The Stress Response Series: Freeze
I usually write these emails sometime on Thursday morning before they’ve been going out on Friday and I found myself this morning doing everything imaginable besides writing this.
When I finally sat down to write it hours later, my mind went blank and even though I knew exactly what I wanted to say, the words would not come out of me.
Eventually I stopped trying to force myself to do anything and just laid down and listened to a sound bath for an hour while I napped.
Which leads me to this week’s topic: Last week we talked about the Flight stress response and this week we are moving on to Freeze.
As I will continue to repeat in all of these, the point is not to never have stress and/or to never have a response. They are there for a reason - they kept many of our ancestors alive (and are the reason we are here today) and in our current lives we still need these responses in certain moments to protect us.
The problem becomes when we have these responses and we can’t / don’t come out of it; when our body stays in the freeze mode and we remain in prolonged states of stress.
Unlike the Fight or Flight responses, the Freeze response is a blend of hyper and hypo-arousal or a mix of fight / flight and shut down.
When this response is in a healthy state, we have the capacity to slow down and take pauses, access situations, think critically / carefully and make (more) conscious choices.
When this is not in balance, we are more prone to states of paralysis and disconnecting from our bodies, our experiences and our surroundings.
This can translate in real time to:
Feelings of numbness or stuckness in the body
Procrastination
Restricted breathing / holding of the breath
Disassociation
As a society, especially in corporate / organizational spaces, we tend to move at the speed of light (while under substantial stress and pressure), multi-tasking and assuming this is efficient (it is not). This is not a sustainable rate to be moving at and the nervous system knows this.
When we see people procrastinating or we find ourselves procrastinating we often think they need to work harder or we need to “do more” or “push through it.” To get ourselves to be able to complete the task (if are even able to do so), we may wait until the last minute in order to create enough pressure and stress to counteract the freeze response we are in.
This is the anti-thesis of what needs to be happening.
When we are in a Freeze response, it is a signal from the nervous system that it does not feel safe. You may not actually be in any real harm but it does not know the difference. This is a sign that something is off, the nervous system is dysregulated and wants (and needs) to be balanced.
7 Ways to Address the Freeze Response
Take a sacred pause. Notice what’s happening in your body.
Take a break from whatever you are doing. Move your body slowly (stretch, take a walk)
If you are in a conversation with someone and you need some space to think clearly, ask for that space and come back to the conversation when you are grounded (hello, boundaries!).
Return to your senses. Take note of 1 thing for each sense (taste, touch, sound, sight and smell) and say them out loud
Deep belly (not chest) breathing
Put your feet onto the ground, the Earth if possible
bonus: stomp your feet if you can! Connect to your legs / feet to allow yourself to feel more grounded
SHAKE. Shake your body. Shaking is a natural and built in way to complete stress cycles that most of us suppress.
Notice the moments when your freeze response is the most active and get curious if there’s a pattern (write them down if you are able to)
As I will always continue to note: as important as it is to notice and address the response, if it’s something that is frequent and ongoing, it’s equally as important to get curious about its deeper roots (examining your environments, relationships, belief systems, past traumas and overall nervous system health/healing).
This may be something you feel safe to do and explore on your own and it also may require professional support. Either way, give yourself the gift of healing on the deeper levels so you have full access to your energy (vs. spending all of your time and energy trying to manage your stress.
Next week we’ll be looking at our last stress response: Fawn!
Until next time, sending you peace and clean energy,
Bianca
p.s - If you want to dive deeper into the stress responses and burnout specifically within the work place (how they show up, how they impact our well-being, our relationships and our work), you can check out my 2 part Nervous System Series which is designed for organizations who are ready to support their employees’ stress and burnout levels on a deeper and more sustainable level.