Blanking in meetings and freezing during presentations arise from an automatic bodily response to perceived threat. Heart rate can spike, breathing can shallow, and cognitive access can collapse so answers vanish despite prior preparation. The freeze response is a common, often misunderstood stress reaction distinct from fight or flight, and it frequently occurs in workplace situations. The amygdala detects perceived threats, including unexpected questions, and triggers the body's alarm system. The nervous system rapidly weighs fight, flight, or freeze options; workplace constraints often preclude fighting or fleeing, making freeze the likely outcome. Freezing looks different from fight/flight. When you freeze, your sympathetic nervous system floods your body with stress
You know that moment when someone asks you a question in a meeting and your mind goes completely blank? Or when you're sitting in a high-stakes presentation and you feel like you can't move, can't speak, can't think? While it can feel like your mind and body are totally betraying you, what's actually happening is that your nervous system is doing exactly what it's designed to do when it perceives a threat.
Picture this: It's Monday morning, you're in the quarterly review meeting, and your boss turns to you and says, "So, walk us through what went wrong with the Johnson project." Your heart starts pounding, your breathing gets shallow, and suddenly it's like your brain has been wrapped in cotton wool. You know the answer-you've been thinking about nothing but this project for weeks-but in that moment, nothing comes out. You just sit there, frozen, while everyone stares at you.
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