Cannon was the person to create the expression fight or flight and assign a meaning to it. The fight/flight response is the in-built response that every person is born with to avoid threat to life. It allows us to react one of two ways: 1) to run away from the situation, or 2) preparing our muscles to fight. It is a physiological reaction that involves increased adrenaline production, increased heart rate as your body pumps more oxygen to the muscles in the body. It also has other symptoms including sweating, colon evacuation, and feeling sick. We still have this response in modern society to help us interpret situations. Modern day life is full of new situations, new events and pressures, and we still need to be able to react correctly to them. When we experience a situation that is stressful, this triggers the fight/flight response.
Occasionally, we get it wrong and feel threatened by situations that will not cause us harm. Anxiety is a reaction to a fear and is related to the fight or flight physiological response system designed to protect us from danger. Anxiety can manifest in physical and psychological or emotional reactions, for example, feeling nervous when doing public speaking, to the more dramatic and damaging effects of eating disorders. Anxiety is caused by the conflict of interest between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. However, the subconscious mind is more powerful and will find novel ways to get what it wants.
Anything that the subconscious accepts as bad, will then be avoided, even when w have no access consciously to the memory that caused the irrational fear in the first instance. Many people will find this happening to them at work. For example, a large customer presentation that elicits the fear of failure or letting the team down may cause the individual to lose their voice or become sick. Thus providing the individual with a legitimate way to avoid the situation. Other physiological symptoms that many people experience include a dry mouth or nausea. These responses are caused by the autonomic nervous system reacting to the fear and preparing the body for fight or flight by ensuring that the maximum amount of energy is provided to the motor system as possible.
The problem with the fight/flight response in the modern day environment, is the ability for us to misinterpret the danger, and become stressed by or even fearful of perfectly harmless situations. This has negative psychological problems such as social phobias, anxiety disorders, PTSD etc.
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