For 28-year-old research scholar Ahalya Basu* (name changed), life has quietly dulled into a loop of repetition. “Every day feels the same. I wake up, attend to my research work, and tick off to-do lists, but I feel like I’m not living my life anymore. I just go through the motions; function on autopilot,” she says. To the outside world, she’s productive and composed. Internally, she describes herself as emotionally disengaged. For 35-year-old marketing executive Rohan Mehta*, life is a streamlined hustle. His days are filled with meetings, networking events, deadlines, and presentations. He works out regularly, has a buzzing social calendar, and is regarded as dependable and driven by colleagues, friends and family alike. Yet, in quieter moments, a strange hollowness creeps in. “Nothing excites me anymore. Not even the things that once made me feel alive,” he says. The disconnect became noticeable after a series of personal losses—his father’s sudden passing, followed by a painful breakup. “I’m not sad; just... switched off,” Mehta sighs.
What both individuals are experiencing is ‘Functional Freeze’, a lesser-known trauma response where individuals continue daily activities, yet feel emotionally numb or disconnected. This state typically occurs as a response to intense past or ongoing stress and overstimulation that the body cannot deal with. “In clinical terms, functional freeze refers to a dissociative or numbed-down survival state where the nervous system is stuck in a prolonged freeze response, yet the individual continues to function outwardly,” explains psychotherapist Snigdha Mishra. “Though not a clinical disorder, it’s a subtle form of nervous system dysregulation rooted in chronic stress or trauma.”
Unlike burnout, which typically results from chronic workplace stress leading to exhaustion and decreased performance, or depression, functional freeze manifests as disconnection. People in a functional freeze might appear ‘fine’ or even highly productive, but they’re emotionally numb, unengaged, or detached.
Cognitive signs often encompass foggy thinking or difficulty concentrating, over-intellectualising emotions, suppressing feelings subconsciously, confusion, difficulty making decisions, reduced responsiveness, speechlessness, memory retrieval issues, a sense of unreality, racing thoughts, hypervigilance or a pervasive sense of operating on ‘autopilot’.
Physical symptoms may include feeling tense, having difficulty breathing, experiencing headaches, stomachaches, or an increased heart rate. “Functional freeze happens due to chronic trauma—anything that makes a person distressed emotionally over time,” explains Dr Debanjan Banerjee, Neuropsychiatrist at APOLLO Multispecialty Hospitals, Kolkata. “The person outwardly appears fine, but inwardly there is significant accumulated stress that usually makes a person quite broken.” This state is managed by the body’s stress response systems, including the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. “The dorsal vagal nerve mediates it, and there is a release of cortisol, the stress hormone, and hyperactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The body resorts to freeze, and when this state is never discharged through healing, it becomes the default setting,” adds Dr Banerjee.
Under extreme stress, fragments of the experience get stored in the brain. When a similar trigger appears, even if unrelated, the brain reactivates that trauma. To cope, the body may disconnect the inner self, like a computer freezing when the network falters, entering a functional freeze to keep going.
Psychologist Sruthi Ravindran explains: “Many people now face higher levels of loneliness, long hours of physical immobility, and mounting socio-cultural pressures. With less time for fun or meaningful recreation, and rising dependence on substances, technology, and convenience, we find ourselves locked into lifestyles that may look efficient on the surface but are deeply unhealthy at their core.” Overcoming functional freeze involves both self-awareness and intentional practices to reconnect with one’s emotions and body. Accept, and counter it, advise the experts. Move to break the freeze.