Bullying and The Human Stress Response

January 9, 2026December 7, 20252 Comments

‘Want to know about bullying and the human stress response? Here’s everything you need to know.

Bullying and the Human Stress Response go hand in hand. Bullying automatically activates this response in victims.

Whenever bullies accost their target, their body instinctively goes into survival mode. Therefore, the automatic response is either to fight or flee.

But what happens when their bodies stay in that state due to long-term bullying?

In this post, you will learn all about bullying and the human stress response. You will also learn what happens when a person stays in survival mode for longer than usual.

Once you learn all about these crucial details, you will become more proactive in protecting yourself from bullying.

This post is all about the human stress response, so you will understand the mechanisms by which bullying affects the brain and the sympathetic nervous system.

Bullying and the Human stress Response

Bullying automatically throws the victim’s body into survival mode. We no longer fight saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths to survive. However, our bodies don’t know the difference.

Therefore, bullying activates the same human survival instinct that wild animals did during prehistoric times. When bullies approach you, your bloodstream floods itself with adrenaline.

This is useful in emergencies because it lets you run faster from a pack of wolves. Moreover, it gives you the strength that you wouldn’t usually have. This is the stamina you need to fight off people who want to harm or kill you.

It’s all a part of the survival instinct that all humans have. However, this burst of adrenaline is only meant to be temporary and subsides once the danger has passed.

Therefore, if you live on this adrenaline for too long, it can have devastating consequences.

the effects of Long-term bullying on the sympathetic nervous system.

A certain amount of stress is healthy because it helps us to get things done. However, too much stress for too long can cause significant damage.

According to the Cleveland Clinic website, “Your sympathetic nervous system is a network of nerves that helps your body activate its ‘fight-or-flight’ response. This system’s activity increases when you’re stressed. It also kicks in when you’re in danger or physically active.

Its effects include increasing your heart rate and breathing ability, improving your eyesight, and slowing down processes like digestion.”( https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23262-sympathetic-nervous-system-sns-fight-or-flight#:~:text=Your%20sympathetic%20nervous%20system%20is%20best%20known%20for%20its%20role,your%20get%20out%20of%20danger. )

Bullying and the Human Stress Response:

What happens when you live in survival mode for too long?

The effects are devastating! After so long, bullying can screw up the target’s Sympathetic Nervous System. It can cause confusion and emotional numbness.

Moreover, the constant bullying puts your fight-or-flight response into overdrive. After bullies have bullied you for so long, it causes adverse changes in your brain.

It causes your thinking ability to decline. Also, your brain rewires itself to expect a hostile environment. In other words, it will create new neural pathways to support this.

When you live in survival mode, the logical part of your brain automatically shuts down. Therefore, the primal part of your brain takes over.

What are the most common outcomes?

1. If people bully you in school, your grades fall, and class performance suffers.

As we all should know, bullying can have a devastating effect on grades and class performance. Here’s how:

Anytime you are a victim of bullying, you are on constant alert for an attack. It feels as if you have a target on your back and you must grow eyes in the back of your head. In other words, you become hyper-vigilant.

When you must focus so much on protecting yourself, safety takes priority over studying lessons. How can one concentrate on schoolwork? You can’t study when people constantly bombard you with threats, taunts, name-calling, and physical violence.

How can you learn effectively when you’re stuck in never-ending fight-or-flight mode? It’s almost impossible! I tell you this because it happened to me.

Therefore, is it any wonder that the majority of victims have such poor grades?

2. Bullying and The Human Stress Response:

Learned helplessness.

When you suffer bullying, many people repeatedly tell you that you’ll never amount to anything. After hearing the same crap repeatedly for so long, you begin to believe it yourself.

Therefore, a condition, known as “Learned Helplessness,” develops. And, soon, you stop trying altogether.

Bullying can affect ALL areas of your life. Not only social, but also academic and achievements.

3. Bullying stunts victims’ social development.

The bullied brain has difficulty developing properly. Social intelligence may not keep you from becoming a victim of bullying. However, it will lessen your chances of it.

Social intelligence always has, and always will, supersede book smarts. It will get you much further than college degrees, awards, and credentials alone.

Moreover, it is the reason high school dropouts have become millionaires. And it is also why many college graduates have ended up flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

Social intelligence is THE most important quality you can have. It’s the highest-paid skill and most important asset in the entire universe.

But, sadly, most victims have had their confidence and charisma bullied out of them.

4. Bullying and the Human Stress Response:

Social withdrawal.

However, if you suffer bullying, the abuse can batter your self-esteem into oblivion. And, to cope with it, you may withdraw from the rest of the world.

When you’ve been bullied for so long, you become deathly afraid of other people. Also, you come to believe that you’re inferior to everyone else.

Therefore, you’re afraid to talk, scared to mingle, and fearful of social situations. You retreat into yourself and live inside your own head.

You may create a fantasy world where you feel safe, wanted, and loved. It’s a world of imaginary people who accept you. As a result, you shut out the “real world” and live in this fantasy world- this safe haven you’ve created.

This is not good because, when this happens, you stop watching people and the world around you. As a result, you stop learning the social graces and nuances that you need to know to nurture relationships and create a good life for yourself.

5. You become socially awkward.

In other words, you become too quiet, shy, and reserved.

You look right through people instead of smiling and saying hello. You become sullen and spaced out instead of happy, upbeat, and engaging.

Also, you feel numb instead of the emotions you should feel at different times.

Therefore, it stunts your social development!

6. Other negative outcomes you may face.

You will have trouble making your own choices. Why? Because you won’t trust yourself to make the right decisions for your life, especially if you are a child.

Relentless bullying can cause children to lose the ability to discern abuse when they experience it. They may make wrong choices to reach safety. This usually happens due to changes in their brains.

Bullying can also affect emotional control. You may suffer loss of cognitive abilities and a severely diminished ability to control emotions. This is why victims often snap and do irrational things when the pressure builds to the breaking point.

This happens especially with children. Because their brains are still developing, kids are more likely to have defects in emotional regulation.

Bullying and the Human Stress Response:

Flowers Can’t Grow and Bloom Without Sunlight

Bullying causes self-doubt. And self-doubt is the killer of dreams. It comes when a person is consistently showered with toxicity.

Toxicity comes from toxic people- bullies and abusers. When all a person gets is insults and abuse for a long time, they become exhausted. And any positivity they once had is slowly drained from them until they’re totally depleted of it.

Eventually, if you aren’t careful, you’ll start seeing yourself through the eyes of your bullies. And you’ll give up. And, when others look at you, they will see a person who’s lackluster and slow.

When you’re a target of bullying, you’re like a flower that gets nothing but constant rain. The flower doesn’t grow and develop properly.

The consistent abuse zaps your energy and keeps you hyper-vigilant and on guard 24/7- waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You lose your happiness, confidence, pride, will, and purpose in life. In essence, your bullies take away your good qualities and turn you into a person you don’t even recognize anymore.

This is no way to live.

So, what can you do?

Never accept the bullshit bullies try to cram down your throat. I want you to realize that they don’t know you at all. They may claim they know you more than you know yourself.

The truth is, nobody can possibly know you like you know yourself. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying through their teeth.

1. Bullying and The Human Stress Response:

Refuse to accept their definition of you.

Understand that bullies and abusers are miserable people who want you to be as miserable as they are. Therefore, stay away from those people. They aren’t worth your time or energy.

Remember that there’s always hope. You’re worth much more than what your bullies say you are. And you’re worth more than you may think you are.

Never let bullies destroy the things inside you that matter the most. That is your self-love, self-respect, confidence, and sense of pride. Those things are yours and not for anyone else to have!

2. Remove yourself from the environment if possible.

Focus on self-care. If at all possible, remove yourself from the bullying environment. Go to a new place where you can grow and flourish.

Transfer to a place where you can make friends. Be your own best friend. Be your own hero. And be your own sunlight!

Keep company with people who let you shine and let the sun shine on you!

Remember that a plant cannot grow in a hostile environment with no sunlight or water. And neither can human beings flourish in fight-or-flight mode.

Constant survival mode is no way to live.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

This post is all about bullying and the human stress response so that you will be more aware of the outcomes and start defending yourself now.

Related posts you’ll enjoy:

1. The Bullied Brain: 7 Ways Bullying Affects Mental Health

2. Fight Flight Freeze Fawn: 4 Stress Responses of Bullying Victims

3. Bullying Survival Mode: 5 Things Victims of Bullying Do Wrong

4. Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response

5. Effects of Bullying on the Victim: 13 Symptoms of Bullied People

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response

July 10, 2025July 7, 202514 Comments

‘Want to know all about bullying and the fight or flight response? Here’s all the information you need to know.

When you suffer bullying, you automatically go into fight or flight mode.

Therefore, in this post, you will learn all about bullying and the fight-or-flight response so that you can use this as cause when you defend yourself from bullying.

Once you learn all about this crucial information, you will be able to speak on your own behalf when you are called to the principal’s office or charged by police after a fight with a bully.

This post is all about bullying and the fight-or-flight response, so that you can have a good reason to defend yourself against any bully who corners you and attacks you.

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response

Bullying and the fight-or-flight response go hand in hand.

According to the Psychology Tools website, “The fight or flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening.

The perception of threat activates the sympathetic nervous system. It triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee. These responses are evolutionary adaptations to increase chances of survival in threatening situations.”

Any time bullies target a person with relentless bullying at work or school over an extended period of time, they force that person into a constant state of high alert. Although useful in short, immediate circumstances, this hyper-vigilance is unhealthy if the person remains in this state for too long. As a result, it causes stomach issues, headaches, and fatigue, among many other ailments.

Even worse, facing continuous danger can also cause the person to overreact in response to certain occurrences.

The Fight or Flight Response is Innate. Every Creature on earth has it.

Every living creature has an innate and perfectly natural physiological reaction in the event of a threat or attack. Called the Fight or Flight Response, it protects us from harm in dangerous situations.

And it does so by releasing adrenaline. When adrenaline is released into the blood, it’s nearly impossible not to do either of two things: fight or flee.

When others are consistently bullying and abusing you, escape is usually not an option. Your bullies will corner and surround you.

With flight cut off as an option, what do you have left? Fight! Long-term bullying can cause a person to live on this adrenaline every day, all day long.

All your aggressors have to do is come around you, and they can put your body and mind on constant alert. It’s a horrible way to live.

Getting on the school bus and walking through the school’s entrance can feel like a death march. Moreover, horrible headaches and violent nausea will plague you.

You may shake uncontrollably, and your palms may sweat. Also, you may feel a lump in your throat. All of these are signs of being in fight-or-flight mode.

For example, you may feel that lump in your throat when your bully boss calls you into his office. Or, you may even feel nauseated. If you’re in school and your bullies come near you, you may begin to shake uncontrollably.

Again, it’s only adrenaline pumping through you, preparing you for a possible fight.

Bullying and the fight-or-flight response:

You live in a constant state of survival mode.

Even teachers can join the other kids against you once they hear enough rumors and falsehoods that bullies spread about you. This can place you in a very lonely and heartbreaking position.

As time passes, the fear of going to school or work and facing your bullies grows. It’s like an infected tumor that grows bigger with each passing day. Your stomach draws up every morning when you walk out of your house.

The next eight hours are like walking through a minefield. You never know when your next step could be your last. Others begin bombarding you with a torrent of taunts, insults, and names. Or, they may start hitting, kicking, and shoving you.

It is a situation that seems endless, and to say you are afraid is an understatement. You are petrified.

Unless you have experienced it firsthand, you can’t imagine the fear. Also, there are health consequences of living in a perpetual state of fight or flight. The impact on your physical health may not be immediately apparent. However, it may rear its ugly head later in life.

But this doesn’t only happen in school; it also occurs in the workplace. What people once believed only happened to children and teens also happens to adults in the workplace. Bullying knows no age group.

superiors usually blame you for defending yourself.

You may get into serious trouble when the bullying finally escalates and becomes physical. Every day, school staff unjustly suspend or expel innocent students for defending themselves against unjust actions. Moreover, managers in the workplace often terminate innocent employees for trying to protect themselves.

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response:

But why do they usually punish you for self-defense?

It’s because bullies are talented at charming superiors and making them like them. They lie convincingly and make you look like the bad guy. Therefore, the higher-ups may punish you for nothing more than trying to protect yourself.

If, on the off chance, they do punish your bullies, they usually give them a mild reprimand. However, most bullies escape with impunity. This is because others typically side with the bullies, and you have no support whatsoever!

Just like all God’s creatures, you have this fight-or-flight instinct. And you have the right to defend yourself if you can’t run from an attack.

And when bullies are attacking you left and right, it’s up to you to take care of yourself. You cannot just stand there and let these creeps beat the living daylights out of you. You must fight back to keep from getting hurt!

Even animals have the fight-or-flight instinct.

For example, you corner a dog and kick it. And you keep kicking it. Sooner or later, that dog is going to bite you! It’s all a part of nature. Humans also have the right to self-defense.

People can’t expect you to roll over and let bullies have their way with you. They should expect you to fight back if you can’t run.

Bullying and the Human Stress Response go hand in hand. Why? Because bullying automatically activates this response in targets. Whenever bullies accost you, your body instinctively goes into survival mode.

Therefore, the automatic response is either to fight or flee. But what happens when your body stays in that state due to long-term bullying?

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response:

the sympathetic nervous system.

According to the Cleveland Clinic website, “Your sympathetic nervous system is a network of nerves that helps your body activate its fight-or-flight response. This system’s activity increases when you’re stressed, in danger, or physically active.

Its effects include increasing your heart rate and breathing ability. It also improves your eyesight and slows down processes like digestion.

After so long, bullying can screw up your Sympathetic Nervous System. It can cause you confusion and emotional numbness.

Moreover, the constant bullying puts the fight-or-flight response into overdrive. After bullies have bullied you for so long, adverse changes in the victim’s brain begin to occur. Your brain rewires itself to prepare for a hostile environment.

You come to expect threats. Your first instinct is flight. If flight isn’t possible, then you go into fight mode. When this happens, the logical brain shuts down and the primal brain takes over.

And when that part of your brain is turned on all the time, your mind starts to decline.

what long-term bullying does to mental health

Long-term bullying affects your decision-making and emotional control the most. Why? Because your mind is in a constant state of survival mode.

Moreover, you lose your cognitive abilities, ability to control emotions, and ability to think clearly and rationally. Once this happens, it will blind you to any alternatives to your situation.

This is why you will often snap and do irrational things when the pressure of bullying builds to the breaking point. And, because children’s brains are still developing, kids stand a higher chance of damage to the mind and the sympathetic nervous system.

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response:

People cannot thrive in a bullying environment.

Relentless bullying can cause a child or teen to lose the ability to discern and make choices to get them to safety due to their brain’s negative changes. Look up Pavlov’s dogs and you’ll see what I mean.

If this is happening to you at work, you must find a way to leave the toxic environment and find employment elsewhere. If you’re a parent and you know your child is being bullied, you must help them transfer.

A new learning environment will help their minds begin to heal and restore their ability to make good decisions. Moreover, their cognitive and reasoning abilities will also improve.

Remember that a plant cannot thrive in a climate of no sunlight or water. And neither can human beings grow in a hostile environment of bullying and abuse.

This post was all about bullying and the fight-or-flight response, so that you can use it to justify self-defense. This post will also help you to recognize when it’s time to TRANSFER YOUR CHILD, IF you are a parent of a bullied child.

Related posts you’ll enjoy:

1. Self-Preservation Instinct: Defending Yourself from Bullies is Okay!

2. Fight Flight Freeze Fawn: 4 Stress Responses of Bullying Victims

3. The Bullied Brain: 7 Ways Bullying Effects Mental Health

4. Bullying Survival Mode: 5 Things Victims of Bullying Do Wrong

Fight Flight Freeze Fawn: 4 Stress Responses of Bullying Victims

September 11, 2024September 10, 20242 Comments

Do you want to know all about fight, flight, freeze, fawn stress reaction? Here is a detailed description of these responses that you need to know.

Bullying can often force victims into the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response to save themselves from danger. So what is this response?

In this post you will about this reaction so that you can recognize it in yourself and know that it is a normal human reaction to danger. Moreover, if you’re a teacher, supervisor, or police, you must know more about it so that you can better recognize it in students, subordinates, and everyday citizens- particularly, victims.

Once you learn all about these responses, you will be better able to see them in yourself and others.

This post is all about the fight, flight, freeze, fawn stress reaction so that you can be able to recognize it more and tell who the victim is, even if it’s you.

fight, flight, freeze, fawn

These are the four components of the Human Stress Response.

Examples of the Human Stress Response:

1. Slamming on your brakes when another car pulls in front of you.

2. Jumping back when an attacker jumps at you from behind a bush.

3. Flinching when you hear a car backfire.

Again, there are four components to the HSR. However, back in the days of old, there were only two parts to it.

People called this human stress response the fight or flight response, which is the innate and ingrained physiological reaction to the threat of danger.

Humans have had this natural reaction since the dawn of time. During stressful, alarming, and dangerous situations, the sympathetic nervous system releases adrenaline into the body. Therefore, you either fight when cornered or flee when you see a chance to run for your life.

This is an inborn survival mechanism that works to keep you alive.

Later, experts added a third component, renaming it fight, flight or freeze. They have since added a fourth one, fawn.

Hence, the four F term of today.

History

During prehistoric times, humans often encountered dangerous beasts like lions and tigers. Therefore, this activated the fight or flight mechanisms within them so that they could either fight the animal, or run from it to survive.

When the term “freeze” was added to fight and flight, experts acknowledge that people also tended to lose the ability to move or act during threatening situations. And when you can’t move, you cannot defend yourself against the threat.

Introducing, fight, flight, freeze, fawn

The fourth component, “fawn,” is when you do everything you can to please someone who is threatening you and keep them from hurting you.

For example, victims of bullying do this to either keep bullies from harming them or to avoid conflict. And so, the four components represent the response to overpower, escape, or decrease the threat to restore peace and safety.

Fight

In fight mode, you prepare to physically fight your bully, who is either physically attacking you or threatening to do so. Moreover, you fight when you believe you can overpower your opponent.

The adrenaline your sympathetic nervous system releases gives you a burst of extra strength to ensure that you successful fight, overpower, and contain the threat.

For example, a man pulls into his driveway at night and a robber approaches him. He successfully fights the robber and overpowers him to keep from being robbed and possibly murdered.

Here’s another thing to note here:

When it comes to bullying, the Fight Response is the most effective of all four components of the Human Stress Response. Why? Because it shows the bullies that you aren’t afraid to fight back. Remember that bullies only respond to strength and power.

Flight

If you don’t think you can win against your bully in a physical altercation, you go into flight mode and run like the blazes. The same adrenaline helps you to run faster and for longer distances than you normally could.

An example of this would be a situation after school when five bullies approach a smaller boy as he’s walking home from school. The small boy knows that there’s no way he could possibly take on five bigger boys by himself. Therefore, he runs to escape them.

Fight, flight, Freeze, Fawn

Freeze

This is when you feel paralyzed and can’t move during the threat of danger. Therefore, this is the worst of the responses. This happens when you don’t think you can fight your bully nor run fast enough to get away.

An example of freeze is when a deer is crossing a busy highway at night and a speeding car barrels toward it. The deer freezes as he sees the bright pair of headlights coming right at him. Therefore, freeze is the most dangerous and least affective of the four components.

Fawn

This reaction happens when all else fails. In other words, your attempts to fight, flee, and freeze have all been unsuccessful. Therefore, you do and say everything the bully wants you to in order to keep them from harming you.

This is a trauma response in that it typically occurs in people who either presently live in or grew up in abusive homes.

Moreover, fawning hides the stress you’re feeling and prompts you to do what you must to appease your bullies. Your objective is to get them to calm down and leave you in peace. Therefore, it’s a survival tool for many.

It is this fawning that breeds people-pleasing behavior, approval seeking, caring too much about others’ opinions, co-dependency, and allowing bullies to manipulate and control you.

In other words, you appease their wants and needs, rather than taking care of your own first. However, fawning is damaging to your mental health because, in being too agreeable, you lose your sense of identity.

Put simpler, you lose your personhood. Why? Because no one will allow you to be a person- a separate human being with thoughts, feelings, and desires of your own.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: What happens when you must live in survival mode for too long?

Sadly, if a situation of bullying and abuse persists over a long period of time, your survival instincts will reset to default. In other words, you’ll likely have anxiety disorder and by default, live with it even long after the trauma is over and things have returned to normal.

Therefore, this anxiety will trigger the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn response even under circumstances that aren’t necessarily threatening or dangerous.

For example, students who have “Math Anxiety” are a perfect example of this. These students will study their assignments faithfully. Moreover, they do well and make high marks on homework assignments and even during in-class quizzes.

However, when test day rolls around, their survival responses overwhelm them, shutting down the logical portion of their brains and they fail the test.

This often occurs in abused children and adult survivors of child abuse. Moreover, it happens in long-term victims and survivors of domestic abuse. This is also an issue in victims and survivors long-term bullying.

Events that are normal and healthy stressors will too easily trigger these survival mechanisms. These events could be a college exam, a deadline for a work project, or your sister’s upcoming wedding.

The ease of these triggers is determined by your nature, past experiences, and the type of threat you face. Therefore, long-term bullying tends to cause victims’ human stress response to go into maximum overdrive.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: What are the effects of an overactive human stress response?

An Overactive Fight Response

For example, an overactive fight response can trigger someone to get overly angry too quickly. In other words, the person seems to go from zero to one hundred in a split second. Many bullies themselves have this issue, especially physical bullies who use physical violence as the answer to all their problems.

This puts these victims at risk of being suspended from school, fired from their jobs, or going to jail.

An Overactive Flight Response

An example of an overactive flight response could be someone always running from conflict. People notice this and label this person a big chicken. Therefore, it only prolongs the bullying until the victim is in a situation where he can’t run. Then, he end up being injured or worse.

An Overactive Freeze Response

An overactive freeze response causes you to shut down during conflict. This is the worst of the responses because it endangers the victim of physical beating or dying from a physical attack.

An Overactive Fawn Response

The victim agrees to do what he’s told and agree with the bully to avoid conflict and the possibility of getting hurt. However, this only prolongs the bullying. Why? Because it satisfies the reward center of the bullies‘ brains. Therefore, they come back for more rewards later.

What Does the Human Stress Response and it’s four components have to do with bullying?

Bullying automatically puts the victim in survival mode and causes the release of adrenaline. Therefore, it activates the Human Stress Response and either one or more of it’s components.

This adrenaline interrupts the normal, rational area of the brain. As a result, it stunts the development of the logical part of the mind. In other words, because the victim’s mind is already preoccupied with the threat of bullying, they can’t concentrate on anything else.

This is why kids who suffer bullying in school often have grades that plummet. Moreover, the job performance of bullied adults at work are also likely to suffer.

This is how bullying affects the brain and why it’s so terribly unhealthy for victims. Bullying can affect all aspects of your life. It impacts not only your physical and mental health, but also your relationships outside the bullying environment, your finances, your love life, your chance opportunities… everything!

This post is all about the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses and their relation to bullying so that you can recognize and better talk about your experiences.

Related posts you’ll enjoy:

1. Bullying is Abuse: 9 Ways Bullying and Abuse are The Same

2. Stop Victim Blaming: 8 Reasons People Blame Targets for Bullying

3. How to Stop Being Too Nice: 5 Powerful Changes that Win Respect

4. How to Stop Being a People Pleaser: 5 Powerful Steps

5. Setting Boundaries: 3 Powerful Practices to Hold Your Ground