The Therapy Edit - On 5 signs of overwhelm

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

In this solo episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna offers listeners 5 ways to recognise that they are experiencing feelings of overwhelm.We hope this episode helps you recognise these signs as being caused by overwhelm as opposed to signs that you are doing something wrong.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi there, welcome to today's solo episode of the Therapy Edit where I'm going to be talking about five signs of overwhelm that you might not know a signs of stress and overwhelm. And I find this really, really helpful to think about because for a very, very long time, both in myself and in other people, I would often see these signs as being a grumpy, irritable, sensitive person that isn't engaged in what's going on that is just socially awkward or whatever. I think with these things that often we judge ourselves or we judge other people when we see these behaviours. And I've just found it incredibly helpful to recognise these things as signs of overwhelm and not just being a bad, grumpy and tolerant, ungrateful person. So I'm going to talk you through them because I think you will recognise at least one of them in yourself.

If it's me, then you'll recognise all of them. I'm going to share some little. thoughts as to why you feel these things, why you do these things, just purely with the aim that you might find some more compassion for yourself. So number one is a compulsion. When you feel compelled to, you find it really hard to stop zoning out on your phone or your laptop. Now, I think we talk a lot about fight or flight when we're stressed, when we're anxious. We know that our nervous systems, they find us wanting to fight the threat or run away from it. But there is another often not so mentioned state. There are actually a couple, but I'm going to focus on this one now. And it's called the freeze state. So it's that state when you're faced with something

that feels threatening in some way. And it's not to say that your kids are overtly threatening, but sometimes the noise, the chaos, the constant demands, a stress on your nervous system because perhaps you do not have capacity and you do not have resources, you do not have headspace or energy to be able to face those in a way that align with your values and how you want to. So that is stressful. And sometimes if we can't fight the stress and we can't flee the stress, we may well freeze in the face of the stress. Now for me, that might look like disassociating. I am removing myself in some way mentally, physically I am there, but mentally I have gone somewhere else and it's this compulsion to dive into my phone or my work so that I am

somewhere else. I am freezing myself out of that situation. It might be that you literally feel frozen. You don't know what to do. You're the rabbit in the headlines and in those moments you can't respond in a way that you want to. That doesn't feel accessible to you. You are frozen. So yeah, I just think it's really helpful seeing that sometimes and recognizing that sometimes that falling into your phone, that falling into your work, whatever it may be, that zoning out is actually a way of freezing yourself in the face of stress. You're putting something on pause. You cannot respond. You are dissociating. You are disconnecting. So have some compassion for yourself because often what we do is we think what's wrong with me. Why can't I stop this?

when if you can recognize it, it could well be a sign of overwhelm or stress, then you're more likely to do something about that overwhelm the stress rather than just criticize and berate yourself. So I find that really, really helpful to recognize. Number two is finding noise physically stressful. I have judged myself so harshly for this in the past. I definitely have a sensitivity to noise at the best of times, but I recognize that this increases tenfold when I am stressed or hormonal or tired or feeling frazzled. And really what is happening is that you have a capacity, as with every other sensory input in your body, you have a capacity for processing noise. And just like any other cup of your resources, this can become absolutely full to overflowing. And when there's a lot of

noise coming at you as there often is in your household. And there is a mind. It might be that your brain is struggling to process what is threatening noise, what is bad noise, what is good noise, what is happy noise, what is healthy noise. Because when you're frazzled, it is all just noise and it can feel threatening to your nervous system if you're already feeling tightly wound. So if you find that noise feels physically stressful, that you're literally bracing yourself, that you feel little bit more jumpy than normal, then this could well be a sign of overwhelm. It could well be a sign of stress. And again, this is one of those things that we can judge ourselves. Why am I so irritable? What is wrong with me? Why am I finding even happy noises of my kids? Because sometimes

they're making a heck of a lot of noise, but they're actually quite happy. They're singing, they're banging there, getting the pans out in the kitchen and creating a drum kit. And it feels stressful on my body, but it is not, it might sound bad noise, but it is not like they're shouting at me or screaming at each other. It's happy noise, but yeah, so that judgment that we can find ourselves, criticizing ourselves, or even other people, I often have to ask myself, is this noise really irritating, or am I just feeling irritated? And often, it's often a mixture of both, but I definitely recognise it. sometimes my capacity for noise is reduced and I'm feeling stressed and recognizing that as a form

of an a sign of overwhelm rather than just me being grumpy and intolerant that can prompt a little bit more self-compassion and gentleness towards myself. Number three, feeling irritated when friends contact you, when family members contact you, those you know who care about you, those who you want to invest in those relationships. But in that moment, it feels annoying. It's just another thing. to do to maintain that contact to maintain that friendship to nurture that connection feels like another job on the to-do list so you can resent it in that moment you're not resenting that person you're just feeling done in and that feels like the straw that broke

the camel's back even if that contact is kind and caring it can feel irritating and again instead of thinking what is wrong with me why like that they're just trying to be kind why am I so grumpy while I'm as irritable? Again, just recognizing that actually when you're frazzled, when you're overwhelmed, the knowledge that relationships take time and effort can just feel like just another thing to do. Number four, your brain is so full that you can't switch off and rest. Sometimes when overwhelmed, I think we can find it a little bit confusing as to why we find rest so hard to lean into, even though we know we need it. We know we need to switch off. We know we need to get an early night, but actually when your head hits the pillow, your brain

won't slow down. And that is because you just have so much in there. And that is because you're not perhaps you're feeling like you can't keep on top of stuff. And when you're in that fight or flight, when you're in that stress mode, it is really hard to ease into rest. You need to feel safe to rest. You need to feel like you can draw a line under things in order to be able to rest. And that can feel really hard to do. And again, I think we can berate ourselves and criticize ourselves for what's wrong with me. I'm sitting on the sofa. This is my rest time, but I can't, I'm not even focusing on what's going on in front of me on the TV. My brain is buzzing. I'm thinking about everything that there is to do tomorrow. And it might be that this is just a sign that you need to

build more rest into your day. And I know that this is going to prompt many people shouting at their phones or at the laptops, and you don't know how little opportunity I have to rest. Well, I have so many podcasts on with tips on how to rest when you can't, ways to do things that feel a little bit more restful, ways to address stress when you're busy and that it feels like you can't slow down. So do you just have a scroll and find some tips amongst it. And number five is struggling to make even small decisions. You know when you're in the supermarket and you're stressed and you've even got a shopping list, but it just feels all too overwhelming, or you go and you know you need to get something for dinner, but it just feels like it's just you can't do it. You can't

make decisions. Perhaps you're struggling at work to make decisions. And again, I think we can criticize ourselves thinking, I'm normally so competent. What's wrong with me? I can't just make these simple decisions. I'm a grown up. Well, actually, if we can look on that as a form of a symptom of overwhelm, then actually we can think, okay, I'm struggling to make decisions here. I must be really done in. What can I do for myself? So I'm hoping that whilst there isn't a ton of tips on how to address overwhelm, I have written about that in loads of different books and resources. And I've spoken about that in lots of other episodes. But in this one, I really just wanted to draw your attention, some of these signs of overwhelm that so often we can

feel really self-judgmental about. And yeah, I hope that prompts a little bit more self-gentleness, self-compassion and pursuit of a little bit more slowness and rest, which is most likely what you need. Take care. I am so excited to announce that my brand new book, The Uncomfortable Truth, Change Your Life by Taming Ten of Your Mind's Greatest Fears, is available for pre-order now and is out on the 8th of August. And in this book, we tackle some. of life's big, unavoidable, uncomfortable truths such as some people don't like me, I am going to fail. Life isn't fair. Bad things will happen. And in this book, we tackle these big uncomfortable trees that rob us of so much headspace and energy as we try and control and avoid

them. And as we move into a place of radical acceptance of these truths, you will find yourself living more freely and intentionally with more presence and confidence than ever before. So come on this journey with me and pre-order now at Wardstones in Amazon and we can celebrate together.