The flight response.

In flight mode, your body mobilizes energy to get away. Adrenaline rises, your mind races and stillness feels unbearable. The modern version of running is often overworking, filling every silence, or mentally leaving a conversation long before you physically do.

Flight can be invisible because it is often rewarded. People see your productivity; they do not see the anxiety driving it.

Flight often develops in people who learned that slowing down meant feeling something unbearable, or that staying one step ahead kept them safe. Perfectionism and workaholism are frequently flight in disguise.

None of the four stress responses is a flaw. Each one kept someone alive at some point. The goal is not to remove them, it is to stop getting stuck in them.

• Ground through your senses: five things you see, four you hear, three you can touch.
• Make your exhale longer than your inhale. Speed is the fuel of flight.
• Do one thing at a time, on purpose, for ten minutes.
• Schedule real rest and notice the discomfort that appears. That discomfort is the work.
• Walk slowly instead of quickly once a day.
• Ask yourself: "What am I trying not to feel right now?"

Fight, flight, freeze and fawn are the four survival responses most often described today. Most people use a blend, and the dominant one can change depending on the situation and the person in front of them.

Read about the others: fight response, freeze response, fawn response.