Based on Atlas of the Heart (2022)
1. I used to use the terms stress and overwhelm interchangeably, but that does not serve us well. The growing field of neurolinguistics is teaching us that language doesn’t just communicate emotion, it shapes how and what we’re feeling.
2. Labeling emotions is core to regulating them and moving through them. I don’t want to create overwhelm when what I’m actually feeling is stress. For me, stress is barely managing the Whac-A-Mole game at the carnival, and overwhelm is leaving the carnival in tears. And, not being able to find my car.
3. We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as beyond our ability to cope successfully. This includes elements of unpredictability, uncontrollability, and feeling overloaded.
4. Stressful situations affect our mind, body, and emotions. However, regardless of how strongly our body responds to stress, our emotional reaction is more tied to our “thinking” assessment of whether we can cope with the situation than to how our body is reacting. I always assumed that my emotions responded to my body freaking out. But really, my emotions are responding to my “thinking” assessment of how well I can handle something.
5. The definition of overwhelm that I could FEEL the moment I read it is from Jon Kabat-Zinn: Overwhelm is the all-too-common feeling that “our lives are somehow unfolding faster than the human nervous system and psyche are able to manage well.” Our bodies and minds are experiencing that quicksand feeling.
6. In overwhelm, it’s hard to respond when people ask “How can I help?” or “What needs to be done?” Responding with organized thoughts feels impossible. This is also when I can get really crappy and think to myself, If I had the wherewithal to figure out what comes next and how we need to approach all of this, I wouldn’t be walking around in circles crying and talking to myself.
7. There is growing evidence that the antidote to overwhelm appears to be nothingness or “non-doing” time as Kabat-Zinn describes it. Now, I’ve trained myself to couple the terms “overwhelm” and “do-nothing.” When I am actually feeling overwhelmed, I say, “I’m overwhelmed, and I need 10–15 minutes of non-doing.” I normally walk the parking lot at work or go outside at home.
8. Non-doing is important because there’s a growing body of research that indicates that we don’t process other emotional information accurately when we feel overwhelmed, and this can result in poor decision making.
9. Researcher Carol Gohm used the term “overwhelmed” to describe an experience where our emotions are intense, our focus on them is moderate, and our clarity about exactly what we’re feeling is low enough that we get confused when trying to identify or describe the emotions. In other words: On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m feeling my emotions at about 10, I’m paying attention to them at about 5, and I understand them at about 2.
10. The big learning here is that feeling both stressed and overwhelmed is about our narrative of emotional and mental depletion — there’s just too much going on to manage effectively. Naming the emotion helps us understand how to move through it.
I always assumed that my emotions responded to my body freaking out. But really, my emotions are responding to my “thinking” assessment of how well I can handle something.
Sources:
Ali, N., Nitschke, J. P., Cooperman, C., & Pruessner, J. C. (2017). Suppressing the endocrine and autonomic stress systems does not impact the emotional stress experience after psychosocial stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 78, 125-130.
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385-396.
David, S. (2016). Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. Penguin Random House.
Gohm, C. L. (2003). Mood regulation and emotional intelligence: Individual differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(3), 594-607.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2019). Overwhelmed. Mindfulness, 10(6), 1188-1189.
Lindquist, K. A., Satpute, A. B., & Gendron, M. (2015). Does language do more than communicate emotion? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(2), 99-108.