Fight, Flight, or Freeze
Your heart rate speeds up, your breathing gets heavy, and adrenaline floods your body during this natural survival reaction.
What is the fight-or-flight response?
Believing that if one small thing goes wrong, the entire day or your whole life is a total disaster is called this.
What is catastrophizing?
Taking slow, deep breaths—like inhaling for 4 seconds, holding for 4, and exhaling for 4—is known by this name.
What is box breathing?
True or False: People can simply "snap out" of a mental health condition if they try hard enough.
What is False
Instead of fighting or running away, a person might completely shut down, go silent, or feel paralyzed during a threat. This response is called...
What is the freeze response?
When viewing situations strictly in black-and-white or all-or-nothing can leave no room for gray areas. This is called...
What is all-or-nothing thinking
Releasing natural brain chemicals like endorphins and dopamine through a brisk walk, yoga, or lifting weights is a great example of
What is physical exercise?
True or False: Talking about suicide or emotional pain makes a person more likely to act on it.
What is False? (Open conversation actually lowers risk and offers support.)
This tiny almond-shaped structure in the brain acts as the emotional alarm system triggering fight, flight, or freeze
What is the amygdala?
Assuming you know what other people are thinking—and usually assuming they think negatively of you—is this habit
What is mind-reading?
Writing down your raw thoughts and daily stressors in a notebook is a popular coping strategy called...
What is journaling?
This term refers to negative, judgmental attitudes or discrimination directed toward people with mental health challenges.
What is stigma?
This physical grounding technique helps pull your brain out of panic mode by naming 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, and 1 you taste.
What is the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique?
The therapeutic process of actively challenging and replacing distorted thoughts with balanced ones is called...
What is cognitive restructuring (or CBT)
Name two examples of maladaptive (unhealthy) coping behaviors.
What are substance abuse, isolation, self-harm, or lashing out at others?
Meeting regularly with a licensed professional to process thoughts, emotions, and behavioral patterns is formally called...
What is therapy (or counseling)?