The Five F's of Stress

Many people refer to the stress response as 'fight or flight', but did you know that there are more options than just these two?

Fight or flight were the two basic options required by our ancestors when faced with a hungry tiger or another immediate threat. You can’t deal with this kind of situation by rationalising, planning or making decisions, you just have to react.

The best actions are to run faster than the tiger and escape (flight), or to defend yourself and get a new tiger-skin coat (fight). However, these don’t cover every eventuality and the stress response does allow for other options. These are freeze, faint and fidget.

An extended version of this article, along with lots of other (previously unpublished) effective and practical advice is now included in this book, Anxiety to Calm: a practical guide to a laid back life, which is available in paperback and Kindle.

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Author: Debbie Waller is a professional stress management coach, specialising in working with individuals and smaller employers to minimise stress and maximise feeling in control.
Debbie is the author of Their Worlds, Your Words and has co-written the Hypnotherapy Handbook both of which are available from Amazon.
Find out more about Debbie's services on www.yorkshirestressmanagement.com  or phone 01977 678593