Here's why change is so exhausting, according to neuroscience

Organizations are subjecting people to continuous change through restructuring, digital transformation, remote and hybrid transitions, supply chain reorganization, and rapid AI adoption. Resistance and disengagement can stem from physiological effects rather than motivation alone. The autonomic nervous system shapes inner experience across valence and arousal. During change, uncertainty, mixed signals, rising workloads, tight deadlines, and shifting dynamics can trigger threat responses. The sympathetic system mobilizes, raising heart rate, narrowing focus, contracting working memory, and reducing executive function needed for transformation. When dysregulation persists, many people remain in hyperarousal with limited access to calm, focused states, reflected in company and population-level data.

"Organizations today are running what amounts to a continuous stress experiment on their people. Restructuring, digital transformation, remote and hybrid transitions, supply chain reorganisation and the rapid arrival of AI -change has become the permanent condition of working life. Leaders are puzzled or irritated when people resist, disengage or seem unable to get on board."

"Understanding this begins with the autonomic nervous system. We experience our inner lives across two dimensions-valence (negative to positive) and arousal (low to high) (see chart below). The upper-left quadrant of this space-high arousal, negative valence-is where we find the states of fear, alarm, anger, tension and distress. It is also, not coincidentally, where most find themselves during organisational change."

"Uncertainty about roles, mixed leadership signals, rising workloads, tight deadlines and shifting dynamics signal threat to the body. In response, the sympathetic system mobilises. Heart rate rises, focus narrows, working memory contracts, and executive function-the capacity to think, decide and regulate-is downshifted as resources shift to survival. This is adaptive in a real emergency. In a reorganisation, it makes people worse at the very thinking transformation demands."

"For many, this is not temporary. Population-level data shows a growing share of the workforce is not just stressed but dysregulated-stuck in hyperarousal, with limited access to calm, focused states. This is reflected in both our company data and long-term Gallup data."

Read at Fast Company