My last self-defence post looked at going physical; however, before going physical, there is something that will greatly reduce some of your abilities. This is the effect of the adrenal dump, known as the adrenaline stress response (ASR).

When not recognised or understood, ASR effects can affect our perception of the threat and cause us to react to it in a negative/inappropriate way.

Some of these effects, according to current research, are the following:

Increased Heart Rate

ASR is directly related to an increased heart rate. At 115 beats per minute (bpm), most people will start to lose fine motor skills (finger dexterity and hand-eye co-ordination) as well as the ability to multi-task using long or complicated combinations of techniques. At 145 bpm, most people will lose their complex motor skills (three or more motor skills designed to work in unison).

Effects to the Perceptual System

Many experience auditory exclusion (deafness).

Many experience tunnel vision (also makes things look closer than they are).

Some experience intrusive, distracting thoughts.

A few experience temporary paralysis.

Memory loss

Also known as ‘critical stress amnesia’. A state of hypervigilance (freezing, repeatedly doing things that are just not effective^[1], irrational behaviour, unable to move, yell or scream, etc.)

Three Natural Results of ASR

• Flight – your mind locks onto thoughts of escape, leaving you incapable of asserting yourself or of delivering effective self-defence tactics.
• Fight – you can feel so charged up that you hurt someone when you have no legal right to use force, or that level of force.
• Freeze – hypervigilance (a state where you are constantly on edge).

In a threat/self-defence/combat situation a person’s heart rate can go from 70 bpm to 220 bpm in less than half a second. Training must be ‘gross motor-based’, as ASR will negatively affect fine motor skills. The part of the brain that continues to function is only capable of simple gross motor skills.

Most habitual street attackers only use 2-3 techniques for success in their real-life attacks.

Therefore, if you react based on how you train, you will need to factor in that your trained techniques will be performed clumsily with tunnel vision, reduced hearing and psychological impairment.

It is a fallacy to think that you will be able to perform your techniques because you will be ‘charged up’ to respond or that you will be so angry that you will find some superhuman ability that turns you into a fighting machine. You will be able to run like the clappers and feel a lot less pain – but that’s about it.

Freeze

There are many theories as to why people freeze under extreme stress, and it is very difficult to give a generalisation because it has been found that people freeze for different reasons. Everyone will freeze, but for those people regularly exposed to situations, this becomes so short as to be imperceptible to other people.

Some of the theories as to why people freeze are listed below.

1. The animal instinct of ‘playing dead’ takes over when a predator attacks. We are still hardwired for this ancestral legacy of being hunted for food by ‘sabre-tooth tigers’.
2. Momentarily unable to formulate a plan to deal with the situation. This could be the reason why your life ‘flashes before your eyes’ as the brain tries to search your memories for a solution.
3. The ‘why is it happening to me’ freeze. The ‘victim’ is searching for a reason as to why it is happening to them. Why is this person picking on me? What issues do they have?
4. Unable to cope with the sudden rush of chemicals in an adrenal dump.
5. Not knowing where your ethical line or force levels are. You do not know your limits for responding, and so you hesitate.
6. Fear of consequences. “If I hit him and he dies, will I go to prison and lose everything?”
7. Thoughts flood the mind of things not connected with the situation, or they fast forward through consequences of being injured or dying.

It is probable that with your first ‘fight’ you will freeze. Unfortunately some things that break the freeze, like being hit, are a bit late. You will also probably still be in ‘social conditioning’ mode and will hit once to see what sort of response you will get and hope that they stop. This response will probably be half-hearted.

Unfortunately, there is no way you can simulate the freeze response safely in training. Also, getting over the freeze response from exposure to fear in one context (maybe as a medical first responder) does not mean that you won’t freeze in a different context, like an assault.

A way of fighting the freeze is the following:

Step 1. Recognise you are frozen.

Step 2. Make yourself do something.

Step 3. Repeat Step 2. You should also be aware that the freeze might also stop you from saying things that would have got you into more trouble, so it’s a bit of a double-edged sword.

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^[1]This sometimes manifests itself in repeating the same words or phrase. You should remember that people under stress may not be able to ‘hear’ what you are saying. Try to rephrase commands.