Counteracting Shutdown

Show your survival brain that, right now, you are safe

This doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about in the future, but feelings of paralysis come from being stuck in our survival brain. Demonstrating to ourselves that we are physically safe in this moment is a necessary first step to give us access to the parts of our brain we will need for the next steps.

Reassuring your survival brain that you're safe may look like:

Moving your body to release tension (exercise, shaking your body, going for a walk, etc.)
Doing a guided meditation on feeling safe
A 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise (notice 5 things you see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste)
Breathing with exhales longer than your inhales
Any sort of meditation or mindfulness practice
A walk in nature where you deliberately notice your surroundings
Lying on a hammock or on the beach until you are bored
Or anything else that works

The key is to pay full attention to what is physically around you right now and to notice that in this moment, you are not being eaten. Nothing is physically attacking you.

Okay, I'm safe. Now what?

But I'm not safe

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Why this action?

Shutting down is a natural human response to feeling vulnerable and helpless. Our nervous systems have powerful mechanisms in place to defend us against threat, the most well known of which is the "fight or flight" response. Other responses can include freeze (in which so much tension is locked in our system that we become paralyzed) or even collapse (where we shut down entirely).

Your desire to shut down many come from a variety of places. Avoiding thinking about the news is a common flight response. Feeling paralyzed is a common freeze response, and giving up can be a collapse response. What they all have in common, however, is that they arise when a deeply powerful part of our brain is triggered, the part responsible for our most basic physical survival.

Our survival brain (sometimes called our lizard brain) is powerful, but limited. Designed to deal with situations of immediate, physical peril, it diverts resources away from everything that is not immediately essential for surviving the next few minutes. This includes slowing digestion and other less essential bodily functions, but it also includes diverting resources away from non-essential parts of our brain. This reduces our ability to manage social interactions, think creatively, have compassion for strangers, learn, engage in complex problem solving, etc. We also often lose access to parts of our memory.

In order to get the rest of our brain back online, we need to reassure our inner lizard that nothing is going to eat us right now. Only then will it go back to basking on a rock and let us take stock of what we need to do. The purpose of the action above is to demonstrate to your survival brain that there is no immediate physical threat. Instead, you are physically safe, you are fed, your immediate needs are met, and there are abundant resources around you. Once it is calmed down, then you can access your brain again so you can effectively plan for how to respond to future worries.

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