Have you ever experienced being in a challenging discussion with a friend or family member when your mind goes blank and you’re suddenly unable to find any words to say. Afterwards, you may think of lots you wish you had said but in the moment you froze.
This is your freeze response showing up. It can also be at play when you’re unable to make a necessary decision or have a repeated sense of feeling ‘stuck’ and unable to get yourself out of the situation you’re in.
Occasionally, this might happen to one of my clients when they’re recalling a situation they find hard to discuss. This may be because they feel conflict about speaking the truth about the scenario because it reflects badly on someone in their life. But more frequently, it shows up when clients are reflecting on their response to a difficult experience. In that moment, they felt unable to act or respond authentically, instead they simply froze.
In this post, I’ll explore what the freeze response is, how it shows up in daily life, and why it’s often misunderstood, especially when it seems counterintuitive. This is the latest in my series of posts about trauma and the common trauma responses.
What the freeze response is
The freeze response can be interpreted as laziness or a lack of motivation when it’s actually a profound survival response.
Unlike the fight and flight responses which trigger action towards or away from danger, the freeze response is characterised by immobilisation. The American Psychological Association define it as a form of passive avoidance1. I think the most helpful image to characterise it is that of an animal in the wild which plays dead to keep itself safe from its predator.
All of the common trauma responses are activated by our autonomic nervous system trying to protect us. However, the freeze response is triggered by a different division of the nervous system to fight and flight. Whilst the latter are a response by the sympathetic nervous system or hyperarousal, freeze is a response from the parasympathetic nervous system. You might also have heard the parasympathetic nervous system described as our ‘rest and digest’ response.
In situations where someone is unable to win (fight response) or escape (flight response), the body may choose immobilisation (freeze response). According to Polyvagal Theory, this hypoarousal state is activated from the most primitive element of our brain, the dorsal vagal nerve2. It’s what triggers the ‘playing dead’ response which is experienced across species.
I always think of the freeze as a great example of our biological genius. It’s protective intelligence at its best. To conserve energy, reduce the prospect of pain and create psychological distance for unbearable situations, the nervous system chooses immobilisation.
Everyday signs of the freeze response
The freeze response can be very uncomfortable to experience, especially because it typically shows up in ways that seem like avoidance and inaction. This can bring a lot of shame and frustration to those who experience it.
Some everyday examples can include:
– Procrastination or a sense of paralysis when you have important tasks to tackle
– A physical heaviness, being unable to get out of bed or off the sofa and the inability to take action
– Feeling emotionally shut down in relationships or social situations
– Being a deer in the headlights – aware of things which are confronting you but unable to move
– A sense of being ‘zoned out’, numb or dissociated
– The inability to stop doomscrolling, even though you want to
You may be thinking that this sounds like avoidance, but the reality is that it’s an inability to act. Because it can be associated with low mood, it may be brushed off as depression, however, freeze has a distinct physiological signature. I see in clients how it generates distress because it feels so counter to their desire to achieve goals and be successful in life.
The protective role of immobility
For people struggling with freeze, it can be of some comfort to understand that it’s not laziness but their deepest survival wisdom at play.
Fundamentally, freeze is protection. Its numbing quality means we don’t have to tackle the pain or issues it’s protecting us from.
Freeze often stems from situations in which an individual was unable to fight back or escape. This may have been when they were a child or in an abusive relationship at home or work. You can think of the freeze response as ‘I can’t fight, I can’t feel, so I’m going to disappear’.
Modern triggers and lasting impact
The freeze response is our body hitting an emergency brake. It’s our nervous system moving into a shutdown state and this can happen in daily life. Our heart rate and energy levels drop, our muscles can feel heavy and thinking, speech and motivation can begin to go offline.
In freeze, you may know what you want to say or do but are unable to access it because the prefrontal cortex – our brain’s hub for reasoning and decision making – becomes less active.
It’s important to know that this hasn’t happened because you’re incapable or lazy. It’s happened because your system wants to protect you from further overwhelm. Common triggers can be intimacy or things that make you feel vulnerable, confrontation, performance situations, and decision making under pressure.
For people who have experienced a form of trauma, this protective mechanism can become highly sensitive. This means the nervous system may respond to everyday stressors as if they are dangerous, even if there is no immediate threat.
If someone has experienced unpredictable or inescapable stress in childhood, their adverse experiences may have created a freeze-dominant nervous system.
Amongst my clients, freeze can show up for perfectionists when they’re facing potential failure, for anxiety sufferers when they’re feeling overwhelmed, or for those with eating issues or body image concerns when they are facing food decisions.
When the freeze response becomes difficult
When freeze becomes chronic, it can create significant challenges such as:
– Depression-like symptoms
– Feeling stuck in life, career, relationships etc
– Living in a state of shutdown and numbness
– Difficulty accessing emotions or desires
– Being regarded as lazy, unengaged or unmotivated by others
– Shame about being unable to ‘just do it’
Over time, freeze can create issues in the body such as chronic pain, digestive problems and immune system difficulties. It can cause fatigue, difficulty with concentration, and make it hard to maintain relationships with others.
The inertia of freeze compared to the action of fight and flight can be tortuous. This is because it can be a hard state to shift out of without uncovering some of the root causes.
Learning to work with the freeze response
Because freeze is so internal, it’s frequently misunderstood. Therefore, a starting point is to help an individual to gain an understanding of their freeze states. Validating their responses and helping them to realise it’s protective rather than weakness can be really helpful.
It’s important to gain an understanding of the issues which cause the freeze response to take hold. This can take time because you might not be conscious of the reasons or realise that your responses are actually due to trauma.
It’s important to take your time with freeze. Pushing too much too soon has the potential to increase shutdown.
In counselling, the focus tends to be on helping the nervous system to feel safe enough to come back online. This begins with developing awareness of when you feel stuck, numb or checked out and building your capacity for sensation.
Feeling your way through body-based techniques rather than thinking your way out of freeze can be helpful. For example, this might involve noticing your breath, feeling your feet on the ground or orientating to your surroundings by naming what you can see or hear.
It’s about teaching your system that the present moment is safer than the past and your nervous system doesn’t need to rely on old ways of keeping you safe.
Reflection prompts
Where are you feeling ‘stuck’ or unable to move forward?
When you find it hard to act or speak, what thoughts do you have about yourself?
What physical sensations accompany your freeze response e.g. heaviness, blankness?
If your freeze response could speak, what might it be trying to protect you from?
Moving toward presence
Healing the freeze response isn’t about forcing yourself into action. It’s about slowly building your body’s capacity to stay present, even when discomfort arises.
As your nervous system learns that you’re safe, the need to shut down can begin to ease. You might still feel the familiar heaviness or blankness, but you’ll have more choice in how you respond.
Your freeze response protected you when you had no other options. It helped you survive the unsurvivable. That wisdom doesn’t need to be fought against, it needs to be understood and gently updated.
The thawing happens gradually, and that’s exactly as it should be. With patience and self-compassion, you can teach your system that presence is possible, even when things feel hard.
In my next post in this series, I’ll explore the fawn response. If you’d like to read the previous posts about trauma and the fight and flight responses, you can find them via the links below:
The Fight Response – When Protection Looks Like Anger
The Flight Response – When Escape Feels Like Safety
1 APA (2026). APA Dictionary of Psychology. [online] Apa.org. Available at: https://dictionary.apa.org/freezing-behavior.
2 Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
