From a trauma perspective, procrastination may occur when certain parts of a traumatic memory that has not been processed fully are unconsciously triggered. An individual may not be able to understand why they put things off, or have a strong emotional response to being asked to do something.
Freeze response is often accompanied by a sense of paralysis, numbness, or detachment, whereas procrastination may manifest as fidgeting, restlessness, or distraction. It's important to note that trauma responses and procrastination can coexist or overlap, and it's not always easy to tell the difference.
People react to and deal with trauma in different ways, but procrastination has been identified as a way for people with PTSD to avoid negative and uncomfortable emotions.
In short: yes. Procrastination isn't a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.
These unprocessed traumas take up space and effect the way you think and feel and even see the world. They show up as procrastination, anxiety or irritability.
'” Psychologists have discovered that procrastination isn't a time management thing but instead a coping mechanism. When we procrastinate, we're avoiding an unpleasant task and doing something else that gives us a temporary mood boost.
Procrastination is a self-defeating behavior pattern, but it can be seen as serving a psychological purpose, especially for people with perfectionist tendencies, by protecting the individual against fear of failure, judgment by others, and self-condemnation.
You're deliberately avoiding your trauma by throwing yourself into overdrive. PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) affects many people. If you have PTSD and can make it through your day despite any symptoms you feel, you might be a bit of a workaholic.
Procrastination as a Symptom
Procrastination may sometimes stem from underlying factors such as trauma, anxiety, or depression. When faced with a task at work, the flight response can be triggered, leading to a cycle of avoidance behaviors.
Essentially, procrastination is driven by avoiding or managing a bad mood — it is a short-term response to a negative emotion. The task being put off may be unpleasant, or an individual may feel insecure about handling the task due to low self-esteem or anxiety.
Why Avoidance Coping Is Unhealthy. Procrastination is one example. If something that we have to do stressing us out, we might avoid doing it or even try to stop thinking about it. However, we typically don't stop thinking about whatever it is that needs to be done.
Procrastination is not laziness: it's a behavior caused by the stress in our lives or unfounded negative beliefs we have about ourselves. If you tend to procrastinate, don't be hard on yourself. Instead, ask yourself if your behavior may be linked to fear, anxiety, ADHD, or another underlying issue.
Antidote 1: Self-Care
The first thing to ask yourself, if you're procrastinating, is: “Am I tired? Do I need to take care of myself?” Often my procrastinating is simply because I haven't been getting good rest, or I've been doing so much that I'm tiring myself out.
In short, procrastination can be understood as poor mood regulation in the form of avoidant coping that shifts the focus to “feeling good now” [35], but at the cost of reaching goals.
Perfectionism. Traditionally, procrastination has been associated with perfectionism: a tendency to negatively evaluate outcomes and one's own performance, intense fear and avoidance of evaluation of one's abilities by others, heightened social self-consciousness and anxiety, recurrent low mood, and "workaholism".
In summary, ADHD is strongly associated with increased procrastination, and procrastination is sometimes even considered a direct symptom of ADHD. Furthermore, ADHD is associated with other issues, such as anxiety, that can also lead to procrastination.
The 4 Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Examining The Four Trauma Reactions. According to a research on the neurobiological consequences of psychological trauma, our bodies are designed to respond to perceived threats with a set of near-instantaneous, reflexive survival behaviors.
The 'fight or flight' response is how people sometimes refer to our body's automatic reactions to fear. There are actually 5 of these common responses, including 'freeze', 'flop' and 'friend', as well as 'fight' or 'flight'.
As mentioned above, the four types of trauma responses are: fight, flight, freeze or fawn. You may have one or more of them at different times and under different circumstances: The flight response can be defined as getting away from the situation as quickly as possible.
Such procrastinators can also be called neurotic procrastinators, if they're high in the neuroticism personality trait. Perfectionistic procrastinators, who are concerned about being imperfect or doing things imperfectly, so they delay things like publishing their work once it's ready.
As Sirois explains, every person faces stressful situations, demanding tasks that trigger brain activity that involves a brain region known amygdala. And it's the amygdala that processes emotions and signals threats, capable of prompting a 'fight or flight' response linked to procrastination.
Many people with anxiety can also struggle with procrastination. People procrastinate for many reasons and in many ways. Some struggle with intolerance of uncertainty, which causes them to procrastinate. Their anxiety may also overcomplicate the issue and make it difficult to decide where to start.
We give our brain what feels good now. In fact, procrastination can also be seen as the result of a battle between your present self and your future self. “We have a brain that is selected for preferring immediate reward. Procrastination is the present self saying I would rather feel good now.
Procrastination is the act of putting off something until a later time. We procrastinate when we know what to do, but put off doing it until later. This can lead to feelings of anxiety and guilt. It can also leave us feeling unproductive, lazy, and ineffectual.