Flight Response Worksheet
Flight rarely looks like running. It looks like a full calendar, a side project, a workout streak, a sudden urge to reorganise the kitchen at 11pm — anything that keeps you moving so the feeling underneath never catches up. This worksheet is an audit of what the motion is for, and a set of small, tolerable experiments in stopping.
Who the flight response worksheet is for
Anyone who cannot sit still with their own thoughts: chronic busyness, escape fantasies, leaving relationships or jobs the moment they get difficult, anxiety that spikes the second the to-do list empties.
Free, no email needed — print the flight response worksheet (write-in lines included) or save it as a PDF from the print dialog.
How to use this worksheet
Section 1 is a seven-day log — carry it with you or fill it in each evening. Do not skip to the staying practice first: without the log you will practise stillness in the easy moments and bolt in the ones that matter.
The five-minute stays in section 3 are deliberately small. The goal is not to become someone who meditates for an hour; it is to teach your nervous system, in doses it can tolerate, that the feeling you have been outrunning is survivable.
The exercises
The flight response worksheet has 4 sections, in order, each with space to write.
1. Seven days of motion
Log each urge to move, and what you were moving away from.
Each time you notice yourself reaching for busyness — checking your phone, adding a task, planning an exit — note it in the table. The third column is the important one: what was happening, or about to be felt, right before the urge?
- ●At the end of the week: the feeling my motion most often protects me from is:
| Day | The urge (what I reached for) | What was I about to feel? |
|---|---|---|
2. The escape inventory
Name your exits — the honourable and the disguised.
Flight has socially rewarded disguises: overworking, over-exercising, over-planning, always having a backup option. List yours honestly, including the ones that get you praised.
- ●My most respectable escape (the one people compliment me on):
- ●My 2am escape (the one I do when nobody is watching):
- ●The relationship, job or conversation I am currently half-out-the-door on:
- ●What staying there one more month would require me to feel:
3. The five-minute stay
A daily experiment in not leaving.
Once a day, when you notice the urge to bolt (from the log above), stay put for five minutes before acting on it. Sit down, feet on the floor, name what you feel in your body — not your thoughts, your body. Then you are free to move. Record each stay here.
- ●Stay 1 — what I felt in my body, and what happened to the urge by minute five:
- ●Stay 2 — what I felt, and what happened to the urge:
- ●Stay 3 — what I felt, and what happened to the urge:
- ●After several stays: the urge typically peaks at minute ____ and then:
4. Sorting real exits from trauma exits
A test for when leaving is wisdom and when it is a symptom.
Sometimes leaving IS the right call — flight energy exists because escape sometimes saves you. Run your current escape plan through these questions to tell the difference.
- ●If I imagine staying, the feeling is mostly: (a) dread of a real ongoing harm, or (b) restlessness/suffocation with nothing I can point to?
- ●Have I left this same situation-shape before (different job, same month; different partner, same stage)?
- ●What would I need to feel safe enough to decide this slowly, over two weeks, instead of tonight?
What progress actually looks like
Progress for a flight pattern is boring on purpose: an evening with no plan that you did not fill, a difficult conversation you stayed for, an urge that peaked and passed without a new project being born. The stillness stops feeling like a trap slowly, in five-minute increments.
Before you use this
The flight response worksheet is psychoeducation and self-reflection — not therapy, diagnosis, or crisis support. Go at your own pace; stopping when overwhelmed is information, not failure. If it stirs up more than you can settle, a trauma-informed therapist is the right next step (our therapy guide compares the options) — and the disclaimer has the fine print.
Not sure which trauma response is yours?
The flight response worksheet works best matched to your real pattern. The full flight response guide has the complete picture.
What's Your Trauma Response?
Answer 12 quick questions to discover whether you lean towards Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn — and what it means for your healing.
Take the Free Quiz →Takes about 2 minutes. No email required.
Flight Response Worksheet: FAQ
Is being busy always a flight response?
No. Busyness is a flight response when its job is avoidance — when the calendar exists so a feeling can never catch up with you, and when empty time produces anxiety rather than rest. The seven-day log in this worksheet is how you tell your genuine engagement from your escapes: the tell is what happens in you when the motion stops.
What if sitting still for five minutes feels unbearable?
Shrink the dose, do not abandon the practice. Ninety seconds counts. Feeling agitation rise when you stop moving is the pattern showing itself, and the skill being built is tolerating that agitation in small amounts. If stillness reliably triggers panic or flashbacks rather than restlessness, do this alongside a therapist who can help you build grounding first.
Worksheets for the four responses
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