our adrenal glands no longer function properly. However this is inaccurate, which is a criticism of the GAS model, as while the body is ‘exhausted’ in terms of full ability, it could still perform if immediate action and release of energy was needed. It is also believed that many of the long lasting effects of raised stress hormones is what causes stress related illnesses, rather than the body’s sources being depleted. The study lacks ecological…

    • 968 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Being put in a stressful situation can affect anyone even the strongest of people. In many stories and the real world people can be faced with this problem. In the Most Dangerous Game the protagonist is faced with this when he is being hunted by Zaroff the general. When Zaroff finds out that he is who he is he wants to hunt him to give him a challenge. When Rainsford learns what his plans are and realizes that he is going to hunt him he gets serious. Then once his adrenaline is flowing he had to fight for his life and not let Zaroff kill him. So in stories and life people must go through stressful situations and have to fight through it no matter what it is.…

    • 333 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    - The human response to stressful events that shows anger, rage, fear, and happiness (p. 80).…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    psy101

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Stress: psychological and physical response to a stimulus that alters the body’s state of equilibrium…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Wikipedia (2013), “stress is an organism 's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition or a stimulus. Stress is a body 's way to react to a challenge. The body 's way to respond to stress is by the sympathetic nervous system which results in the Fight-or-Flight response. Stress typically describes a negative condition or a positive condition that can have an impact on an organism 's mental and physical well-being”. Research has shown that being too tense and/or living with too much stress has a significant negative impact on our lives.…

    • 4848 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chapter 10

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages

    How does the fight or flight reaction (in today's terms) differ from how our bodies were designed to handle stress?…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When a threat or stressor is identified or realised, the body's stress response is a state of alarm. During this stage adrenaline will be produced in order to bring about the fight-or-flight response.…

    • 2340 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Psychology notes (brain)

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Hypothalamus: The hypothalamus is associated with the "fight or flight" response. How you will react to a dangerous or stressful situation. How the underclassmen students will react to studying for several regents and how they will work under pressure.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    regulatory behavior

    • 1080 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The human body is regulated by the nervous system and its functions. Under normal circumstances everything runs smoothly with no issues; however, fear can have an impact on how the nervous system works. One aspect that can be examined in relation to the nervous system and the ways that fear affects it is through body temperature regulation. When fear is present it bring on the production of specific hormones that cause certain responses within the body leading to the flight or fight situation. As with any function of the body there are impairment that are always possible as well. Knowing in advance what types of things can impair one 's thermoregulation process gives people a step up against having issues later in life.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear Vs Phobias Essay

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Fear is a natural response that humans, and in fact most animals, have. Its purpose is to activate our ‘fight or flight’ response system in case of danger.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Our primal instinct provides us with a ‘fight or flight’ reaction, the outcome being dependent on the actual situation but nonetheless critical to our survival. Some situations we accept as being only superficially harmful to our well-being, especially when we have experienced a similar scenario before, our memories (and therefore our unconscious mind) permitting us to take on board mildly threatening predicaments. However, when we are in a new environment and facing an ‘unknown’ we have to react as only we know how – usually with very little time for consideration of the way we go about this or not knowing what the outcome will be.…

    • 2174 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    or experiences danger, the body has a natural reaction for this where extra adrenaline is released…

    • 2893 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Situations deemed to be a stressful and continuing threat to provoke flight or fight reactions to impose chronic stress upon the body if a person does not get sufficient opportunities for recovery in a non-stressful environment. The research evidence shows that contributed stress weakens the resistance to disease and further disrupts the functioning of metabolic and hormonal systems (Braveman & Gottlieb, 2014). Physiological tensions derived from stress make people susceptible to diseases such as immune system and cardiovascular and adult onset…

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chronic Stress In America

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Stress can affect us physically in many ways. When a person is stressed, their body produces more of the so-called “fight or flight” chemicals to get your body ready for an emergency. (5)Your brain tells your adrenal glands to release adrenaline and cortisol. (2)Adrenaline and noradrenaline can raise your blood pressure, increase your heart rate, and also increase the rate at which you do things. (5)Adrenaline and noradrenaline also reduce your blood flow to your skin and reduce your stomach activity. All of these changes help make it easier for your body to fight or run…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays