About this video

• Video Title: Why You Shut Down Sometimes
• Channel: Dr. Scott Eilers
• Speakers: Dr. Scott Eilers
• Duration: 00:20:52

Overview

This video explains the "freeze response," a psychological reaction to overwhelming stress or perceived danger where individuals become unable to act. Dr. Scott Eilers details the neurobiology behind this response, explaining how the amygdala (the brain's security system) diverts resources from the frontal lobe, hindering executive functions. He then provides strategies to overcome the freeze response by focusing on small, achievable actions and celebrating these successes to signal safety to the brain.

Key takeaways

• The Freeze Response: This is a survival mechanism triggered by life-threatening danger or overwhelming cumulative life stressors, causing a shutdown of normal functioning.
• Neurobiological Basis: The amygdala, part of the midbrain, misinterprets stressors as danger, diverting resources from the frontal lobe (responsible for conscious thought, planning, and emotional regulation) to survival functions.
• Impact on Functionality: When the frontal lobe is offline, individuals lose the ability to regulate emotions, inhibit behavior, engage socially, plan, and orient themselves in time and space, leading to a state of being non-functional.
• Ineffectiveness of Motivation: Trying to motivate someone (or oneself) out of a freeze response by emphasizing consequences or importance only adds to the stress and worsens the situation.
• Effective Strategy: Small Victories: The key to overcoming the freeze response is to engage in the smallest possible actions and then celebrate these actions extravagantly to provide a dopamine boost and signal to the amygdala that the danger is not imminent. This helps reallocate resources back to the frontal lobe.