Those of us in the speaking world talk variously about stage fright, or nerves, or adrenaline, but when we’re getting technical with our peers, we’ll say the “fight or flight response” to be accurate.  And then inevitably one of us will correct that to say “the fight, flight, or freeze response” because those are indeed the three ways people respond to fear or excitement stimuli:  we get ready to fight, we get ready to flee, or we freeze.

Notice that I say “get ready to” because in reality it’s rare in the modern business world that we actually have the option to punch someone or run away.  So mostly what we do is the choose the third option – we freeze.

In fact, that’s what most animals do across the animal kingdom, including humans, most of the time.  We freeze.

Freezing has acquired a bad name because we humans like to be active, especially the Type A folks who worry about these things.  Freezing seems wimpy, or helpless, or lacking courage.  But it’s actually none of these things.  Rather, freezing is the most sophisticated response, because what you are doing when you are freezing is not standing helplessly waiting for someone else to do something.  Rather, you are considering your options.  Brain scans of freeze folks show activity in the parts of the brain that are determining what the heck might be the best thing to do next.

Now, freezing may mean that you don’t come up with that clever quip instantly.  But a few seconds later is OK too, and more than OK if it means you have thought of something brilliant to say, or something sensible to do, or some way to resolve the situation amicably.  In the modern world, all of those options are almost always preferable to punching the other human in the face.

When we freeze, in short, we are assessing the possibilities  And that’s a good thing.  There is almost always enough time for a few seconds of pondering.  Not always, but life is not a countdown clock most of the time, either.

But what about alternatives? Is there anything better in the response arsenal? And is there anything else we should be worrying about?  After all, when the mind is full of adrenaline, worry is what we do best.

I have met a few speakers who remain as cool as ice in January and never experience adrenaline at all — the sweaty palms, the rapidly beating heart, the racing thoughts, and the unmitigated wish to be sitting in a bar somewhere nursing a gin and tonic – but not very many.

The vast majority of us sweat it out with our hormonal responses going crazy and our minds working overtime. Some learn to re-define all that hyperactivity as a good thing – the heightened brain activity of the mind on fire – and some just tough it out. But very few either acknowledge or even recognize that the worst part of what happens to them can’t really be redefined or explained away as a good thing. The dark side of the adrenaline response — the fight or flee choices — is tunnel vision.

What happens when you’re under stress and your body responds with an “OK, I’m either going to punch someone or run,” is that your brain focuses on a very narrow field – just what’s in front of it and getting in the way of escape or victory.

Most speakers, if they think about it, will acknowledge that they’ve worked through something like this and seen the deleterious effects when they’ve been asked a question, say, and had a hard time answering it. And yet, a few minutes after the speech is over the answer is obvious to them. Perhaps the question came from an unexpected direction or was just a bit unfamiliar, or perhaps there was something about the questioner that threw the speaker off. Whatever the provocation, the mental flexibility of the speaker under the fight or flight styles of adrenaline is roughly nil, and so anything that looks unusual will require a lot of brain time and space to process – time and space not readily available at the moment.

The result is a blank look or a fluffed answer. Or worse – the speaker gets completely derailed and has a hard time getting back on track to finish the speech in the usual style.

So if you are freezing, that third option, you may have the mental capacity to make better choices and find a third way forward.  You’re not helpless; you are making choices, and evaluating paths forward, and that’s a good use of adrenaline.

So the next time someone says “fight, flight, or freeze,” take a deep breath, think about it for a second or three, and  champion the freeze as the smartest option available. (Klassen et al., 2024)