A few weeks ago, a viral tweet perfectly captured a phenomenon familiar to many of us. The post ― a response to someone’s question “what’s your biggest ick about yourself?” ― read simply: “i can be really mean when i’m overstimulated.” Judging by the retweets, it seems 55,000 people could relate.
If you’ve ever snapped at your partner after a bad day, or had an outburst during a frustrating call with a customer service agent, you may understand the meaning behind the tweet. We’re not exactly at our best in moments like these, but they’re part of the human response to being overstimulated.
“Our brain receives information from our senses — sight, touch, smell, sound and taste — so this helps us understand our environment,” said Manahil Riaz, a psychotherapist and the owner of Riaz Counselling in Texas. “To be overstimulated means that our senses have received a lot of information, and now we are feeling overwhelmed as we’re receiving this information.”
When you’re overstimulated, your prefrontal cortex goes offline, said Emma Shandy Anway, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in California. This is the part of your brain responsible for rational decision-making, she noted.
When we’re stressed out, the prefrontal cortex goes from reflective and rational to reactive, Anway said. In these conditions, your brain’s not thinking about maintaining relationships or effectively solving problems, Riaz noted. Instead, it’s panicking.
More, your body’s stress response system (also known as your “fight, flight or freeze” response) activates, regardless of whether you are dealing with an actual stressor or just a perceived one, according to Riaz. Your stress response then affects your mood.
Overstimulation is “going to amplify and speed up all reactions,” Anway said. When you’re overstimulated, your nervous system is essentially dysregulated.
“If I’m already feeling a low level of dysregulation, and then I keep having these micro-things happen... let’s say you have a stressful morning, you wake up late and then you drop your coffee and then your kid can’t find their shoes,” Anway offered as an example. “You’re kind of gathering these moments of stress, right?”
“But I don’t have time to deal with them, to process them, so I’m already getting overstimulated,” she went on. “Then I get in my car and I start driving to work, and all of a sudden there’s a train, and I just lose my damn mind ... That’s the final straw.”
When you’re already in overdrive, any annoyance or inconvenience is going to trigger instant reactivity. You’ll be more likely to yell at your kids or snap at a colleague if you’ve reached your overstimulation threshold, because your brain isn’t thinking rationally and you’re in that “fight, flight or freeze” zone. And if the issues stressing you out are less obvious, you may not even realise you’re getting more flustered. These subtler things are only going to lower your ability to deal with other stressors, too.
“When we talk about feeling overstimulated, I think technology is a very relevant topic,” Riaz said.
Between texts, emails and social media notifications, it’s easy to reach sensory overload. “I think people are somewhat kind of excited and attracted to these notifications, and now we’re in a society where it’s very normal to glance at your phone, whereas maybe 30 years ago, we were just present, we were just here,” Riaz said.
While many of us may be addicted to our phones, we actually crave peace and being in the moment — two things that phones do not offer. With constant information coming in, on top of day-to-day real life outside of technology, it’s no wonder we’re all overstimulated.
“Go back to the basics of having an idea around what your relationship is to technology,” Riaz said. There’s power in turning off your notifications, or simply leaving your phone in a room where you can’t see or hear it.
To help keep from feeling overstimulated, it’s important to have boundaries with the technology around you, Riaz said.
It’s normal (and inevitable) to feel overwhelmed at times. We’re all human, and being a human is hard.
“Anytime our nervous system is dysregulated, we have to find that way to teach our body that we’re not in danger,” Anway said. “How do we get that prefrontal cortex back online? Because if everything is offline and I’m just in that ‘fight, fight, freeze’ zone, then of course I’m going to be mean, of course I’m going to be explosive, because it’s almost like I’m not in control.”
When you notice that you’re near or at your threshold, Anway recommends deep breathing through the nose.
“The one thing that you want to focus on is making sure that exhale is longer than the inhale. When your exhale is longer than the inhale, it’s reminding your body and your brain that you’re not in danger,” she explained. “When my breath slows down, my nervous system starts to slow down, and that will, in turn, slow my thoughts down.”
It’s also important to notice what you give your attention to when you’re feeling overstimulated. Practicing mindfulness skills in the moment ― like, say, naming three things around you that are green ― is a way to combat sensory overload. “It helps you have some control over where you give your attention,” Riaz noted.
Before you’re even feeling at your threshold, you can help your body maintain a sense of calm by practicing certain daily habits. In a very go-go-go culture, “we tend to be a lot more stressed out than we’re even aware of,” Anway said.
Ask yourself how you’re maintaining a sense of homeostasis throughout the day. This could mean not checking your phone in the first 30 minutes after you wake up; having 10 minutes to yourself every day (it could be as simple as sitting on the front porch as you drink coffee); or setting an hourly alarm that reminds you to check in with your needs, whether that’s a glass of water or a walk down the block, Anway recommended.
“You can start with really micro changes. I think a lot of times people are like, ‘Oh my God, I have to start doing yoga for an hour every day and I have to really change my life,’ and you really don’t,” Anway said. “These small moments, they end up having such a large impact in a way I don’t think most people anticipate.”
These calming practices will be the most helpful when you make them part of your busy weekdays ― not just on the weekends when you’re ready to reset, Riaz noted. They should be a daily practice that helps you better connect with yourself and the world around you.
