Nine Things You Can Do When You Are Overwhelmed
Do You Feel Helpless When You’re Overwhelmed?
Being overwhelmed is one of the most uncomfortable experiences. This happens when you are pushed past your natural capacity to handle stress. Everything in your life feels more intense, it’s difficult to motivate yourself to do anything, and you feel stuck and don’t know what to do. The good news is that there are several things that you can do help yourself when you feel maxed out emotionally. Before we get to the solutions, it’s helpful to be able to identify when you are overwhelmed.
What Happens To Your Body And Mind When You Are Overwhelmed
You feel physically and mentally uncomfortable
You could be crying, feeling urges to harm yourself, or isolating yourself from others
Everything around you starts to feel more intense and like life or death
You have less concentration and feel foggy
You struggle with getting even the little things done around you
You become more irritated and start overreacting to the things around you
It’s difficult for you to turn away food, substances, or risky behavior to cope with the feelings
You start feeling depressed, anxious, and hopeless
Once you see that you’re overwhelmed, it’s helpful to start asking yourself some questions about where these feelings could be coming from.
Causes Of Being Overwhelmed
Too many things on your plate
There comes a point in time where you collapse from a heavy amount of stress. The things on your plate don’t even have to be particularly intense, but rather it’s the fact that everything is happening at once. You could be a college student who is struggling at school, having stress in your relationships, or having a difficult time with a transition. You could be a working professional who is trying to balance work, friendships, and personal development. You could be someone who doesn’t particularly have too many things going on in life, but you have a tendency to try handling everything at once.You are addressing problems in your life
Making important changes in your life and progressing on your goals can actually be very stressful. In the short term, you will have more conflict and with yourself and others. This is because making adjustments is inherently taxing and requires a lot of effort. This could be because you are becoming more assertive, setting new goals, or addressing problematic patterns. Try not to be discouraged if this is the case, because stress in this circumstance could mean that you’re actually headed in the right direction.You don’t delegate
You could be the person everyone goes to when they want something done right. On the one hand, this feels good because people trust you to get things accomplished since you're reliable. However, this can become problematic when people just give you things to do because other people are being lazy or unproductive. It can be equally as problematic when you take the initiative to do things because it’s easier to rely on yourself than on other people. The end result of this pattern is that you end up getting overloaded doing a bunch of things that you probably shouldn’t even be doing in the first place. This could be you picking up the slack at work for people who are underperforming, cleaning up after someone because it’s easier than confronting them, or you not asking other people for help.Perfectionism
Perfectionism (I wrote an article about that here) slows you down on mundane tasks, such as spending too much time double checking your work, being critical of yourself for making small mistakes, and giving too much time to activities that have little to no value. The end result is that insignificant tasks end up taking the bulk of your time while your left rushing to finish everything else on a deadline.Lack of structure
You might actually have a manageable load of stress in your life, but the issue is that you don’t have a good system to get things done. This could be you not giving yourself deadlines, not having set times for sleep and waking up, and spending too much of your time on non-essential tasks throughout your day. This also happens when you begin your day engaging on your phone or focusing on fun activities before being productive.Procrastination
There’s things in life that nobody wants to do. The common way you might handle these things is by pushing them off to last minute or focusing on something else instead. The issue is that procrastination creates anxiety and dread. The end result is that you gradually feel more overwhelmed the closer you get to having to do the thing you’ve been trying to avoid.
Lack of flexibility
You might be someone that does extremely well in life as long as things go exactly according to plan. The issue with this approach is that things rarely go exactly the way that you want. When circumstances inevitably change, you might struggle with making appropriate adjustments to fit the new circumstance. Making matters worse, you also might be someone who tries to excessively control details—to the detriment of you and your loved ones.Past experiences and trauma
Trauma and previous negative experiences can cause you to feel hyperactivated when exposed to a trigger. As an example, growing up in a household with a lot of anger can cause you to feel more overwhelmed when you’re exposed to stress or people being upset. Having negative experiences in relationships can cause you to feel more abandoned, fearful, and upset with others in response to minor relationship stress, such as someone not texting you back quickly enough.
Now that you know some of the common reasons you might be feeling overwhelmed, we can discuss some strategies for helping you feel calm.
What To Do When You Are Overwhelmed
Accept that you are overwhelmed
Getting upset that you are overwhelmed will make you feel even more overwhelmed. Instead, acknowledge that there are likely multiple things contributing to you being pushed past your ability to cope with stress. Once you accept that you are overwhelmed, you now have the power to pursue healthy strategies for coping with these feelings.Calm yourself down before doing anything
The first thing you should do when you are overwhelmed is find a way to calm down. You won’t be able to motivate yourself to action and make thoughtful decisions if you are overwhelmed. Instead, create a list of things that you can do to help yourself feel more calm when things become overwhelming. This could include journaling, talking to others, listening to music, doing something physical, calming down your breathing, or taking a shower. Try not to move on to other action steps before being calm.Don’t make things worse for yourself
Don’t pour gas on the fire when you’re upset about something. This could include impulsively making a decision—like quitting a job. You might be tempted to tell someone off, drink a lot of alcohol, isolate yourself, eat a ton of food, say hurtful things, or harm yourself. Additionally, you shouldn’t spend time focusing exclusively on negative thoughts and catastrophizing about the things going on in your life.Sit with your emotions instead of running from them
Before you can make sense of why you are feeling overwhelmed, you need to develop a capacity to sit with uncomfortable emotions. Noticing and sitting with your emotions is a great way to calm yourself down. Emotions have a beginning, middle, and end. Even if you are feeling very overwhelmed at the moment, you will feel less overwhelmed if you sit with your emotions without reacting strongly to them. One note of caution, sitting with your emotions means that you are not spiraling about the things that are upsetting you, but rather you are noticing your feelings without judging yourself and simply waiting for your emotions to naturally reduce in intensity.Explore where the feelings are coming from
As we addressed earlier in the article, feelings of overwhelm can come from many different sources. Knowing what is making you overwhelmed gives you the perspective needed to focus on a solution that can help.Focus on a plan
Once you are feeling more calm and understand where your feelings are coming from, it’s time for action.
Are you overwhelmed about a project that needs to get done? Then make a plan for when to do it. Are you triggered because something reminded you about the past? Take some time to yourself to process those feelings before reengaging with others.Accept that there are not going to be perfect solutions
Sometimes it’s not possible to fully address what’s making you feel overwhelmed in the moment. This could be you feeling overwhelmed because you don’t have enough time to finish all of your work. In cases like this, accept the fact that you are not going to finish everything before committing to a plan. With that in mind, then make a plan to address what is possible for you to manage in this moment.Disengage from negative thoughts
You are likely going to condemn yourself because the problems in front of you were preventable. There’s no value in criticizing yourself for making a mistake. Critical thoughts make you feel worse in the moment and prolong you being overwhelmed. Instead, focus on calming down and then pivot to addressing your problem.Reflect on what can be different in the future
Sometimes things will catch you off guard and there was nothing you could have done to prevent yourself from being overwhelmed. Other times, becoming overwhelmed can be prevented by taking action beforehand. Think about the common reasons in your life that make you overwhelmed and try to predict when they will come up again. Then make a plan for how you can handle this circumstance differently so you can have a better strategy for the future. This could be you setting boundaries, having realistic expectations of yourself, building in times of rest and relaxation, and developing better strategies for managing stress.
Challenges And Questions
What areas of your life commonly make you feel overwhelmed?
What things do you currently do that make you more overwhelmed?
What adjustments can you make to avoid feeling overwhelmed in the future?
What strategies can you incorporate to calm down once you are overwhelmed?
