Written by Alexandra Dawson
It’s 2025 and burnout has basically become a personality trait. We joke about being "chronically booked & busy," and we casually mention scheduling mental breakdowns (Menty-B’s) between meetings like it's a vibe, but what if we’re just using humor to mask something a whole lot deeper than we feel like exploring? If we take a moment to get honest with ourselves, you may come to find that there’s some serious anxiety living underneath all that motion.
Enter the new villain: The fear of stopping. The fear of silence. The fear that if we slow down—even for just a second—we'll disintegrate like a poorly constructed IKEA shelf. (IYKYK)
Welcome to the party, the emotional chaos spiral, aka being a person with Wi-Fi and responsibilities. 💀
🤦 Why Slowing Down Feels Like Losing Control (Anxiety in Stillness Explained)
Let’s be for real: we’re not addicted to productivity, we’re addicted to feeling in control. (You know the feeling.)
Constant motion = I’m doing something = I’m not falling apart (YET). Stillness? That's when the scary thoughts sneak in:
- "What if I’m wasting my life?"
- "What if everyone else is doing more?"
- "What if I stop... and I break?"
YIKES. The anxiety is loud. But… The silence is louder. So, what do we do? We keep moving. Why? Because movement = distraction. Distraction = temporary relief.
🚨 Motion As a Coping Mechanism
AKA: How constantly having to be doing something can turn into a form of avoidance.
Let’s not sugarcoat it: doing things constantly is a trauma response in a cute outfit. Maybe you grew up in chaos. Maybe your job has you in full-on high level cortisol mode. Or maybe you just live in late-stage capitalism. Whatever it is—your nervous system thinks “sitting down” = danger.
For Gen Z and millennials especially, stillness can feel like an open tab of emotional backlog we didn’t sign up to process. So instead, we clean, post, reply to emails, organize our Google Drive, and make our desktop folders aesthetically pleasing and “On Vibe”. Anything but... pausing.
🌎 We’re not lazy. We’re trying to outpace the panic.
😱 The Breakdown Anxiety: What If I Actually Fall Apart?
This is the real fear, isn’t it? That if we stop, we won’t bounce back. That if we rest, we’ll lose all of our built up momentum, relevance, and who knows, maybe even our whole damn identity. Because when you’ve built your sense of worth around what you can do, simply existing and being still can feel like you’ve vanished.
"If I’m not being useful, what am I?"
That thought right there? She’s a villain.
But hear me out: Falling apart isn’t the end. Sometimes it’s a weird little restart. An update. A much-needed glitch in the life matrix so you can reboot as someone softer.
🌿 How to Pause Without Panicking: 4 Ways to Feel Safe Slowing Down
Stillness doesn’t have to equal existential crisis. It might just mean you're finally listening to yourself. And maybe you’re thinking, how? How do I lean into the pause?
Try these micro-moves for the chronically overstimulated:
✨ 1. Start Tiny (Like, embarrassingly tiny)
Literally set a timer for 1 minute. Just breathe. No phone. No multitasking. Just vibes.
Your nervous system needs to relearn that doing "nothing" isn’t a threat. It’s safety. It’s the start of healing. It’s you reclaiming your mental space.
🌈 2. Name the Monster
Say it out loud or journal it:
-
"I’m scared to stop."
-
"I’m afraid of what I’ll feel if I slow down."
-
"I don’t know who I am when I’m not performing."
-
“Society has taught us that we are a verb, an action, not a noun.”
When you name it, you are one step closer to being able to tame it. All that internalized shame loses its grip when you drag it into the light.
😭 3. Redefine Breaking Down
Falling apart isn’t failure. It's what happens when your body FINALLY feels safe enough to exhale. Let the tears come. Let the thoughts spiral. Let your body sob to a Taylor Swift/ Phoebe Bridgers track at 2am. It's okay. You're not breaking down. You're breaking open.
🛌 4. Shift from Urgent to Gentle
You don’t need a 2-week silent retreat in the woods and massive credit card debt in order to start the healing process. You just need a few slower moments:
-
Take the long way home.
-
Say no to one thing.
-
Rest before you're wrecked.
Stillness can be a vibe. Even if it’s awkward. Even if it’s quiet. Especially if it’s quiet.
🌈 Final Thoughts: You’re Not Lazy. You’re Learning to Exist Differently.
If stopping makes you panic, you’re not alone. If rest feels dangerous, it’s not because you’re broken. It’s because you’ve been surviving for so long.
The goal isn’t to stop forever. It’s just to stop running.
You’re safe now. You’re allowed to pause. You’re allowed to exhale.
And no—you won’t fall apart. You might fall back into yourself. ✨
P.S. Have you ever been scared of stopping? Like "if I rest I might implode/combust" energy? 💥 Drop a comment below if you’re in your "soft girl nervous system reboot" era. You’re not alone. Let’s talk about it.
