How to Use fight-or-flight in a Sentence

fight-or-flight

adjective
  • When you’re stressed, your body gets ready to enter fight-or-flight mode.
    Addison Aloian, Women's Health, 21 Apr. 2023
  • Snapped out of modern-day fight-or-flight mode, I was primed for smoother sleep despite the jet lag.
    Juliet Kinsman, Condé Nast Traveler, 13 Mar. 2024
  • The panic attack fight-or-flight response is well-known to me.
    Alice Bradley, Health, 9 Mar. 2023
  • If fight-or-flight fails, the instinct to feign death kicks in as an attempt to forestall the danger.
    Rachel Nuwer, Scientific American, 14 May 2024
  • What’s more, the development has tipped her over to Red Feather’s side of the fight-or-flight choice.
    Keith Phipps, Vulture, 10 Jan. 2025
  • Long-term stress can mean our fight-or-flight response does its thing on a hair trigger.
    Eleanor Morgan, refinery29.com, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Don’t neglect self-care: When stress takes over, your brain shifts into fight-or-flight mode.
    Noma Nazish, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024
  • This is the hormone that triggers the fight-or-flight response which helps the body better cope with real or perceived threats.
    James Myhre & Dennis Sifris, Md, Verywell Health, 3 Sep. 2024
  • Remember: Your body was just in fight-or-flight mode and stress hormones may still be surging through your veins.
    Julia Ries, SELF, 18 Sep. 2024
  • Stress puts your body on alert, and, in turn, your body releases adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone.
    Alysse Dalessandro, Health, 18 Dec. 2024
  • Stress can also slow digestion because when you're stressed, the body's fight-or-flight response kicks in.
    Daryl Austin, USA TODAY, 9 Aug. 2023
  • Those alarms trigger the grownup’s fight-or-flight response and raise the odds that adult and child will enter a co-escalation cycle of doom.
    Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 25 Jan. 2024
  • Stress triggers a physical response known as the fight-or-flight response.
    Anna Giorgi, Verywell Health, 25 Oct. 2024
  • The fight-or-flight response is a body mechanism intended to keep humans safe from threats.
    Sarah Bence, Verywell Health, 24 Jan. 2025
  • Cold, on the other hand, can improve blood flow in some athletes by activating the fight-or-flight response.
    Linda Carroll, NBC News, 23 Nov. 2024
  • Even normal stuff, like a bus backfiring or a balloon popping, can send her into fight-or-flight mode.
    Amelia Harnish, Women's Health, 5 June 2023
  • The sympathetic nervous system is part of your body's fight-or-flight response.
    Cathy Cassata, Health, 29 July 2023
  • Since fight-or-flight mode can cause your thoughts to race, grounding techniques can help your mind and body connect with the present moment and reset, Dr. Albers-Bowling says.
    Maggie O'Neill, SELF, 31 Mar. 2023
  • When this occurs, your body triggers a fight-or-flight response that involves a boost of adrenaline and an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
    Anna Giorgi, Verywell Health, 29 July 2024
  • This can trigger the sympathetic nervous system and send your body into fight-or-flight mode.
    Maggie O'Neill, SELF, 31 Mar. 2023
  • Your brain is hard-wired to zoom in on violence, mayhem and conflict for fight-or-flight purposes because those acts are threats to survival.
    Bryan Robinson, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024
  • The technique involves tensing and releasing different body parts, which helps quell stress by forcing your body out of fight-or-flight mode.
    Alice Oglethorpe, SELF, 10 May 2024
  • Could this be a pheochromocytoma — a usually benign tumor that causes the adrenal glands to produce too much of the fight-or-flight hormones?
    Lisa Sanders, M.d., New York Times, 9 Mar. 2023
  • Fear aggression emerges when a dog's fight-or-flight instinct activates.
    Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 5 Dec. 2024
  • That particular sequence provides a good early test of your fight-or-flight instincts.
    Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 27 Apr. 2023
  • The booming sounds can be perceived as a threat and trigger dogs' fight-or-flight response, according to Veterinary Specialists of the Rockies.
    Aliza Chasan, CBS News, 3 July 2023
  • Naturally, some people will go to great lengths to avoid triggering such fight-or-flight (or freeze) responses.
    Alex Orlando, Discover Magazine, 31 Oct. 2023
  • This helps reduce the fight-or-flight response to stress and lowers cortisol levels, creating a feeling of safety and comfort.
    Mark Travers, Forbes, 7 Jan. 2025
  • The harmonies of the forest resonate deeply within us, soothing our fight-or-flight instincts, melting away stress and guiding us toward serenity.
    Gen Cleary, Rolling Stone, 11 Oct. 2023
  • His body was still in fight-or-flight mode, overwhelmed by the incomprehensible explosion.
    The Arizona Republic, 14 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fight-or-flight.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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