freeze response
Threat-induced immobility
The freeze response is an involuntary reaction to perceived threat where the body becomes temporarily immobile.
Along with fight and flight, it's one of the automatic survival responses to danger—the deer in headlights, the person who goes rigid during a robbery.
The response can be protective, making prey less visible to predators, or it may reflect overwhelming fear: She wanted to scream but the freeze response took over.
- immobilityLack of motion
- paralysisLoss of muscle function
- deer in headlightsParalyzed by sudden shock
- rooted to the spotImmobilized by shock
- shutdownCessation of operations
can't move · dissociation · numbness · terror · helplessness · trauma · survival · stillness · playing possum · fawn · flight · fight · danger signal · amygdala · panic · overwhelm · stuck · tonic
- animal behaviorsswimming, running, walking, jumping, flying
- body responsesfight, flight, shivering, goosebumps, fawn
- instinctsinstinct, survival instinct, survival instincts, maternal instinct, gut instinct
- panicpanic attack, alarm, terror, fright, hysteria
- reflexesreflex, reflexes, reflex action, quick reflexes, startle reflex
- stress reactionspanic, fear, fright, terror, horror
freeze responsefight response
Instinct to confront danger
flight response · fight-or-flight · fight-or-flight response · flee · confrontation
freeze, response, freezes, froze, frozen, freezing, freezer, responses, respond