The Fight/Flight/Freeze response; 3 tips on how to manage presenting in from of a group
Whenever we give a presence workshop, the participants in our training almost always dread being in front of a group, whether it’s presenting or even something as simple as having to introduce themselves in front of the group. We explain to the participants that the body always reacts to what it perceives as a threat or something that causes them stress, and the body almost never lies.
From the time when we were hunters, we have had a strong response to threats; Fight, flight or freeze. Developed by a physiologist named Walter Cannon, he described it as the acute stress response. In a moment of potential danger we usually have these three age-old responses. When someone fights this response they confront the threat aggressively. The Flight response is to try to escape from the danger, and when people freeze up, they are unable to move or act against the threat. It’s all about the perception whether we can overcome this ‘danger’ or not, which then causes us to treat the threat in those three different ways. The goal of this response is always to minimize the threat and get back to feeling calm and in control.
What happens in our brain and body?
This physiological sensation starts in the hypothalamus of our brain. It sets in motion fast changes to our nervous system that result in adrenaline released from our endocrine system, which can cause an increased heart rate, higher blood pressure, shallow breath, muscles and/or jaw tensing up etc. Besides physiological responses we also have psychological responses to stress or a threat. This can result in anxiety, anger, your mind turning blank, and often causes us to shift into survival mode. And this has been a crucial response for living beings throughout time in order to survive.
The same phenomenon happens when we have to ‘show’ ourselves by standing in front of a group. Most of us find presenting terribly uncomfortable and thus experience this as a threat. We feel vulnerable in front of a group and this can cause stress. And so this ancient response almost always kicks in.
The Fight response
The way a Fight response manifests itself in this setting is that we start to have random movements, get fidgety, don’t know what to do with our arms and hands, so we start to flay them around, start talking a mile a minute, increase our volume level, the pitch of our voice goes up, and we have trouble focusing. The thought behind all this unwanted behavior is that one thinks they can defeat the ‘danger’ by fighting.
The Flight response
The flight response shows itself in this setting by taking a step back, decreasing the volume of your voice, shrinking your body to make yourself look smaller, not connecting with your audience etc. The thought behind this is that by making yourself smaller, you’ll be less noticeable and therefore you can avoid the ‘danger.’
The Freeze response
And finally, the freeze response results in becoming completely static in your movement and posture, staring blindly forward, not being able to express what you want, speaking a very monotonous way, and tensing up your muscles etc.
The thought here is that you freeze because you feel stuck, while you want to escape the perceived ‘danger,’ you are unable to get ‘unstuck.’ You’ve basically surmised in a fraction of a second, that you are unable to defeat or escape the dangerous situation, so you freeze and become even paralyzed.
3 tips on how to manage the stress of standing in from of a group
I venture to guess some of these responses sound familiar to you in how you react to standing in front of a group. And I also assume that these are mostly unwanted responses. They feel like they happen automatically, you can’t help it, and you might not even be aware of how this manifests itself in you when you stand in front of a group.
How can you manage this response, so you can have the reaction you want? In order to manage them there are a couple of quick adjustments you can make.
1) Ground yourself.
All these responses I mentioned come from being ungrounded. The fight mode gets you taking random steps and movement, the flight mode gets you to take a step back away from the danger and the freeze mode may feel grounded, but rarely is, because in essence you’re stuck.
How to do this? Divide your weight evenly between both feet, let gravity do its work and the ground hold you, but don’t collapse your body! Imagine standing on soft wet sand on a beach. Picture your bare feet slowly sinking a bit in the sand. And if you’d lift your feet, you can clearly see the indentation your feet make in the sand. Take your time. By grounding you should start to feel calmer, your shoulders will drop, you’ll be able to think more clearly and most importantly manage the stress of being in front of a group in a much more effective way.
2) Breathe!
The first thing to go when you’re anxious or stressed is our breath. We tend to breath much more shallow and high up in your chest. The key is to continue to breathe from your diaphragm. The lower your breath, the fuller your breath, and to deal with stress, breath is your best friend.
How to do this? Ground yourself first and then imagine smelling a delicious big rose. Breathe in the scent fully. Get as much of the scent as you can. Some also call this belly breathing. When your diaphragm can move freely, the breath expands the abdomen and the chest in all directions. This should feel effortless. When you inhale, the diaphragm moves down, creating more space in the lungs, so they can fill fully. By breathing deeper and fuller you will be able to manage your anxiety much more effectively. In addition, with breathing fully from your diaphragm your voice has a much higher chance of reaching the lower register, which is very effective in calming down yourself and others. And finally by fully breathing you’ll be able to manage that anxiety much more effectively.
3) Really make contact with the people you’re standing in front of.
All three aforementioned responses also affect the way we connect with the ‘danger,’ manifested in among other aspects, our eye contact. Fight mode will have us looking at our audience in a sharp non- approachable way, Flight mode will avoid eye contact all together and Freeze mode usually manifests itself as eye contact to only a few people. The point is to really see the other people. You can get a ton of valuable information from them if you are really seeing them; are they engaged, bored, confused, motivated, inspired etc? By connecting with them you not only get valuable information, but they will also feel more connection to you and the material you’re presenting. Avoiding eye-contact tells them you don’t really stand behind what you’re saying or are not interested in reaching them.
Because the responses to a threat are so ingrained in us, it takes a ton of practice to be able to manage that age-old response. So be easy on yourself. Slowly but surely you will see positive results and will be able to manage your response to standing in front of a group, and perhaps even start to like presenting!