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
  • But life, such as it’s been granted them, has trained them both to swim forever in the seas of fight-or-flight.
    — Andy Andersen, Vulture, 28 Mar. 2025
  • 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
  • When we are stressed or in fight-or-flight mode, the brain kicks off a process that results in the body producing cortisol.
    — Fiorella Valdesolo, TIME, 12 Mar. 2025
  • Some fears—like the fight-or-flight response—are essential for survival.
    — Benjamin Adams, Forbes.com, 30 Apr. 2025
  • 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
  • The two are linked through a physiological process called the fight-or-flight response.
    — Sarah Bence, Verywell Health, 24 Jan. 2025
  • 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
  • In a fight-or-flight response, baleens that typically use the fight method include humpbacks, right, gray, and bowheads.
    — Monica Cull, Discover Magazine, 7 Feb. 2025
  • The amygdala is where our primitive fight-or-flight response resides.
    — Mary Clements Evans, Forbes.com, 4 June 2025
  • 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
  • Key Takeaways The body's fight-or-flight response releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, which cause temporary spikes in heart rate and blood pressure.
    — Angela Ryan Lee, Verywell Health, 28 May 2025

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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