Withstanding Resistance - Fight, Flight or Yoga?
- Dom Davis
- May 27
- 3 min read
Withstanding Resistance: Fight, Flight, or Yoga
Learning how to maintain a sense of autonomy and self in the face of challenges is a powerful skill—one that trauma often steals from us. Whether it's a tough conversation or a life change, someone who has experienced trauma may struggle to access the logical, grounded part of their brain responsible for critical thinking. Instead, their nervous system leaps into high alert, prioritizing safety over everything else.
In my free resource Climbing Back Up to the Watchtower, I describe how trauma typically elicits one of three survival responses: fight, flight, or freeze. Today, we’ll focus on the first two—commonly referred to as the fight-or-flight response—and how yoga can serve as a powerful practice for those of us impacted by these primal patterns.
Understanding the Fight-or-Flight Response
Trauma is defined as exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence (1). While not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD, about 20% do (2). The severity of a person’s trauma response is often linked to how dysregulated their autonomic nervous system becomes in the aftermath.
When someone’s sympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for fight-or-flight) is hyper-reactive, the body perceives danger even when there is none. Everyday stressors—awkward social interactions, unpredictable outcomes, or moments of emotional vulnerability—can feel as threatening as life-or-death scenarios. Over time, and due to the brain's natural neuroplasticity, these overreactions become hardwired into the nervous system (3).
This leads to a life lived on edge. From the outside, it may look like irritability, aloofness, or moodiness. Internally, it's a loop of constant vigilance and fear—a brain persistently scanning for danger.
On top of that, chronic stress caused by a heightened fight-or-flight response can contribute to hormonal imbalances and long-term health issues like high blood pressure, digestive problems, and immune dysfunction (4).
Healing Through Yoga
But here’s the beautiful part: your body was built to heal. Both the mind and the nervous system are capable of rewiring, recalibrating, and returning to a more peaceful baseline. This healing isn’t found in a magic pill or trendy biohack—it’s a daily, intentional practice. One powerful pathway? Yoga.
Yoga, a sacred system passed down from ancient India, provides both philosophical guidance and embodied practice. Through intentional breath and movement, yoga creates opportunities to reconnect the body and the mind—a key element of healing for anyone with a dysregulated nervous system.
For those with a sensitive sympathetic nervous system, symptoms like rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and digestive discomfort can feel like the norm. But yoga, especially gentle and mindful practices like Slow Flow, offers a way to disrupt that pattern and reintroduce the body to calm, grounded states.
Why Slow Flow Yoga?
Slow Flow Yoga focuses on moving deliberately and with awareness. It encourages practitioners to pause, breathe, and notice—especially in moments of discomfort or challenge. In this way, each session becomes a rehearsal for real life.
Let’s say you're in a posture that feels difficult. Your mind might scream, “This isn’t safe! This feels like before!” But when you remain in that posture with breath and presence, you prove to yourself that you are, in fact, okay. You’re safe. You’re capable.
Over time, this kind of practice rewires the nervous system. It teaches the body to differentiate between actual danger and discomfort. And the strength you build on the mat? It follows you off the mat—into conversations, conflict, uncertainty, and growth.
With love, Dom 🧡
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