Shielding

In my last article I wrote about a very specific reaction that occurs when a person is surprised or afraid. In this article I will give general knowledge about some other common physical reactions to fear aside from jumping or running away that is.

So to start with we will look at how children react when afraid, because a lot of body language we pose today, we learned and had used when we were kids. A lot of children’s reactions to fear break down into a simple general gesture known as shielding.

It is called shielding quite simply because a person will use their hands or arms to block access to some part of the body. Children tend to do this quite often, whether it is shielding their eyes to avoid seeing something particularly scary or disgusting, shielding their ears in an attempt to avoid hearing things that they find unpleasant or just shield themselves entirely with a blanket because they are afraid of thunder, shielding comes from the subconscious need for protection from something.

Adults tend to shield themselves as well, but their general shielding reaction may be less obvious than it was during their childhood. Adults when in fear will most likely attempt to protect vital spots of their bodies. These vital spots often include the throat, the inner thigh, the groin and the chest just to name a few. They do that, as said before, using their arms. After all if you had the choice between losing an arm or losing your head, I believe most would tend to lean towards the loss of an arm.

Usually a reaction tends to either join the shielding reaction or follow up afterwards. A person may shield and run away or they could shield then punch the threat in the face. As with most anything in body language, it is based off of context.

I hope you enjoyed the article and I also hope you return to view more. Have a great day and goodbye.  

Freeze!

I have recently been inspired by a fellow classmates game idea for creating a survival horror video game. After hearing the details of the game, memories of reading about the body language of fear came back to me.

So because of that inspiration this particular article will be about fear. That being the case I will attempt to cover things that may be unknown to some or at least one in particular that may have gone unnoticed.

Many people know two options when reacting to fear; these reactions tend to be known as the “flight or fight” reaction. While these reactions do in fact exist, a very important reaction is left out of this equation; the freeze reaction. The freeze function is very common and almost always comes before the flight or fight reactions.

This is part of the survival reaction our mind and body naturally goes through to understand what is threatening us as well as what the best reaction to this possible danger is. The freeze is a very brief pause when something jumps out unexpectedly within sight or even just a noise that alarms us. The freeze reaction can be very brief, but even so I am sure that some of you have seen the reaction or even experienced it before. In case you can’t remember, I will attempt to give an example.

Imagine if you will that you are walking down a dark alley at midnight for some reason or another. Halfway down this alley you begin to hear loud footsteps bounding behind you. You may think at this time, “Perhaps they are just going the same way as I am.”

The sound of the footsteps begins to sound more rapid, as if the person is beginning to sprint towards you. Feeling fear the body would first respond by halting most of the body’s motion, in an attempt to recognize what or who is making that sound, if it is in fact a threat and what the appropriate reaction is to handle that threat.

Now, just for giggles, the next time you just happen to startle someone, try to notice how they react. Specifically that instant they become afraid. More often than not they will stutter very briefly and then react.

I hope you enjoyed this article and please have a great day. Goodbye.