It Can't Just Be Me - It's Not Just You: Feeling overwhelmed with life

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

In these brand new weekly episodes of 'It's Not Just You', each week Anna will be joined by a different expert to explore the issues and dilemmas that are affecting you. No guests, just your dilemmas discussed by Anna and her expert.This week, Anna is joined by broadcaster, author and GP Dr Radha Modgil to tackle a listener’s dilemma about feeling overwhelmed. Together, Anna and Dr Radha explore the impact of big life changes and how they can make even little things seem huge and stressful in our minds. They also share tips on how to navigate these feelings.If you have a dilemma or situation you'd like discussed, reach out to Anna by emailing [e-mail] or DM her on Instagram @itcan’tjustbemepodNothing is off limits, we’re open to it all, from your mental health, to dating, to your sex life to addiction…all of the challenges and hurdles that life throws at you - It's Not Just You is a place for you to find some practical advice and support. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push.

Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at OnePeloton.ca. In a remote English village, a couple are woken up. Their family home is burning. Otto and Lindsay Miller make it out of the blaze, but their teenage son, Mason, does not. Clear this area, please, everyone.

Mason's body is nowhere to be seen. Please sweetheart, come home. I don't hurt children. Up in Smoke, a dark mystery thriller from Penny Fall, starring Olivier Award nominee May Mack and Adam Buxton. Hello, I'm Anna Richardson and if you're a regular listener to It Can't Just Be Me, then welcome to our second weekly episode, It's Not Just You. Each week I'll be joined by an expert to explore the issues and dilemmas that are affecting you. No guests, just you, me and an expert. Nothing is off limits, we're open to it all, from your mental health,

to dating, to your sex life, to addiction, all of the challenges and hurdles that life throws at you. We're here to offer some practical advice and support because whatever's on your mind, it's not just you. So let's begin. Let's begin. Today I am thrilled to be joined by my old pal, the GP and wellbeing expert Dr. Rada Modgill who's in the chair this week to help answer one of your dilemmas. Here we go, Rada, you ready for this?

Always ready, Anna. Love that. Ready and willing. Always ready. Love that. Ready and willing. Always ready. Correct. Hi Anna, please keep me anonymous. I have just accepted a new job in Dubai. I'm 48 years old and it is a massive change for me. I do have friends out there to look out for me, but I have less than seven weeks to clear my entire house, pack all my stuff and go. Even though I am leaving my old job, there is a ton of unavoidable work I have to do before I leave

and commitments I have made that cannot be changed. I have obviously begun and was feeling really confident about how things were going, but now I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed by doing all of this alone. I'm single and don't have a partner to help or lean on. Any tips on how to prioritise and stop myself from stressing out?

How can I get through this manic time without having a complete meltdown or just procrastinating over vital jobs? It can't just be me who has felt like this. I mean, this is quite a full-on thing, isn't it? And something that I think we can probably all relate to is like a big life stage where everything just becomes just

too much, too much to deal with. So what do you think is going on then, Radha, in terms of like psychologically or with the brain and that sense of overwhelm, what's happening? So cognitive overload, basically. So although we think our brains can cope with anything and we can multitask, actually our brains are not designed to do that at all. Our brains are designed to focus on one problem, to kind of work through that problem, process that and come up with a solution and then to move on to another one. But in this life and the society that we've created, this crazy society, we're constantly being told, no multitask, do this, do that, do that, where's your attention? And what we know is that the brain, when there's too much information, too many things we're trying to process all at once, gets overloaded

and as a result we feel stressed, but also our attention goes down, our concentration is reduced and actually our productivity, so our ability to actually get these things done is also really low. So it makes no sense and yet everything around us tends to sort of demand, you know, do it now, do everything now all at once. Yeah. So basically this is, it's quite normal that our listener is struggling because there's just too much to do. There's too much to do. But what's also really interesting about life and life changes, which I don't think we talk about enough actually, we sort of, we go through life and it's only after as we look back and think oh that was a that was a big Life change or that was a big life events

And I didn't even realize it when I was going through it and sometimes just to name it as a life event exactly what you Did Anna or as a life change is actually really helpful Because it allows us to stop and pause and be a bit kind and say actually do you know what? This is a massive thing. No wonder I'm stressed. No wonder I'm feeling really overwhelmed. And actually, no wonder I'm finding it difficult to cope. So I think the other interesting thing is, is that, you know, this is a great opportunity. It's a job that, you know, it sounds like they really want,

they really are looking forward to. But we tend to sort of think about stress only coming from changes that are negative. But stress actually comes from changes that are positive as well. So getting married, moving into a dream home, having a baby, all the things that, you know, films and TV and society tell us are happy events. They're still stressful, even though they're happy. And again, we don't really talk about that. We don't really recognise that. So, so yeah, recognising that's a big life event, recognising

why you might feel that way and then trying to understand, okay, let's stop, step back, what can I do, where do I go from here, what are the steps I can take. So first of all calm down and be a bit more patient with myself and then to take action. So let's talk about that calming down. Is there anything that our listener can be doing in the moment given that they're feeling just completely overwhelmed, they've just got too much to do, what would you advise in terms of just calming the anxiety down? Yeah so overwhelm and that kind of cognitive overload causes adrenaline, cortisol, all those hormones that make us feel tense, our pulse rate goes up, we start to feel

nervous, agitated, so we need to work with our bodies basically, we need to work with our minds and our bodies to help ourselves calm down. So in terms of our minds, noticing what thoughts you're having. So thoughts, for example, I can't cope, this is too much, I've made a mistake, how am I going to manage all this? All those thoughts are really important just to stop and notice and even start to write down, because our thoughts and our pattern of thoughts and how much those kind of go around around our heads will dictate then how we feel. So working with your thoughts, noticing them, naming them, labeling them and kind of just every time you see a repressive thought pattern just say, all right, I see you, I hear you, but I'm not going to let you take control of me. So that's in terms of your mind. And then we want to work with our bodies. So

what are those feelings? How can we process those feelings? So is that? Journaling is it exercising is it dancing? Is it music? Is it crying? Is it talking to someone? How are we going to I? Suppose get all those chemicals and all those physiological changes our body How can work those through and our body is a really great tool and a great instrument? That we can use to actually help ourselves feel better. So those two things, first of all, sometimes people find but formal meditation or formal mindfulness useful. I like to think of mindfulness being

available in any way. So not just sitting down with cross legs and kind of, you know, breathing, but actually, like I said, I said before exercising gardening getting outside nature all of those things give your brain a chance to stop and pause and just to give your mind a bit of space from all of those worries. Would you recommend any specific kind of like breathing techniques as well in terms of just dampening down that parasympathetic nervous system and just try and get you back in the now physically. Is there anything that we can do with with that? Yes there's kind of sort of box breathing type techniques, there's deep breathing, so breathing in through your nose

and taking a long exhale for example, but really on regulating your breathing. That works for some people, for some people though that actually makes them feel more panicky. Oh really? Yeah. Why? Because it makes them feel like they can't get enough breath in or they're focusing so much on their breath that their breathing rate increases. So it's important to recognize if that doesn't work for you, that's OK. What else can you try? So it might be breathing exercises that might also be grounding exercises. So when we've got a lot in our heads and our minds, we can go into a spin

and we can almost feel like we're so much in our heads that we're not actually here, right here, right now. So grounding is about putting your feet on the ground, feeling your feet on the ground, putting your hands on a wall or something near you to feel like you're here. It might be, for example, smelling something lovely, like essential oils or flowers or whatever else to really use your senses to bring yourself back into the present moment and grounding techniques I think we don't talk enough about but they're really helpful and so yeah any of those sort of techniques

touch you know if you've got a pet stroking a dog or you know putting a blanket around you all of these things come for us and bring us back into that moment so again it's bringing you back to this moment now and not catastrophizing because I think that a lot of the time we catastrophize don't we we kind of project into the future and go I can't cope with this I'm not going to manage that I've got too much to do so what you're saying is bring yourself back to now and then I'd say maybe just tackle each of those practical steps bit by bit so I'd make a list I think and go I've got to do this. I've got to do that

I've got to do this by tomorrow tick that off by next week So maybe just organizing your thoughts and the practical the practicalities of moving Yeah, and just tackle it bit by bit rather than just becoming completely overwhelmed. Yes by what's happening exactly, right? So yeah, get all those thoughts in your head all all those jobs, those tasks, get them down on a bit of paper, basically, get them out of your head. You can sleep better, you can see them and you can organize them into, you know, what's immediate, what's urgent, what can wait, what is completely irrelevant,

but I'm just making into a big fuss about nothing. You know, get those into categories and start working through them slowly. You can work in parallel on some of those as well. I think the other thing that one of the listeners mentioned was about not having a partner, not feeling supported. I think that's a really important thing to speak about. When we're having a difficult time in our lives, there's a big change. We need other people around us. Again, in the world we've created or our society, sometimes we're told, oh, you must be

resilient. You must do it all yourself and get on with it, get going. Yes, we can do that ultimately, but we also need support. So who have you got around you? You've got your friends, best friends, family. Who can you delegate some of those tasks to? Who can you ask for support? Who are your like top three people that you can bring and just have like a meltdown and just have a cry?

So I think not to be frightened and not to be too proud or worried about asking for someone's help is important. And to remember that although you might not have that significant other, that partner in your life, that actually there are plenty of other people who care about you, plenty of other people that you can ask for for support. And also, you know, our brains anticipate problems so anticipatory

worry is always worse than the actual reality and if you look back in your own personal history I think we can all do this just write down a list of five things that you got through in life that you are really proud of that are really massive and you didn't think you could ever manage But you did and that will give you the confidence stage. You know what I did that so I can do that I mean rather this person is 48 as well. So they're approaching the big five Oh, this is a massive thing to be doing at that age Do you think that age might be causing a bit of a worry for this person as well sort of doing something so huge in midlife? I think it probably contributes to it definitely because I think again in

society we live in there are these expectations about what you do when, you know, which decade in your 20s you go traveling, in your 30s you have children, in your 40s you're settled down with a job that you're going to stay in and these sort of narratives around decades and sort of what you should be doing I think has a big impact on us whether or not we realize it or not sometimes it's subconscious we we absorb it and then we wonder why we feel like we're abnormal in verse of commas for doing something different so I think you know this I think I've been really brave to actually take this move to make this move and maybe a few people around them have said what are you doing you know at your age oh my gosh

that's a huge step. And if we're already starting to doubt ourselves or have worries and someone else around us says or echoes or voices our own concerns, that makes it so much worse. So, yeah, they might be having a bit of a wobble because other people around them are saying that. What I would say is you can do anything at any point in your life. And actually, I would say is you can do anything at any point in your life and actually

I would say good for you. Congratulations for stepping out of the typical narrative and choosing to do something that's going to make you happy and I would focus more on being proud of that and celebrating that to other people who are trying to make you wobble rather than the opposite. Rather that's perfect. That's it for today. Thank you so much for sending in your dilemmas and sharing your stories with us. It's so important that we're having these honest conversations that ultimately everyone can benefit from.

So if there's something you want to talk about, then please keep them coming. Whether it's big or small, get in touch with us. You can email us or send a voice note to hello at itcan'tjustbeme.co.uk. You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Just search for it can't just be me. And remember, whatever you're dealing with, I promise it's not just you. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you.

From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push, find your power. Peloton, visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. In a remote English village, a couple are woken up.

Their family home is burning. Otto and Lindsay Miller make it out of the blaze, but their teenage son Mason does not. Clear this area, please, everyone. Mason's body is nowhere to be seen. Please, sweetheart, come home. I don't hurt children. Up in Smoke, a dark mystery thriller from Penny Fall,

starring Olivier Award nominee May Mack and Adam Buxton.