What is the Fight/Flight Mechanism?
This is a primitive trigger mechanism of the mind that alerts the body to an involuntary response. Whenever danger or threat of danger (anxiety) is present, the heart begins to beat more rapidly, the breathing begins to change, the adrenalin pumps, and the human reaction is to move into a protective mode of fending off the threat or escaping it. When we slam the breaks on in our car because the car in front of us has stopped suddenly, our level of anxiety is determined by how close the call is that we experienced. An episode like that, once over and all is safe, may create a need to pull off the side of the road and take a break. This flooding of information to the mind, creating an anxiety state, may send a person into a trance, so that the anxiety will not be experienced. If the car hit the car in front of it, a kind of suspended animation could occur for that person experiencing the accident. It might feel as though time stopped or everything was happening in slow motion. The escape
