The Freeze State: The Burnout Response Nobody Talks About
We all know about fight or flight. But there's a third stress response that I think plays a key role with modern burnout than either of those.
Its called the freeze state.
What is the freeze state?
I have been reading Emily Nagoski's books Burnout: Solve Your Stress Cycle and Come as You Are, and she talks extensively about the freeze state, something that's not really spoken about too much, but I think is incredibly pertinent to our modern lives.
The freeze state is what happens when we're in a situation where we don't feel comfortable, where we're kind of silenced and disempowered to do things.
In the animal kingdom, Nagoski explains, the freeze state was for when you couldn't fight or flee. You would essentially act dead and hope that the predator would lose interest and walk away. Then you'd process all that stored anxiousness or adrenaline in your body, shake it off, and get on with your day.
But here's the critical part. The freeze state was meant to be temporary.
The modern workplace trap
From my own experience and from talking to others who have gone through workplace challenges, we can often find ourselves in a chronic freeze state.
We are potentially in environments where:
We're being overworked
We're dealing with poor management
We're navigating unclear expectations
There's just no way out
Yet we still have to show up to work. We still have to pay our bills.
We are trapped in it because we have responsibilities in our lives. However, we are not meant to be in this state for a long, long time. We are not meant to be in it chronically.
These workplaces can become the lions on our back, and our bodies don't know any different.
My experience with freeze
When I went through burnout, I was really lucky to have space and time and separation from my work, with support from various systems. But I wasn’t immune to other situations that resembled that type of environment, and it was quite triggering for my body.
These states can make us feel deeply disempowered. It makes it really difficult to move forward when you're feeling under threat quite a lot, in many different ways and circumstances.
And that’s why this matters
I wanted to drop in this little seed about the freeze state because I think we're dealing with it in so many ways in our lives. And it wasn't ever meant to be a long-term response to situations in life.
By understanding what's happening in our bodies gives us power. It helps us see that what we are experiencing isn't personal failure. It's a biological response to untenable circumstances.
Once we can name the freeze state for what it is, we can begin to address it.
You don't have to stay frozen.