Why am I always in Fight or Flight?
Girl, reminder - you're not too sensitive, and you're definitely not broken. If you've noticed that your body feels like it's always bracing for something - that you're tired but wired, quick to snap, hard to wind down, and somehow both exhausted and unable to fully rest - there's a good reason for it. And it has everything to do with your nervous system being stuck in what many people call ‘fight or flight’.
What actually is ‘fight or flight’?
Your nervous system has one primary job: to keep you alive. When it detects a threat - real or perceived - it floods your body with stress hormones, sharpens your senses, and prepares you to either fight back or run away.
This is a brilliant system. For actual real-life threats (like tigers and lions or the ‘rival villagers’ that live just on the other side of the forest…).
The problem is, your nervous system can't tell the difference between;
a tiger, or just a full email inbox.
physical danger, or just a passive aggressive comment from your colleague
a genuine emergency, or three people needing something from you at the exact same time.
When there's always something to manage, always someone who needs you, always a next thing to do or think about (and you do it all in a state of stress) - your nervous system stops returning to homeostasis (the middle, the baseline, the place of balance). It just stays up in fight or flight instead, on high alert, waiting for the next thing to respond (or react) to.
And eventually, that becomes your normal.
What it looks like in real life
This isn't always dramatic. In fact, for most women, fight or flight doesn't look like panic.
It looks like:
Snapping at someone you love over something small, then feeling terrible about it
Getting to the end of the day completely depleted, but lying awake in bed for hours
Feeling overwhelmed the moment your to-do list gets longer than it was at the start of the day
Struggling to be present, even when everything around you is technically fine
Needing to decompress for hourssss before you can actually enjoy your downtime
These are signs your nervous system is dysregulated - not signs that something is ‘wrong’ with you. They are signs that your system has been working overtime (for a while now) and it needs a different kind of support to the one you’re already getting (or not getting!).
Why willpower isn’t the answer
Most women try to think their way out of this: plan better, schedule more carefully, rest harder, push through, or ‘maybe it’s just me?!’…
But fight or flight is a physiological state - not a mindset problem. You can't think your way out of a nervous system response. You need tools that speak your body's language. Tools that work directly with your physiology to communicate one simple but necessary message: you are safe.
This is where breathwork comes in.
When fight or flight has been your baseline for long enough, you stop noticing it. It just feels like personality. Like 'I'm just a person who gets stressed easily' or 'I've always been sensitive' or 'this is just what life is like right now.'
But what if it didn't have to be?
So, how triggered are you really?
As a womens’ breathwork facilitator with a science background, the practices I use are gentle, evidence-based, and designed for real everyday life - not hour-long sessions or ‘perfectly still and quiet’ rooms. Breathe Her curates bundles, programs and coaching for women just like you - she who wants to bring more steadiness and ease into her daily life. She who wants to feel more embodied and like the nervous system regulation tools are actually integrated into day-to-day life (not a separate part of it, like the ‘good feels’ you get only when you visit the spa…).
Our new 5 weeks to ‘No More Triggers’ curated practice for overwhelmed women is a program that guides you completley from overwhelm and reactivity to steadiness and embodied ease. No mental load, nothing to ‘tick off’, simply a new curated and effective gentle breathwork practice every fortnight that takes less than 13 minutes to complete! Low effort, easeful integration and embodiment, big change. Say goodbye to chronic stress and daily overwhelm with the ‘No More Triggers’ program in your backpocket!
Still not sure what you need?
The free 'How Triggered Are You?' quiz (link below) was created to help you see exactly where your nervous system is sitting right now - and point you toward the breathwork practice that will actually work for where you're at. Not a generic breathing exercise. A starting point that is specific to you.
It takes less than two minutes, it’s free, and once you’ve completed it you’ll get my expert recommendations sent straight to your inbox to get started right away!