We've all had stretches of life where the responsibilities pile up so high you can barely breathe. The deadlines keep stacking, so the moment you tick one thing off, another lands in its place. It can feel like being dumped by a wave over and over again. Your mind races, you can't concentrate, and the things that actually need doing get harder to do.

Ideally those stretches are short and rare. But when overwhelm hits, you need strategies to bring your stress down and get yourself back in motion. Here's what actually helps.

Why overwhelm happens

Overwhelm is a neurological response. When too much hits your system at once, too many tasks, too many decisions, too many emotions, your nervous system reads it as a threat and triggers your stress response. Cortisol and adrenaline flood in. Fight or flight takes over. The rational, problem-solving part of your brain gets pushed to the back of the queue.

So if you're wondering what to do when you feel overwhelmed, the first thing to understand is that the cause might not be your to-do list at all. Emotional overload counts too. Grief, relationship stress, prolonged uncertainty, carrying too much for too long without support. Naming what's causing you to feel overwhelmed can help you work out the best way to deal with it.

What overwhelm actually feels like

The signs are more varied than you'd think. Look for:

1. Racing thoughts or trouble concentrating

2. Physical tension. Headaches, tight shoulders, shallow breathing

3. Irritability or sudden tears that feel disproportionate

4. Trouble making even small decisions

5. Disrupted sleep, or waking up just as tired as when you went to bed

6. Wanting to withdraw from people or things you normally enjoy

Strategies for dealing with overwhelming stress

1. Write everything down

Sometimes the fastest way to clear your head is to dump the swirling thoughts onto paper. In fight or flight, you can't access rational problem-solving. Writing things down gives the angst somewhere to land. Once it's all out where you can see it (personal appointments, bills, work deadlines, the nagging worries you've been carrying around), you can start to make sense of it. Prioritise, delegate, or delete.

For emotional overwhelm, journalling does something different. Skip the structure. Just write whatever comes, no filter, no editing. A stream of consciousness onto the page often surfaces patterns and feelings you didn't know were there. There's a reason therapists keep recommending it.

2. Get started

Overwhelm tends to leave you stuck. You can't see where to start, so you don't start, and the anxiety builds. Once you have everything out of your head, pick the smallest thing you can complete or hand off straight away. Tick something off. Then make a plan for the bigger stuff. Action lowers anxiety faster than anything else.

While you're at it, look at the list and ask what's actually optional. Saying no to something this week is a form of self-preservation. You're allowed to do that.

3. Do one thing at a time

Multitasking feels productive when you have a lot on. It isn't. Switching between tasks reduces your productivity by as much as 40%, and it keeps your mind scattered and stretched. If you have multiple projects, block out chunks of time for each one and stay in the chunk. Resist the pull to flick between tabs.

When tasks feel too big to start, break them into smaller, specifically named steps. Not "finish the report" but "write the introduction." Not "tidy the house" but "clear the kitchen bench." Specificity reduces overwhelm. It also gives you somewhere to point your attention.

4. Take breaks

I know, I know. You feel like you don’t have time for a break. But the longer you do cognitively demanding work, the more your focus slips. You zone out, make mistakes, and burn through more time than the break would have cost you. To maximise your productivity and efficiency while optimising your mental wellbeing, you ideally should try to change the mental channel about every 90 minutes. Your stress drops, your focus comes back, and you avoid the late-afternoon crash.

Basic self-care routines like getting enough sleep and regular exercise are essential. They're the first things we drop when life is overwhelming, and the worst ones to lose. Sleep is when your nervous system processes emotion. Even a short walk shifts your serotonin up and your cortisol down.

5. Breathe

Old advice. Still the most reliable trick we have for switching off the stress response. Long, slow breaths into your diaphragm signal to your brain that you're safe. Notice your stress rising, come back to your breath for a minute or two, then get going again.

Box breathing is particularly good in the thick of it. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Repeat. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the biological off-switch for fight or flight. You can do it on a train, in a meeting, in the school pick-up line, and nobody knows.

6. Ground yourself in the present

When you're overwhelmed, your mind is rarely in the present. It's spiralling into the future or chewing on the past. Grounding pulls you back to the only place you can actually do anything: now.

The 5-4-3-2-1 method works well. Name five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. It sounds too simple to do anything, but it interrupts the spiral and anchors your nervous system back in the room. Especially useful when the overwhelm is more emotional than logistical.

7. Name what you're feeling, and ask for help

There's a difference between knowing you feel bad and being able to name what's actually underneath. Scared? Resentful? Grieving? Lonely? The more specific you can get, the better your chance of responding instead of reacting. Psychologists call this affect labelling, and research shows it reduces the intensity of the emotion by engaging your prefrontal cortex.

And if the strategies above aren't shifting the overwhelm, please talk to someone. A trusted friend, your GP, a mental health professional. Coping techniques are useful, but they’re not always enough. Sometimes what you actually need is another human being to help you work through what’s going on and create a solution specific to you.

Can you prepare for overwhelm in advance?

Yes, and you should. A self-care plan put together on a calm day is much easier to follow when you're in the thick of it. Think about what actually resets you. A walk. A particular playlist. A call with the friend who gets it. Time in the garden. Write the list. Keep it visible.

A "worry window" can help too. Pick a 15 to 20 minute slot each day where you let yourself think through the things you've been worrying about. Outside that window, when a worry shows up, you note it down and say, "I'll think about that at 5pm." Over time, it trains your brain out of constant background rumination.

One more thing worth knowing

If overwhelm seems to follow you around as a pattern rather than a one-off, there's often something deeper underneath it. Low confidence and a shaky sense of self-worth can make every demand feel like a threat and every setback feel like failure.

I've put together a free resource that works on the cause underneath. If you want to see what you confidence baseline looks like and what's been driving some of the overwhelm, have a look

Grab my FREE Nervous system reset guide here.

A final note

The goal is to catch it earlier and get out of it faster, before it tips into burnout.

Pick one strategy. Try it this week.See what shifts. That's enough to start.

Cass xo