#fight-or-flight

#fight-or-flight

"Hangry" has become such common vocabulary that most people know exactly what it means: that irritable, snappish state when you need food. Recently, people have suggested extending the pattern-"slangry" for sleepiness-related irritability, "shanger" for shame-triggered snappiness, "franger" for frustration-fueled reactivity. It's clever, and naming these states does help create awareness. But I think these neologisms accidentally reveal something more important: We've lost the ability to distinguish between our stress response and actual emotion.

You might be holding your breath right now and not even realize it. You are reading these words, but a part of you is likely somewhere else entirely. Most of us live in a state of suspended animation, mentally circling in a vortex of "what-ifs" while our bodies go into autopilot. A single worry triggers a loop, and suddenly you are disconnected from the room you are sitting in and the people you are with.

One morning, playwright Vivienne Franzmann was queueing for a coffee when an argument broke out. A customer absolutely lost it, says Franzmann. She was demanding her drink, shouting and swearing, and the rest of us stood there not knowing what to do. When Franzmann got to the rehearsal studio, she shared the story with Frauke Requardt, a choreographer she had just started working with.

You know that moment when someone asks you a question in a meeting and your mind goes completely blank? Or when you're sitting in a high-stakes presentation and you feel like you can't move, can't speak, can't think? While it can feel like your mind and body are totally betraying you, what's actually happening is that your nervous system is doing exactly what it's designed to do when it perceives a threat.

The dominance of big-budget franchise films starves mid-budget genre films of the sunlight they need to prosper, yet engaging flicks can still be found.