Chronic Freeze is the nervous system's last resort after being overwhelmed by Sympathetic Overdrive or Fight or Flight. In order to move back into the Parasympathetic state, you first have to move into the Sympathetics.
The freeze response involves a different physiological process than fight or flight. Research from 2015 describes it as “attentive immobility.” While the person who is “frozen” is extremely alert, they are also unable to move or take action against the danger. Freezing causes: physical immobility.
If you often feel disconnected or numb when faced with stressful situations, this may be a sign that you're going into the freeze response. Some other signs of the freeze response include: Feeling like you can't move your limbs. Feeling paralyzed in fear.
Due to having impaired executive function, people with ADHD can become overwhelmed more easily than those without it, and can experience “overwhelm freeze.” Feeling overwhelmed can be perceived as a certain kind of threat, even if it's just to your mental well-being, causing a freeze reaction much like others might ...
When faced with prolonged exposure to and an inability to escape threatening situations, the brain learns to cope with the freeze response. The freeze response is related to anxiety in several ways. For instance, the nervous system is responsible for interpreting our environment.
Freeze – Feeling stuck in a certain part of the body, feeling cold or numb, physical stiffness or heaviness of limbs, decreased heart-rate, restricted breathing or holding of the breath, a sense of dread or foreboding.
The freeze response, which makes the body immobile. You might feel paralysed or unable to move. This response is most often linked to dissociation. Dissociation in humans is like when animals freeze when they're in danger.
Freezing is often associated with traumatic experiences and can leave us paralysed in fear. In such distressing situations, the physical impact of our stress hormones are magnified, causing intense negative emotions including extreme shock, anxiety, panic and terror.
The freeze response is connected to:
anxiety and anxiety disorders. childhood trauma and neglect. adult psychological trauma. post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Numbness, tingling,or weakness. Or you may not be able to move a part or all of one side of the body (paralysis). Dimness, blurring, double vision, or loss of vision in one or both eyes. Loss of speech, trouble talking, or trouble understanding speech.
Many people with mid-stage to advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) experience “freezing.” Freezing is the temporary, involuntary inability to move. Not all people with PD experience freezing episodes, but those who do have a greater risk of falling. The problem can occur at any time.
Similar to when you zone out, emotional numbness happens unconsciously. It's the result of our minds disconnecting from our thoughts, actions, sense of self and sensory experience of the world around us. Nemmers describes it as a survival mechanism from our sympathetic nervous symptom.
We freeze when we feel completely helpless, meaning when the circumstances are so painful/stressful that we can't fight, and flight is not possible either. Sometimes, the freeze response is so ingrained in our minds that we don't even realize it is our go-to response.
The four dissociative disorders are: Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Depersonalization Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Frey, 2001; Spiegel & Cardeña, 1991).
Causes of chronic fight-or-flight mode
It could be stress from the past that has been hardwired into your brain, a concept referred to as negative plasticity. The neuron pathways in your brain have become highly efficient at stress so it takes less and less to trigger a stress response.
What Is Fawning? Fawning refers to a trauma response of appeasing, people-pleasing, and submissive behaviors. It is one of four response options (i.e., fight, flight, freeze, fawn), that the part of the brain which is responsible for survival will choose from when faced with prolonged interpersonal trauma.
Freeze. The freeze response, also known as the dissociative response, is when someone shuts down, either physically, mentally, or emotionally, when feeling triggered or experiencing pain. This can manifest as feeling numb, experiencing brain fog or memory loss, or completely dissociating during the stressful experience ...
The sympathetic nervous system instigates the fight or flight response whilst the parasympathetic stimulates the freeze response. The autonomic nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol, which are stress hormones. These hormones are largely responsible for the physiological changes which occur.
Freezing is not a passive state but rather a parasympathetic brake on the motor system, relevant to perception and action preparation.
Hypoarousal occurs when we feel under-whelmed, it is associated with low arousal levels and can impact our sleep, eating habits, mood and energy levels, it can be described as: a 'freeze' response.