The Benefits Of The Freeze Response

I have written fairly extensively in this blog about the five different ways you can respond to an aggressor (e.g. Wednesday 23^rd April 2014), and the difference between physiological and social responses e.g. if fighting is consciously chosen as a solution to dealing with an aggressor, it is not the same as “fight”, as an automatic, physiological response, as in the fight/flight response mechanism – deciding to run away, is different to finding yourself running away from a threat/danger. However, I’ve not written a lot about the freeze response, it’s purpose, and how to utilize it. This is the purpose of this blog article.

Fight and flight are only true adrenal responses, if you become aware of yourself already doing them, and in terms of social violence they are extremely rare. If you are confronted by a bear, and find yourself running, that is a true adrenal response. Your fear system has kicked in, and has started you moving, and it is because you are running that you start to understand the reason why. This type of response is common, when we are confronted by the threat of danger in an instance e.g. we suddenly see a bear etc. It is not that common where social violence is concerned i.e. in intra-species conflicts, where we are dealing with other human beings. If you spill a drink over somebody, and they respond aggressively, you are unlikely to suddenly find yourself running away, or for that matter attacking them. In fact, you are much more likely in that moment to freeze – to stop and do nothing. You may then decide to posture back, or act submissively etc. You may also, consciously decide to fight or run away, however this decision, should not be confused with the fight/flight response (which is physiological and automatic).

The freeze response is often painted as a bad thing by self-defense instructors (I have been guilty myself of this at times); In our urgency, to get our students to act decisively when subjecting them to stress and duress, we often inform them to do something, rather than nothing. In certain training scenarios, we may in fact be doing them a disservice, by insisting that they act immediately, rather than acknowledging the role of the freeze response, and the part it may play, in their survival. I recently did an active shooter seminar, where I started the session off with an introduction, that was interrupted by two “shooters”, coming in firing blanks (this was carefully choreographed, and done in a way that although feeling real, everybody was aware that it was in fact a drill). Everybody, to a man, froze – to put it more clearly, they either ducked and froze, or made their way to the walls, and ducked and froze. This is something that we sometimes forget about freezing; it can be preceded by action e.g. people moving from an open space, and flattening themselves against a wall, in order to make themselves less visible and less of a target – watching, I could only marvel, at the simplicity and ingenuity of the human fear system, and the way it instinctively made everyone less of a target. We tend to think of the freeze response as being like a deer caught in the headlights, however in reality, the freeze response may occur after the flight response, etc. 

In this particular moment, freezing and not acting, would have actually increased everybody’s survival chances, had this been a real-life situation. Had everyone run away from the first gunman, they would have been met by a second. Getting to a safer place, and staying still (freezing), made everybody less of a target; as movement attracts attention. In Operation Entebbe, where the IDF, rescued 102 hostages from the PFLP-EO, at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, one of the three hostages who died, was killed when he stood up and said, “The IDF are here to save us”. Unfortunately, his movement, attracted the attention of one of the rescue team, as they burst through the door, and he was shot – staying still/freezing would have been a more successful survival strategy. Freezing, has a productive purpose, and as self-defense instructors we have to acknowledge this; the danger of freezing comes when people remain in this state.

Another example, of the value of the freeze response, that came from this seminar, was that many people were unable initially to identify where the shots were coming from. Most people heard the shots, and reacted, before they recognized who the gunman was, and where he was shooting from. In enclosed spaces, gunshots echo, and depending on where you are, the echo can sound as loud as the original shot. By immediately responding/acting, you could be running away from an echo, and towards the shooter. By freezing, lowering/reducing the profile, individuals were able to take a moment to assess what was actually going on, and what they should do, how they should respond, etc. Sometimes it is worth taking a moment to assess the danger and formulate a response. There is a huge difference between blind panic and decisiveness, and as instructors we are not always the best at differentiating the two; not all action is effective action.

The freeze response, has its place and purpose; it can help keep us from becoming a target, and it can give us a moment to formulate a strategy. The danger from it comes when we don’t have a strategy, and because of this we’re unable to move forward – this is when we become like the deer caught in the headlights i.e. we’re hoping the danger avoids us, rather than the other way round. The quickest and easiest way to make sure we’re not caught in this state, is to breathe. When we freeze, we stop breathing, because our fear system wants us to become like a statue, and the movement of the lungs will prevent this. If we start to breathe (and this must be a conscious, planned thing), we will find ourselves free. This is when we can become decisive, and enact the plans, and strategies we have been taught.

All of our natural responses to danger have a purpose – if they haven’t, they’d have died away, evolved and/or transformed themselves in some way. The freeze response has its purpose(s), and we should acknowledge it, and accept and build it into the way we train our students. We should differentiate between decisiveness and actions that are borne out of panic. Our goal is survival, and we should recognize and understand how our natural responses facilitate this.