6 S’s to Handle Feeling Overwhelmed

Your mind is racing faster than you can think through it. You don’t know where to begin. The pieces are there, but they don’t seem to fit. You suddenly have the sensation to cry, go to sleep, or run away. You’re overwhelmed. I know the feeling.

Let’s say 2019 did not start in the way that I had hoped. Lately, I have faced quite a few disappointments in the health and financial areas where one thing trickled down into the other. It started a little before the beginning of the year when I broke my toe. Then, two weeks later my computer crashed. Gradually, I had to deal with: an appliance in my apartment broke, an emotional situation ensued, managing conflict between my landlord and electric company, the bill for the internet installation did not register properly, my back problems resurfaced, and a fall out with a friend. Then, if it couldn’t get any worse, I found out on Valentine’s Day around 10 minutes before I got off work about an irregularity in my paycheck. Pay day was the following day. I got off the phone with HR and closed my office door and cried.

Life’s hard. One thing for sure is that disappointments and stress will come around from time to time. Whether you’re a student or professional, it’s not too uncommon that your life can seem like a stream of complications one after the other. Overwhelm doesn’t have to be provoked by an accumulation of annoyances either, even one major life event can put you over the edge. Overwhelm can also occur from an exciting change, such as a new job or promotion that’s stretching your limits. You’ll feel overwhelm when you have to deal with more than you feel you can manage at the time. Here are the six S’s to handle overwhelm:

Stop

You need a break. Just don’t do anything for a hot second, min, or even a few hours, if needed. You might even want to take a nap. Overwhelm will cloud your thinking and ability to process your emotions when dealing with the situation. You need to take a step back and regroup. Just be still until you reach a state of relative peace or stillness. Foster your stillness with prayer, meditation, or breathing exercises. Whoo saahhh….

Self-Care

You need to pour back into yourself. You need to feel good so you can feel confident enough to tackle the situation or concern. The stillness in the previous step will center you to yourself again, but you need to foster your strength as well. You can take a shower, exercise, paint your nails, work on a hobby, get your hair cut, or call a friend. Whatever puts you in a good mood – a ray of sunshine is needed.

Start Something Monotonous that is Unrelated to What You Were Doing

The frontal lobe of your brain is analytical, but it gets compromised in situations of high stress and anxiety. This requires your nervous system side kick to take over – you need to stimulate the involuntary thinking parts of your brain, which is more intuitive than intellectual. This part of your brain is stimulated best with some type of monotonous chore or physical activity. The more active, the better. Being active also helps to further ground you in the moment so you can be present. Any monotonous activity will do, such as exercise, washing the dishes, ironing, or organizing your closet.

Step by Step

Like magic (but more like neuroscience), your monotonous activity will start to generate solutions or options to work on your project or issue(s). Write these ideas down to make a list of the action steps you need to follow. Review them and rearrange them, if needed. Add whatever additional notes or points that need to be addressed as you go along. This will allow you to break your project or problems into steps that are more manageable, and seeing it on paper will allow you to be flexible for changes that may arise in the process.

Schedule It

You need a realistic estimate of how long it needs to take to work through this project or concern. Reserve a time of day or a set hour or so to work on your steps. When that time is over, then let it go! Return to the Stop, Self-Care, and Something Monotonous tips to soothe you if you start feeling anxious or bothered by what came up during the process. Having a schedule to work through it will help you to feel that you are not defeated by not pushing through. You’re simply taking a break. You’re calculating victory.

Say something

You need to let people know what you’re feeling. People can’t read minds and don’t know what you’re dealing with. At some point your emotions may spill over and you don’t want to harm those around you with miscommunication, isolation, or some type of defense mechanism. Furthermore, your task or problem may be much bigger than you can handle at the time. You need to ask for help, whether it’s emotional support or tangible services someone can provide. What you’re dealing with may be beyond your skill limit or time restrictions. This is when you also need to ask for assistance or delegate some tasks. Accept the help. Let others love on you.

We can’t control everything that happens to us in our lives. We can control ourselves and how we react to the situation. It can feel like life is crumbling down upon you and it’s hard to get a grip. Trust me, you can get through this. Find your center and conquer your issue like a boss after you’ve handled overwhelm with these six tips.