Have you ever wondered why some people can’t act accordingly in emergencies? And how to overcome this challenge? We often get all the safety gadgets and equipment and assume training a few handlers is just about good enough to keep danger at bay. But there have been cases where fear paralyses people and makes them completely immobile contrary to expectations of whenever an accident happens. In other extreme cases, people faint or fawn. This article is to bring your mind right back to certain intricacies you may need to be aware of and plan towards navigating to ensure all grounds are covered.
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Painting a scenario here, your room begins to fill with smoke, someone cries out for help down the hall, but your legs won’t move. You want to run, scream, grab a fire extinguisher, anything, but you are trapped, not by walls or flames, but by your own body due to fear. This terrifying stillness, called “freeze response”, is more common than you think. Frontiers in Psychology found that up to 70 percent of trauma survivors report experiencing some form of freeze or tonic immobility during a traumatic event. And while it’s often misunderstood as weakness or cowardice, the truth is far more complex and deeply human.
When faced with sudden danger, the body’s fear response system kicks in automatically. Most of us have heard or read of ‘fight or flight’, but there is a third reaction to perceived danger which we often overlook, called ‘freeze’.
This response is wired into us by evolution. In nature, freezing helped prey animals avoid detection. For humans, it’s the brain’s way of pausing everything to assess danger. The amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain, triggers a cascade of stress hormones. Sometimes, that overload floods the nervous system, leaving the body stuck in place, even when every instinct screams to act.
Frozen moments in everyday emergencies such as car crashes, robbery, and medical crises can be very dangerous. Assault victims sometimes report feeling paralysed, unable to call for help or even move. Witnesses to accidents may freeze, unsure how to intervene. It’s not a character flaw; it’s biology. “Your brain isn’t failing you,“ explains Dr Ruth Lamius, a leading trauma researcher and psychiatrist at Western University of Canada. ‘It’s trying to protect you. But in some cases, that protection becomes a barrier. In her research, Dr Lanius has shown that people don’t always respond to trauma with the classic fight-or-flight reaction. “Sometimes they freeze or completely shut down, which also needs to be treated,” she said in an interview with London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute. Her work has helped redefine how clinicians understand and support individuals who experience this kind of immobilising fear. This response is often triggered when neither fighting nor fleeing feels possible, essentially when the brain perceives total helplessness.
Another worrying reaction to be considered in HSE is flop, which is an expanded trauma response model, where everything within the human body shuts down and the individual collapses in the face of danger. In some awkward cases, a person walks right into danger instead of fleeing. Such counterintuitive responses include laughing instead of crying.
Interestingly, fear doesn’t just show up in life-or-death moments. It quietly shapes our daily behaviours too. Just in more socially acceptable ways. Psychologists refer to one of these responses as reaction formation: when we react in the exact opposite way when we experience fear, guilt or anxiety about a certain impulse. For example, someone afraid of appearing vulnerable might become overly assertive. A person scared of confrontation might laugh off serious issues. Just like freezing in an emergency, these reactions aren’t signs of weakness but defence strategies which, if left unchecked, can hold people back.
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Understanding how fear disguises itself even in everyday life can empower us to be more honest with ourselves, which helps us respond more intentionally rather than on reflex. If you’ve ever frozen in fear, shut down in crisis, or felt ashamed for not responding “the right way – you’re not alone. The body often reacts to survival, not logic, and sometimes, survival means stillness. Behind every freeze, every faint, every moment of helplessness is a person doing their best to stay alive in the only way their body knows how. This deserves compassion and attention, not criticism.
A call to action:
If you’ve never experienced any of these extreme reactions, be gentle with those who have. And if you have lived it, now you know there is no shame in how your mind protected you. There is only strength in the fact that you are still here, still learning, still growing. Being human isn’t about reacting perfectly; it’s about healing honestly.
So, if you’d like guidance, tools or training on how to respond with confidence in difficult situations, please feel free to reach out to me. I’m here to help you better understand these different reactions, identify those more susceptible to what and build a more prepared workforce. So, email oopaleye@gmail.com.
Olayinka Opaleye is a Wellbeing Specialist and Corporate Wellness Strategist. She can also be reached via Tel: 09091131150 or by clicking on www.linkedin.com/in/olayinkaopaleye.
