Neural Jazz

I came across one of those social-media graphics yesterday.

“6 Subtle Signs You’re Living in High-Functioning ‘Freeze’ Mode.”

You know the type.

The list included:

Procrastinating simple tasks. Feeling emotionally numb or detached. Extreme physical fatigue that sleep doesn’t fix. Ignoring messages because replying feels overwhelming. Shallow breathing or unconsciously holding your breath. Chronic neck, shoulder or lower-back tightness.

And I recognised myself. Quite a lot, actually. That is precisely why the post bothered me. Because recognising yourself in a list of symptoms does not tell you why you have them.

Yet immediately underneath came the solution:

Comment “RESET” to get the 15-minute daily Nervous System Reset Blueprint to help you step out of freeze mode.

The account describes its territory with phrases such as:

🧠📚 Kinesiology & Psychology
🔓 Break free from survival mode
⚡ Body-based tools for regulation & recovery

And suddenly six enormously non-specific symptoms have acquired a specific explanation.

You are in freeze mode.

Fortunately, there is a reset for that.

A symptom is not a diagnosis

I have AuDHD, Fibromyalgia and Hypermobility.

On a sufficiently bad day, I can tick off most of that list without requiring “high-functioning freeze” to explain any of it.

Fibromyalgia alone can involve severe fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, cognitive difficulties, stiffness and widespread pain—including pain around the neck and back. The NHS describes severe fibromyalgia fatigue as something that can come on suddenly and drain you of all your energy. (NHS: Fibromyalgia — Symptoms)

ME/CFS can involve overwhelming fatigue, sleep problems, cognitive difficulties and symptoms worsening after physical or mental activity. The NHS also explicitly notes that its symptoms resemble those of other illnesses, which is why other possible causes need to be considered. (NHS: ME/CFS)

Depression can involve loss of motivation or interest, difficulty making decisions, lack of energy, disturbed sleep, unexplained aches and pains and withdrawing from social contact. (NHS: Clinical depression — Symptoms)

ADHD can involve difficulties with organisation, time management and completing tasks. (NHS: ADHD in adults)

And yes, stress can affect us physically and psychologically too.

That’s exactly the point.

Several different things can produce remarkably similar outputs.

So when someone says:

I am exhausted.
I can’t make myself do simple things.
I’m withdrawing from people.
I feel emotionally numb.
My body hurts.

the responsible next question isn’t: “Which reset do you need?”

It’s:“Why?”

I ask myself that question

There are days when I’ve used the word indifferent to describe myself.

Not sad. Not necessarily unhappy. Just… indifferent.

When my physical energy has been completely drained, emotional engagement can disappear with it. Things I normally care about can temporarily receive little more than a mental shrug.

And whenever that happens, somewhere in the back of my head I’m running another check:

Is this energy depletion—or am I beginning to lean towards depression?

Because from inside the experience, the boundary isn’t always conveniently labelled.

Earlier this year my physical condition deteriorated considerably. My HRV had fallen into the bottom 40s. My waking resting pulse, normally considerably lower, was reaching the upper 80s and 90s. My blood pressure concerned my GP enough that I was sent to have my heart checked.

I felt as though I was approaching collapse again.

So I asked for help. Physically and mentally.

I didn’t know that one necessarily caused the other. I didn’t know that they were separate either. That uncertainty was the reason to ask.

And I was fortunate enough that I could.

But what if someone can’t?

That’s the part of these posts that makes me angry rather than merely irritated.

Because there is something else uncomfortable happening here.

The need is real: tired people looking for help. The hook is the flattery.

High-functioning tells the reader something reassuring. You’re not ill. You’re not failing. You’re capable. Ambitious. Still getting things done.

You’re just a bit stuck.

And someone as competent as you can fix this with the right system.

That’s a remarkably comforting story to encounter when you’re already wondering what the hell has happened to you.

For someone sliding into depression—or struggling with an undiagnosed physical condition—that message can be dangerous twice over.

First, it can delay the conversation with a doctor.

Why make an appointment, explain yourself, undergo tests and sit with uncertainty when what you’re experiencing has already been named and a free 15-minute blueprint promises to address it?

The NHS advises seeking help when depression symptoms persist and affect everyday life. It also notes that a GP may use physical examinations or tests to exclude other conditions with similar symptoms, such as an underactive thyroid. (NHS: Clinical depression — Diagnosis)

Then comes what happens when the blueprint doesn’t work.

Because no amount of nervous-system resetting is going to diagnose anaemia, identify a thyroid disorder, diagnose fibromyalgia or substitute for appropriate assessment and treatment of clinical depression.

And the explanation has already located the problem inside your ability to regulate yourself.

So the failure can turn inward. I did the reset. I’m still frozen. So it must be me.

For someone already becoming depressed, that’s an especially cruel place to send them: another perceived personal failure to add to the pile.

The post doesn’t necessarily create the illness. But it can sell the entry ticket to a self-blaming loop.

And then there is the person who may not have enough energy, support or executive capacity left to question the premise in the first place.

Imagine someone who is completely exhausted.

They’re emotionally numb. They’re withdrawing from people. Answering a message feels enormous. They’re struggling to work. Their body hurts. They’re frightened by what is happening but don’t have much cognitive capacity left with which to investigate it.

Perhaps they’re depressed.

Perhaps they have a sleep disorder.

Perhaps they’re neurodivergent and severely depleted.

Perhaps they have a chronic pain or fatigue condition.

Perhaps they’re experiencing prolonged stress.

Perhaps something else is physically wrong.

Perhaps several of those things are happening simultaneously.

Getting proper help may mean making an appointment, explaining symptoms, filling in forms, advocating for yourself, waiting and tolerating uncertainty.

Then your phone gives you an easier answer: You’re in freeze mode.

And, even better: Comment RESET.

Certainty has a very low cognitive cost compared with investigation.

Especially when you’re exhausted.

The mechanism is almost too elegant

Feeling seen by an explanation doesn’t make the explanation correct. 

Yet the entire journey from: Something is wrong with me.

To: I know what’s wrong with me and what I need to do about it.

can happen before you’ve even left the post. The structure is almost painfully simple:

Need → Recognition → Flattery → Explanation → Certainty → Solution.

And when the person providing the explanation also happens to have the solution waiting immediately underneath it, perhaps another step belongs in there: Question.

Low-specificity symptoms. High-specificity explanation.

That’s the fundamental problem for me. The individual symptoms in posts like this don’t necessarily have to be false. The problem is the inference connecting them.

And when that inference concerns someone’s health, who is accountable for getting it wrong?

Six symptoms → one explanation → one solution.

Medicine often has to work in precisely the opposite direction.

For example, there is no single test for ME/CFS. The NHS says a GP should take a medical history and perform an examination, and may use blood or urine tests to rule out other conditions including anaemia, an underactive thyroid, and liver or kidney problems.

Why?

Because other conditions can produce similar symptoms. (NHS: ME/CFS — Diagnosis)

That isn’t indecision. That’s differential diagnosis. The same symptom can belong to multiple conditions. The same person can have multiple conditions.

And psychological and physical causes aren’t even mutually exclusive categories neatly separated by a fence.

Human bodies are annoyingly inconsiderate of social-media infographics.

And then there is “cortisol”

Another increasingly popular word in this space is cortisol.

“Cortisol reset.”

“Lower your cortisol.”

“Cortisol imbalance.”

“Get out of survival mode.”

Cortisol certainly exists, and it is involved in the stress response.

But cortisol isn’t simply some toxic stress juice that needs flushing from the body.

It’s an essential steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. It helps regulate blood sugar, metabolism, inflammation, blood pressure and other physiological functions. Its production is regulated through the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal glands—the HPA axis. (Endocrine Society: Adrenal Hormones)

Nor is cortisol supposed to remain at one constant “good” level. Cortisol secretion follows biological rhythms, including the well-studied increase associated with waking. (Endocrine Society: The Cortisol Awakening Response)

There are genuine medical disorders involving excessive or insufficient cortisol.

They are medical disorders.

So whenever cortisol appears beside reset, I want to know what “reset” actually means.

What is being measured?

What physiological abnormality has been established?

What exactly is being reset?

And what evidence demonstrates that the proposed intervention does it?

Those aren’t hostile questions.

They’re the questions health claims should survive.

The exercise might even help

And here’s the irritating nuance.A fifteen-minute breathing, stretching, relaxation or grounding routine might make somebody feel better.

I have absolutely no objection to that.

Stress-management techniques can be useful. Movement can be useful. Breathing exercises can be useful. Taking fifteen minutes away from whatever is overwhelming you can be useful.

But: An intervention making you feel better does not retrospectively prove the diagnosis used to sell it to you.

If I have fibromyalgia and a warm bath reduces my pain, I haven’t demonstrated that insufficient bathing caused fibromyalgia.

If somebody with depression feels calmer after breathing exercises, they haven’t demonstrated that their depression was actually “freeze mode.”

If somebody with an undiagnosed physical illness feels temporarily better after stretching, the illness hasn’t disappeared.

We need to separate: “This may help you feel better.”

From: “This explains why you feel this way.”

Those are completely different claims.

Perhaps the reset does work as a relaxation exercise.

Perhaps you slept slightly better that night. Perhaps your shoulders relaxed. Perhaps your breathing slowed. Perhaps you felt calmer for an hour.

None of that establishes what caused the symptoms in the first place.

Relief is not diagnosis.

The person I’m worried about isn’t me

Someone else might see themselves perfectly in those six boxes.

Someone who doesn’t already know how physical exhaustion can resemble emotional withdrawal. Someone who doesn’t have people to talk to, or enough energy, support or executive capacity left to question the explanation they’ve just been given.

Someone who is frightened because answering a message suddenly feels enormous. Because they don’t care about things they normally care about. Because they’re exhausted no matter how much they sleep.

And instead of asking: “Something is wrong. What could be causing this?”

they’ve already been handed the answer: “My nervous system is stuck in freeze.”

Perhaps they’ll spend fifteen minutes a day doing something harmless that helps them relax.

Perhaps it even helps.

But perhaps they’ll also spend weeks or months trying to “regulate” themselves out of fatigue, pain, withdrawal or emotional numbness that deserved medical or psychological attention.

And that is where a catchy infographic stops being merely annoying.

Because the danger isn’t necessarily contained in any individual sentence.

It’s hidden in the sequence.

The need is exhaustion.

The hook is flattery.

The reward is certainty.

The explanation is freeze.

The product is RESET.

And if it fails, the blame can land back on you.

Symptoms are clues.

They are not conclusions.