02/13/2025
It is so common to feel overwhelmed. For many, life feels like that a lot of the time, which is hard on our bodies and nervous systems. Feeling overwhelmed often can easily put us in what I call āa state of overwhelm.ā
What is the feeling in your body when you feel overwhelmed? Anxiety? Restlessness? Difficulty concentrating? Racing thoughts? Worries about the future? Wanting to act but not being sure how? Feeling frozen and stuck? Overwhelm can show in our bodies in various ways, and we each have our own patterns.
Overwhelm happens when we get stuck in a fight or flight stress response. While our stress response is a good thing (weāre designed to be able to respond appropriately to threats), constant and low level stress pushes our nervous systems beyond the capacity of what we can handle, and in comes the overwhelm.
Our nervous system likes space, slowness and time to integrate changes. So often in our modern world, we are not given that opportunity, which can lead to the opposite experience that our nervous systems ideally want. Before we reach a state of overwhelm, something or many things push us to that point where our nervous system says, āI canāt do this right now.ā