[00:00:00] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna and today I'm going to talk about maybe it's not burnout. Maybe you're stuck in functional freeze now, a lot of my work, I talk about burnout and a lot of people identify themselves as burnt out and some will not, right? Some will say, well, I've got a lot of the symptoms, but I don't think that I'm burnt out, right?
There are different stages to the stress response. So we've got like chronic stress but there's no burnout. There's no issues with the nervous system. Okay. Or then we have this kind of maladaptive stress response, which is called functional freeze. And then we have burnout.
So burnout is that end stage that people recognize that where you feel like you cannot get through your tasks. It's very hard to work. It's very hard to keep up with the responsibility to the point where you can't keep up with those things. Right. But functional freeze is different. It's where you can function, complete your tasks, but you're stuck in this kind of freeze mode, which feels like this tired and wired feeling.
[00:01:00] So you have this heightened anxiety, but this lack of desire to do anything. Okay, so you're kind of feeling in limbo.
Now, with our nervous system response, we have our fight or flight or freeze response. For some of my clients, a freeze response can look even more severe than some of the symptoms that I'm gonna go through. For some people, they notice that. They can't do the task like they'll get to a point in their day where they just feel so kind of frozen and They can't do their tasks and they had to have a nap or lay down or completely Just stop doing and withdraw from their work in order for their nervous system to relax, okay, but here are some of the symptoms to identify whether you are in this functional freeze.
And again, it's when our sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the fight or flight or freeze response is activated continuously. And it's telling us that we are not in a safe environment. And it's a reaction due to stress overload. or trauma. So the symptoms look like this, this ongoing low level anxiety.
[00:02:00] So you might wake up in the morning with this anxiety and feel like the sense of dread or something's going to go wrong, or it feels like something bad is going to happen in your day. You feel exhausted. Maybe you have this kind of nervous energy. You're tired, but you're wired. You rely on caffeine. You know, in the morning you rely on wine and chocolate at night.
Maybe you try to escape with Netflix and go to bed early or you're just, out on the couch. So there's tired and wired, this feeling on edge, like you could be easily set off. But even though you may not show that you're set off and that's another key example is that Internally, you're triggered, but you may not show that on the outside world.
There are sleep issues, either trouble falling asleep or you're waking up in the middle of the night. There is this desire to withdraw, to isolate yourself, to, you know, not socialize. You end up canceling plans at the last minute and you just kind of want to hang out on your own. You end up ignoring text messages, emails, and things start piling up,
[00:03:00] but you're kind of in this place where you're like, I don't care, or you don't give it a second thought, right? You completely ignore those things.
Taking care of yourself or your self care kind of goes downhill. So whether it be, you know, the way that you dress, your exercise and how you eat, and then there's This level of overwhelm that you may not be conscious of, but it leads to procrastination and then you don't end up doing anything. So you have all of these things to do, but you don't get anything done and then you beat yourself up.
But really there's a lot of, you know, internal stress going on that is preventing you from doing what you need to do.
So what causes the stress overload? Now there are many things like it can be a viral overload. If you've had a history or an infection of Epstein Barr virus or COVID or another viral infection, we can have chemical toxicity from our air, food and water, right? That can actually place so much burden on our system and put us into this kind of functional free state, poor digestive health.
[00:04:00] We have small daily traumas. That can activate this part of our stress response. And then mental and emotional stress. And maybe it was trauma in the past, but we've carried some habits forward in the way that we use our mind and our thinking. That we're constantly overthinking, stuck in this analytical mind.
We dwell on things. We can't let things go and that is keeping our nervous system stuck in a functional free state.
Now, back in 2016, the mitochondrion journal, which I'll explain what that is, and professor Robert Navio, he is a professor at the university of California. And he made a huge discovery and he found that there are three things that make us tired and that make us sick, right? And always these three things.
And he said, they make us tired and sick because they drain our batteries. So each of our cells has a battery called the mitochondria. And these three things drain our mitochondria and they create a lot of inflammation in the system.
[00:05:00] Now, you may have heard me say this before, but inflammation is at the heart of every symptom and condition that we know to mankind.
So, this response that he found, which he called the cell danger response, is really, really important. And that is why he says, is the three things that make us tired and sick. So what are they? Number one, it's physical trauma. So if you've broken a bone or been in an accident, that's one, but there's also toxicity from our environment.
So we get it in the pollution, in our air, in our food, and in our water, right? But we should be able to detoxify those things. The second one is microbial infections or any kind of infections. Anything that activates the immune system creates more inflammation and Impacts the mitochondria. The third thing, and actually what he found was the linchpin was psychological stress.
So psychological stress, a mental and emotional stress, so we're not even talking about what's happening in our day to day life, but how we are processing it, right?
[00:06:00]And the psychological stress overrides the other systems, so it stops our body from, or our detox systems from clearing out all the toxicity in our air, food, and water, and It lowers our immunity and it makes us prone to infection.
So really the psychological stress was a really huge area that if we can reduce that and improve the other systems, we can improve our energy and our stress response.
Now, he called this the cell danger response. And all that means is that our mitochondria is meant to produce energy. Okay, so we have it in our cells in the body. It is designed to produce all our energy so we can do our day to day tasks, cope with stress and cope with whatever comes our way. But when the cell danger response is activated due to All of those factors that I mentioned a viral infection or mental and emotional stress, etc.
Our cells detect a threat in the environment. And instead of producing energy anymore.
[00:07:00]They prioritize their energy and focus to being a defense signal. So they go into defense mode. And what that means is that they're really kind of sounding the alarm to the cells in your body that it's not safe. I don't feel safe.
There's a threat in our environment and we need to now prioritize signaling for this threat and not prioritizing producing energy.
So something that is meant to produce this energy and, again, help us to adapt to stress and give us the energy that we need is now being used. used as an early detection signal.
So what can we do if you are feeling in this place where you go, okay, I'm not in burnout. But I definitely feel anxious, exhausted, I am relying on caffeine, chocolate and wine. I am withdrawn from people and my tasks and it's annoying because I know I have so much to do, but I just don't want to do it.
Almost like a numb feeling. Right? And so if this is you, well, what can you do? Well, we want to address the cell danger response.
[00:08:00] So we want to reduce or remove toxicity in our environment. So we want to make sure that you're eating a healthy diet, cutting out processed foods, having regular meals, having good amounts of nutrition in your diet.
Okay. So cutting out sugars and alcohol and chocolate as best that you can, because if you're relying on those foods as a crutch, it may feel harder for you to cut them out at the moment. Okay. But the best you can, you want to make sure that you're eating more home prepared meals than anything processed or anything takeaway.
Second thing is to deal with any underlying infections. So sometimes it can be history of infection, maybe it's post COVID. But another really big area to look at is our gut health because we have 70 percent of our immune system around our gut. So we're looking at gut microbiome, which play a huge role in our immunity.
So. Clearing up infections and making sure you have proper digestive health to sustain high levels of immunity.
And thirdly, you want to reduce mental and emotional stress. I mean, this sounds easier said than done.
[00:09:00] But normally what I'll ask my clients is, What do you dwell on the most? What is on your mind? What area in your life or work or family relationship do you dwell on? It causes you to feel the most stress or creates a lot of thinking for you.
What are those things? Really identify where the patterns are that activating this stress response all day long.
Other ways to reduce stress is get out into nature, do a nature walk. It lowers cortisol, even getting a massage because when you're in functional freeze, you really want to. Get more into the body, be a bit more present, because there is this real disconnect when we're in functional freeze. And so we want to be able to be more present.
So nature, massages, anything that helps you to relax that's not relying on Netflix or anything that numbs you out.
Okay, so just to go over it. Yes, you can be in functional freeze where you feel heightened anxiety without the desire to do anything, but you feel exhausted, You have poor sleep.
[00:10:00]You may have issues with digestion and you just want to withdraw from the world. You just feel like, you know, you just want to isolate and just be on your own.
And so you end up ignoring things and things start piling up. So if you're in that state, there is a lot that you can do. One, reducing toxicity in your environment, improving your diet. number two is making sure that you address any underlining infections and improve your immune system.
And number three, reducing. Mental and emotional stress. These are the ways that we signal to the body. That we are safe on a cellular level. Okay. And then that starts to change our biology. It allows us to cope with our everyday demands and helps us to thrive. So
I'd love to hear from you in the comments who identifies with having functional freeze, this kind of maladaptive stress response where you're not burnt out. But you definitely have those symptoms and you know that it's impacting you, right? You know that it's affecting your work, your relationships, your time with your kids and quality of life.
Let me know in the comments below.
