Here’s Why You’re Feeling Overstimulated and How To Find Relief

On daily basis, your physique receives a wealth of sensory data, picked up by the five senses of sound, sight, contact, scent or style. The data is relayed to your brain and nervous system, the place it’s processed, so the suitable responses might be carried out. However typically when it is all an excessive amount of and you are feeling overstimulated, the one factor you need is to close down and do nothing. Sound acquainted?

Nevertheless, there’s truly a scientific time period for what you are feeling. Sensory overload “is what all of us expertise when now we have an excessive amount of sensory data coming in,” says April Snow, LMFT, a wedding and household therapist based mostly in California who works with highly sensitive and introverted folks. When the sensory enter coming in exceeds what your nervous system can course of, the nervous system misinterprets it as a risk, and this may push it into hyperarousal (fight or flight) or hypoarousal (freeze), Snow explains (extra on this later).

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Fortunately, with the fitting methods, we will study to manage and handle the results of sensory overload, says Caitlin Slavens, MC, R Psych, a Canada-based registered psychologist who works often with dad and mom experiencing overstimulation. Right here, our professional therapists clarify extra details about sensory overload and share recommendations on managing overstimulation.

What causes sensory overload?

“When you’re already experiencing anxiousness, melancholy, grief, or going via quite a lot of stress, you are extra prone to expertise sensory overload as a result of your nervous system is already taxed,” says Slavens. And, Snow explains the bucket as being practically empty, so the nervous system is left scrambling, making an attempt to manage itself with minimal reserves. In different phrases, when you have already got sufficient in your plate, there’s solely a lot extra you may deal with.

Sensory overload can occur for a wealth of causes. For instance, managing the incoming sensory data can also be trickier on your nervous system whenever you’re feeling sick, hungry, thirsty, drained, or missing restful sleep. However, that is not all.

“Then there are people who find themselves simply extra naturally prone at a baseline,” says Snow. “Like people who’re highly sensitive, on the spectrum, have attention-deficit/hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD), or have sensory processing dysfunction, the place their brains are taking in sensory data in another way.” Snow provides that folks with a historical past of long-term trauma may not be capable to regulate their senses properly, which might improve their danger of feeling overstimulated extra typically.

Methods to inform in the event you’re overstimulated

When your nervous system is overstimulated, it is both going to pop up into battle or flight mode or freeze. Battle or flight is a stress response the place your physique decides it’s going to both confront a risk head-on or escape it altogether. Freeze, alternatively, happens when your physique feels caught, stiff, or properly, frozen when confronted with a stressor. Snow explains that “we regularly cycle between the 2 stress responses.”

If you’re in fight or flight, you might expertise:

However whenever you’re within the freeze response, you might really feel:

• Torpid or lazy
• Unhappy
• Numb
• Shut down
• Hassle concentrating
• Issue making selections and finishing actions

“If you’re in these stress states the place your nervous system is dysregulated, your prefrontal cortex, the entrance a part of your mind, goes offline, and with it goes your govt functioning,” explains Snow. “It turns into onerous to assume clearly, it is onerous to make selections, it is onerous to focus. And once we’re in these states, it is also onerous to sleep,” she provides.

So, what are you able to do to maintain calm?

If you’re experiencing sensory overload, it could possibly typically really feel like there’s nothing you are able to do to cease feeling overwhelmed. However, we’re right here to let you know there is a option to really feel calm. Listed here are a few of our favourite expert-approved methods to strive once we’re overstimulated.

Inform your self that you’re protected

Speaking to your self could seem odd to some folks, however from my expertise, it really works and is an efficient means for me to self-soothe. Slavens agrees, and this is why. Say you’re taking care of toddlers who’re crying since you’ve advised them they solely have 5 minutes left of outdoor play. By reminding your nervous system that you simply’re protected, the nervous system takes its foot off the “risk” pedal, easing away from that battle, flight, or freeze response it was in.

Concentrate on different environment

This tip is very helpful whenever you’re unable to get away from the overstimulating object or atmosphere that is inflicting the sensory overload. Do that: flip your head, look all the way in which to your left, then all the way in which to the fitting. What you’re aiming to do is absorb extra of the house, as a substitute of locking your gaze and a spotlight on what your nervous system has perceived as a risk, says Snow. It helps you paint an even bigger image of security so your mind and nervous system can begin to really feel some sense of calm.

Decelerate what you’re doing, even when it’s by a fraction

We all know our to-do lists are unending. However as a substitute of speeding via your motion gadgets for the day, let your self decelerate. In slowing issues down, you’re giving your nervous system room to course of the sensory data it has already obtained, in order that it’s primed to soak up no matter data goes to be coming at your subsequent. “My purchasers are at all times stunned by this, it sounds so easy, but it surely’s efficient,” Snow says.

Separate your self from the overstimulating atmosphere 

“If you should take a sensory break, take that break,” says Slavens. Spend a few minutes by yourself in a toilet, empty room, or within the backyard. By “giving your senses a break, you’re permitting your nervous system to settle, and your thoughts to meet up with processing for a second,” says Snow.

Moms typically say they really feel “touched out” and surprise if it’s advantageous to take a break from holding their younger youngsters. Slavens, who has kids of her personal, says sure, it’s. It is okay to place a child down for a few minutes in a protected place when you take a sensory break within the close by room. It is okay to say to your youngsters, “Mother’s physique wants some house proper now, so you may sit beside me, however you may’t sit on me.”

We all know you’ve got most likely heard the oxygen mask on the airplane analogy a bunch of instances, however the sentiment behind it’s true—care for your self earlier than you are unable to care for anybody else.

Apply aware respiratory

Including some aware breathing exercises can help reduce stress and soothe your nervous system when it’s overloaded, our specialists say. Breathe in via your nostril and sigh out via your mouth. We prefer to strive box breathing, the place you breathe in for 4 counts, maintain it for 4 counts, breathe out for 4 counts, maintain it for 4 counts, and repeat it as many instances as you want.

Interact in bilateral motion

Left-to-right or side-to-side motion, also called bilateral movement, has the impact of “waking up the mind and permitting it to course of” the knowledge it’s selecting up, says Snow.

Occurring a stroll is a type of bilateral motion. When you’re standing and chatting with folks at an occasion, it could possibly be gently shifting your weight between your toes from left to proper. When you’re at a gathering or a dinner, it could possibly be tapping your palms in your thighs forwards and backwards below the desk. Whichever bilateral motion you select, partaking in it could possibly carry your consciousness again to your physique and away from the knowledge that is overstimulating you.

Apply strain to your physique

“Stress on the stomach is absolutely comforting to most individuals’s nervous methods,” say Snow. She recommends taking your palms and urgent them on the decrease stomach, pulling your knees as much as your chest, or hugging your self. It’s also possible to apply deep strain in your chest utilizing your palms, or place one thing weighted in your physique, similar to a weighted blanket or your furry buddy, Slavens provides.

For an added bonus, strive combining the methods we have already talked about. For instance, put your palms in your chest to offer your self some deep strain, apply respiratory, and inform your self, “I am protected.” Having quite a lot of these administration methods in your again pocket is good, so you may shuffle between them if one begins to lose its effectiveness after some time.

When to see a healthcare supplier

Whereas these administration methods we simply mentioned are glorious methods to calm your nervous system down whenever you’re feeling overstimulated, typically they is probably not sufficient. In case your sensory overload signs are interfering along with your day-to-day functioning, hindering you from doing the stuff you wish to do, or occurring often, specialists encourage you to achieve out to your healthcare supplier. They will study extra about your experiences, check you for underlying well being circumstances, and join you to a psychological well being skilled to give you extra assist.

The underside line

Everybody experiences some kind of overstimulation sooner or later of their lives. And as irritating as sensory overload might be, it is also simply our physique’s means of telling us that our nervous system is reaching its most capability to course of data. Whereas it is not straightforward to protect ourselves utterly from overstimulating environments, fortunately, there are tried-and-true strategies to assist hold our minds and our bodies calm. So the following time issues really feel only a bit an excessive amount of, there are methods you need to use to really feel a little bit extra comfy.