You’re Not Lazy — You’re Likely in Freeze: Understanding the Shutdown Response

by GGC clinician: Liz Bohnsak

You start your day with good intentions. You know what needs to get done. You want to do it. You might even make a list. But when it’s time to begin, your body feels heavy, your mind goes foggy, or you find yourself staring at the same spot, unable to take the first step. You might call it procrastination, lack of motivation, or laziness, but what you’re actually experiencing is often far more humane and biologically grounded.

It’s called the freeze response, and it’s a built-in survival state that activates when your nervous system senses overwhelm or threat. Not imagined threat, simply too much for your system in the moment.

You’re Not Stuck — You’re in Freeze

Freeze is part of the body’s natural defense sequence, described in the literature as the “defense cascade.” PMC When fighting back or running away isn’t possible or you don’t feel safe, the body shifts into an energy-conserving state. It can look like shutting down, spacing out, going quiet, or feeling unable to move forward.

Trauma expert Janina Fisher captures this beautifully when she writes, “The body responds to threat long before our conscious mind has any idea what’s happening.” (Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors) Even if you don’t think of your experience as “trauma,” her words highlight an essential truth: freeze doesn’t come from laziness or lack of motivation. It comes from a nervous system trying to stay safe, often faster than you can think or reason your way through.

Even if you don’t identify as “traumatized,” the physiology helps explain why your body may react with shutdown during stress, conflict, emotional overload, or long-term exhaustion. Freeze isn’t chosen. It isn’t weakness. It’s biology. As recent research puts it, “freezing is a sophisticated survival strategy, a neurobiological reaction when fight or flight are not viable.” PM2 In other words, your body holds what it cannot process, and freeze (or shutdown) is often not a failure, but a built-in protective mechanism.

How Freeze Shows Up in Everyday Life

Freeze can be subtle. It doesn't always look like panic or collapse. More often it looks like:

• Feeling numb, blank, or disconnected
• Knowing what to do but being unable to start
• Intense fatigue or heaviness
• Feeling “out of it,” zoned out, or foggy
• Getting overwhelmed by decisions
• Going on autopilot or avoiding tasks that matter

These are survival responses, not failures of willpower. The body temporarily shuts down higher-level functioning so it can conserve energy and protect you from perceived overload.

Why Freeze Can Feel So Shameful

Because the freeze response impacts motivation, clarity, and energy, it can often be misinterpreted as laziness. For many of us, this misunderstanding began early in life. Freeze responses in children can be especially hard to recognize, as the freeze behaviors can often look like disinterest, defiance, or distraction. Without taking a moment to get the full picture or the right context or if we are too influenced by our own childhood experience (consciously or subconsciously), adults may label these behaviors more negatively or assume it is a behavior choice of the child. But freeze is not a choice, it is automatic, fast, and unconscious.

Shame makes freeze so much worse. When you judge yourself, your body tightens further, making it even harder to move out of shutdown. We know from research the least effective way to change a behavior is through punishment compared to reinforcement. SP  Yet all too often that is how we treat ourselves during a freeze. (I don’t know about you, but my inner self-critic is screaming some pretty awful stuff when I’m stuck!) That’s why reframing the experience, “My body is overwhelmed, not lazy,” is not only compassionate but necessary to move out of a freeze response. 

Why Neurodivergent Freeze Brings Extra Shame

For individuals who are neurodivergent, freeze can be amplified or misunderstood because it overlaps with traits of neurodiversity such as ADHD or autism. Often, the biggest areas of struggle for neurodiverse folks are executive functioning skills (e.g., task initiation, working memory, organizing steps, sustained attention) and sensory/emotional overload (e.g., suddenly going quiet, needing to withdraw, feeling unable to speak, mentally “checking out”, physical stillness or heaviness). The neurodivergent nervous system is much more prone to freeze and shutdown responses. It often has lower thresholds for overwhelm, faster sensory fatigue, and greater difficulty shifting out of shutdown once it begins. 

How to Work With Freeze Gently

You don’t break through freeze with force. You coax your body back into safety with small, doable steps:

1. Start with micro-movement. Tiny movements help your system re-engage as movement tells your body: “It’s safe to come back.”

• Shift your weight
• Roll your shoulders
• Wiggle your fingers
• Stretch for 10 seconds

2. Lower stimulation. Reduce sensory load when overwhelmed, your system can’t unfreeze when it’s still overstimulated.

• Dim lights
• Pause notifications
• Reduce noise
• Step into a quiet space
• Use grounding strategies (a favorite of mine is utilizing the 5 senses: name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste.)

3. Use naming without judgment. Naming or labeling your emotions and body sensations activates the part of the brain that helps regulate emotion.

Try: “I’m noticing I’m shutting down,” or “I am overwhelmed,” or “I’m feeling tension in my body.”  

4. Break tasks into tiny completion points. Micro-wins generate momentum and get that dopamine flowing again. 

• Set a timer of 5-10 minutes dedicated to a task (more often than not, you end up going longer than the timer!) 
• Instead of “clean the kitchen” it’s divided into put the dishes in the sink, sweep the floor, clear off counter/table, etc. 
• Utilize “task pairing”: combine harder tasks with comfort or preferred tasks. (e.g., “Once I put the laundry away I can scroll for 10 minutes.)
• Allow yourself to lower expectations when you notice a freeze. Respond to just one email, not five.

5. Schedule recovery time before and after demanding tasks. This is especially important for neurodivergent folks.
6. Seek relational regulation. Freeze is often softened through safe connection. Humans unfreeze best in connected with others in some way, not isolation.

• Talking to someone supportive
• A grounding voice (i.e. a guided meditation, your favorite song.)
• Co-regulation with a partner or friend. (Body doubling is having another person present as you complete a task and is often very effective!)
• A pet

*Remember there is no “perfect” way to complete tasks. A freeze can often be amplified by focusing on the most effective use of time, what is most important, or what is the “right” choice.   

When It Might Be Time for Support

If freeze is:

• Frequent
• Causing shutdowns that impact work or school
• Affecting relationships
• Leaving you stuck in cycles of guilt
• Intertwined with past overwhelm or trauma

Therapeutic support can help your nervous system learn new patterns. Approaches that incorporate body-based awareness, gentle processing, emotional regulation skills, and neurodiversity-affirming strategies can make a real difference. You don’t need to power through alone.

A Reframe to Carry With You

You are not lazy.
You are not unmotivated.
You are not broken.

Your nervous system is trying to protect you, albeit sometimes too quickly, sometimes too intensely, sometimes in ways that don’t match the moment.

But protection is not failure.

With understanding, support, and small steps, your body can learn safety again. You can move from shutdown into steadier energy, clearer thinking, and a kinder relationship with yourself.

And the next time you find yourself frozen, you can say: “This is a response, not a character flaw. I’m allowed to move gently and be kind to myself.”

Fisher, Janina (2017). Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation. Routledge Publishing. 

Kozlowska, K., Walker, P., McLean, L., & Carrive, P. (2015). Fear and the defense cascade: Clinical implications and management. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 23(4), 263–287. Fear and the Defense Cascade: Clinical Implications and Management - PMC

McLeod, S. (2025, October 17). Operant conditioning: What it is, how it works, and examples. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.htmlOperant 

Roelofs, K. (2017). Freeze for action: Neurobiological mechanisms in animal and human freezing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 372(1718), 20160206. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0206 PMC