When Every Day Feels Like Fight-or-Flight

Christi Young
Nov 16
3 min read

Living in Fight-or-Flight at Work:

Why Your Body Feels on Edge and Your Mind Feels Overwhelmed**

There are seasons when work doesn’t just feel stressful—it feels threatening. Not because anything dangerous is happening, but because your nervous system is reacting as if you’re under attack. Your heart races over simple tasks. Your mind jumps from one thing to another. Your body stays tense long after the moment passes.

You try to calm down, but the stress keeps rising. You try to focus, but interruptions keep pulling you back into survival mode. You’re not imagining this—you’re living in fight-or-flight at work.

What Fight-or-Flight Feels Like at Work

Fight-or-flight isn’t dramatic. Most of the time it looks like:

Feeling on edge before you even walk in the door
Being startled easily
Overreacting to small things because your body is already tense
Feeling jumpy, rushed, or easily irritated
Struggling to settle your thoughts
Worrying about things that used to feel simple
Feeling like you need to “push through” every hour of the day

You might catch yourself thinking:

“I can’t relax.”“I’m always behind.”“I’m waiting for something else to go wrong.”

This isn’t a character flaw.It’s your nervous system trying to protect you—in an environment that keeps overwhelming you.

Why Work Triggers Survival Mode

Your brain enters fight-or-flight when it senses instability or threat. In the workplace, that often shows up as:

1. Constant Interruptions

Each interruption forces your mind to switch directions.Your brain never gets to complete a thought, a task, or a moment of rest.

2. Unpredictable Demands

Last-minute changes, shifting priorities, or someone needing an answer “now” create the exact kind of instability your nervous system hates.

3. Emotional Tone of the Environment

If others are anxious, rushed, chaotic, or irritable, your body absorbs that atmosphere like a sponge.

4. Heavy Workload With Little Relief

Even when you finish one thing, five more wait behind it. The pressure never releases.

5. Feeling Responsible for Everything

You hold the weight of tasks, people, communication, mistakes, expectations, and outcomes.It’s too much for one nervous system to carry.

Over time, this creates a body that is always braced, even in moments that should feel neutral or calm.

What This Does to Your Mind

A brain stuck in fight-or-flight struggles with:

Concentration
Memory
Emotional regulation
Making decisions
Creativity
Patience

This is why simple things feel impossible—your mind is overloaded, not underperforming.

You’re not “being dramatic.”You’re not “too sensitive.”Your system is overwhelmed.

And when that overwhelm lasts long enough, it turns into decision fatigue.

Decision Fatigue: The Hidden Cost of Fight-or-Flight

Decision fatigue is what happens when your brain has made so many choices, solved so many problems, managed so many interruptions, and responded to so many demands that it simply runs out of capacity.

It shows up as:

Staring at your to-do list and feeling frozen
Taking longer to choose simple things
Feeling mentally foggy
Losing confidence in decisions you used to make easily
Feeling irritated by questions that never used to bother you
Wanting to shut down or withdraw

This is not laziness.This is not weakness.

It is your brain saying: “I am over capacity.”

Fight-or-flight drains your decision-making power, because your brain is using its energy to keep you “safe,” even when nothing dangerous is happening.

The Emotional Weight of Living This Way

Working in survival mode is exhausting in a very specific way.It creates:

Hypervigilance — always watching for the next interruption or problem
Guilt — feeling like you should be handling things better
Fear — that you’re falling behind or disappointing someone
Frustration — because your mind “won’t cooperate” even when you try
Shame — believing you’re the only one who struggles like this

But the truth is:

Your body wasn’t designed to live like this.Your mind wasn’t made to be pulled in twenty directions all day.Your emotions aren’t meant to absorb endless pressure without relief.

You are human—and your nervous system is overwhelmed, not weak.