Facing a huge lack of motivation at work and a brain that just. wouldn’t. quit, Kelly Bertrand stumbles on the answer as to why her little overstimulated noggin is on struggle street – functional freeze mode. Can you relate?
I adore my job. Sitting behind my desk in my home office is my happy place and cracking through long lists of to-do’s – writing, organising, creating – is something I absolutely froth because my God, I love that feeling of happy productivity.
At least, it was.
Over the last month or two, as I settled into my office chair with my coffee, my carefully curated Spotify work playlist on the speaker and my candles all lit (longtime Capsule readers will know this is essential) my eyes could see the vibes were on for a cracking day of work. But when I turned on my computer and my fingers hovered over the keyboard, something froze.
Paralysed with indecision, plagued with a lack of motivation and feeling the constant hum of guilt and anxiety that this bloody list isn’t getting any shorter, my confused and befuddled little brain had no idea what the hell was going on – until I read this story’s headline:
“You’re not lazy, you’re in functional freeze mode.”
What is functional freeze mode?
Yeah that was my first question too – turns out, it’s something that is growing amongst millennial and Gen X women especially and mentions of it are absolutely popping off on TikTok right now. Functional freeze mode, according to psychotherapist Tina Chummun, is a third, lesser-known reaction the body has to stressful situations. You’ll know fight or flight of course, but freeze? She’s a new one.
“Like flight or fight, freeze mode is an evolutionary ‘survival of the fittest’ instinct that the brain and body adopts to protect itself when it perceives danger,” says Tina. “People often describe freeze mode as a sense of immobility, indecision, or just feeling unable to do the things they used to with the same ease.”
Manifesting a little differently to everyone, and a much more subtle onset than fight or flight, functional freeze mode is where you can outwardly function and complete some tasks but be absolutely stuck with others – often described as feeling ‘tired and wired’ at the same time.
Says therapist Katie Evans, “Today many people are experiencing their day-to-day life in a way which doesn’t quite feel right, but does not fit within what we know of depression or anxiety. While they are able to carry on daily tasks, they feel disconnected from the world, lack motivation, feel numb and have a background anxiety which won’t seem to shift. It can impact so much in life, but you can’t quite place your finger on where it is coming from. If this sounds familiar, then you may be experiencing ‘functional freeze’.”
As I wrote earlier this month, I’ve felt the beginning stages of burnout creep up for a little while now – work is amazing but intense, I’m planning a wedding, actively trying to save money for said wedding and still trying to be a decent/healthy/fun human being, you know the usual stuff we all try to do – so it’s no surprise that the old noggin needed a little reset.
A combination of overstimulation, overtiredness and overwork (basically all the overs) means that yeah, your body and brain just need to freeze until they can figure out how to reboot.
Signs you might be experiencing functional freeze mode
For me, the key indication that function freeze mode might be a thing was the fact that things that used to be super-easy or super-motivating were harder than usual, and my brain felt exactly like ‘tired but wired’. For others it can be:
- Ongoing low anxiety – a sense of dread or fear that you can’t quite put your finger on, but is always there and you have no idea why
- Procrastinating and struggling to complete tasks – even when you have a heap to you, your brain can’t decide where to start and then just refuses to do any of it
- You’re bloody exhausted – I mean, who isn’t!?
- You want to disconnect from the world or from people – it’s easier to hide away, avoid calls or messages and generally stick your head in the sand
- You disassociate from yourself – thoughts, feelings, emotions don’t feel the way they normally do, and you can feel more numb or ambivalent than usual.
Ok cool, so what can you do about functional freeze mode
Well first of all, your first port of call should be with a health professional because, hell, we are certainly not that. But according to the experts on the internet, some other little things you can do in meantime include:
- Breathing – I know it’s so annoying how many people say this for so many things but I thiiiink it’s because it works. A good old box breathing exercise can help regulate your brain and your adrenal responses
- Move your body – walking, running, jogging, however you get out of the house and move, do that
- Humming – multiple experts say that this can work for escaping functional freeze mode as it, and other somatic practices, stimulate the vagus nerve which controls the body’s ‘rest and digest’ response. It can then trigger the release of calming hormones (ooh, more of that please) which can lower the amounts of the stress hormone cortisol.
- Nature – it just has a way of calming everything down, doesn’t it! Getting out in nature has a grounding effect that can help you with your gratitude and your over-stimulation
I’m lucky in the sense that I work from home and am my own boss, so I have much more flexibility in my working week – so taking advantage of this, and as well as giving the above a go, I gave myself a week of not pushing myself at work. I did the essentials, the deadlines, the must-do’s, but I didn’t try to ‘get ahead’ or ‘get on top of things’ or anything else. I just did what I had to and gave my brain a little bit of a break, and I tell you, it worked actual wonders.
As i wrote in my previous story too, I’ve also begun ‘front loading’ my week so I have my most productive days earlier on after a weekend’s break, tapering off as the week goes on and prioritising ‘hard thinking’ tasks earlier on, and creative ones later – and already this is a bloody game changer and already, my zing and zest is back, baby.
Whatever you choose to do, I hope this yarn has helped you a little if, like me, you’ve been a bit ‘off’ and you have no idea why, or if you’ve just had a stubborn brain that refuses to kick into gear!
