You’re at work.
You’re thinking about a meeting you have to attend later.
You’re thinking about a project that is due tomorrow.
And a client you have to contact later.
You’ve still gotta book an appointment at the dentist sometime soon.
Oh, and the dog needs a vet appointment too.
It’s your friends birthday next week, you’ll need to organise something.
Must to do the washing when you get home from work.
Gotta remember to keep drinking water today, you know you often forget.
Need to fit in some exercise today… should you go for a run or just a walk? Don’t really want to wash your hair tonight so maybe a walk…but what if it’s raining? Maybe yoga?
Gotta pay the car rego…
Uh oh…you realise you completely forgot to do your journaling habit this morning and forgot to pack lunch! What should you buy for lunch? You think you’ll just get something quick from the cafe downstairs…
Wait, still need to finish this work task before the meeting…why can’t you focus?
Yikes.
I bet you started to feel a little overwhelmed just reading all those thoughts above…I felt overwhelmed writing them down!
I even found myself starting to wonder if I’d forgotten anything in my own life. Five minutes later I realised I was stressing about all the things I had to do later today instead of writing this blog…
This pattern plays out for most of us on a daily basis.
There are so many things competing for our attention at any given time. It’s just how our world is.
Chuck in a worldwide pandemic (plus a number of other worldly events) and it’s no wonder we struggle with overwhelm, stress, and anxiety more than ever.
And it’s no wonder, when our brains are so overloaded, that we struggle with seemingly “basic” and “simple” healthy habits.
Like consistent exercise, going to bed earlier, drinking water, eating healthy…
Every seemingly simple or small habit still requires brain power for us to do.
How our brain works: Attention and focus
Our brains take in a lot of information throughout the day. So much that we just cannot possibly ever process it all. That’s why we filter things out, and choose what to pay attention to.
If we didn’t have the ability to filter our thoughts like this, we would be so overwhelmed by all the incoming stimuli that we wouldn’t be able to function.
An example of how this brain filter works is when you’re walking through a crowded shopping centre. There’s so much going on around you and lots of noise, but you can still focus on the conversation you are having with your partner as you walk through the chaos.
Where we choose to place our attention, what we choose to focus on vs. filter out, is what determines our experience of the world.
It’s relatively easy to filter out noise in a shopping centre to focus on a conversation you’re having. But how do we know what to filter out when our brains are overloaded by everyday tasks, responsibilities, and commitments?
When we can’t effectively filter and prioritise our thoughts in the moment, we experience overwhelm.
This is something I am particularly familiar with.
I am notorious for getting up in my own head, thinking about all of the things and feeling paralysed, unable to take action on anything. This lack of action then fuels more overwhelm and anxiety at my own inaction, and the cycle continues.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this feeling at some point in your life, too.
Cognitive load: our brain space is limited
Cognitive load is essentially the amount of information (or thoughts) we can hold in our working memory at one time. We only have so much brain space to work with.
This is why multitasking is often a sinking ship. We simply don’t have the brain capacity to give full focus and attention to multiple tasks at the same time (think texting while driving). We end up giving half-focus to both tasks, and not performing either of them very well.
Unfortunately, when we are stressed or there are too many inputs we deem as important, even if they’re just thoughts swimming around in our heads, our attention and focus starts to wane.
When we get overwhelmed, it’s often because we’ve started to believe all our tasks have equal importance. We aren’t sorting and prioritising effectively.
I know this happens to me – I’m thinking about the washing, the bill I need to pay, the work project, a dinner I’m organising, a present I need to buy, the healthy habits I want to engage in…and everything feels like it needs immediate attention in my brain.
Then what happens? I attend to none of it.
But when you really think about it, many of the tasks on your to-do list probably aren’t urgent and important right this second.
Prioritising is a skill, one that’s essential if we want to live a meaningful life where we achieve all of the things we want to achieve.
Why our health kicks often crash and burn after a short time
Cognitive load also explains why, when we try to start too many new habits or behaviours at once, it only lasts so long before we get overwhelmed and give up.
Think, that health challenge you just joined up to that requires you to start a new intensive exercise routine, plus follow a specific meal plan, plus drink new supplements, plus track a bunch of other new habits…on top of all your regular life responsibilities.
It’s easy to see how, when life gets a little extra busy, the intense health challenge is the first thing to go.
Our brain power needs to be spread over all our responsibilities and thoughts in any given day. This is why our brain relies on automatic habits so that we can function when we only have limited brain space, or when we are stressed.
When we’re thinking and worrying about ALL of the things, our brain isn’t going to highly prioritise our new habit of drinking water. Even though it seems like a simple task, our brain sees it as just one more thing overloading the system.
Instead, it’s going to revert to old habits which require less energy because they’re pre-programmed (more on this in a moment).
While we’re talking about drinking water, you can picture your brain space (or cognitive load) like a glass of water. Once the glass of water is full, it’s full. Any more water that goes in will just overflow over the edges – you can’t make the glass any bigger.
This is why I’m particularly passionate about building new habits slowly and deliberately, only a few at a time, while keeping them flexible enough to be doable even when life gets stressful. It’s the only way to make changes like this stick long-term in a way that fits our busy and stressful lives.
It’s about building habits that work with our brain, rather than against it.
Your brain under stress
Overwhelm, anxiety, uncertainty (hello pandemic) and stress all make our brain think we are under threat. Our brain’s priority is always survival first.
Under stressful conditions, the emotional part of our brain (the limbic system) is activated before the thinking and problem solving part of our brain (the prefrontal cortex) even realises what’s happening. You might know this as the fight or flight response. Our brain can’t differentiate between psychological survival and physical survival, so the slightest stressful situation can kick the fight or flight response into action.
This process makes it much harder for us to self regulate under stress (which essentially means it’s much harder to engage in those healthy behaviours that we want to do.)
Because of cognitive load, when we are under stress and our thoughts are running all over the shop, our brain (cleverly) reverts to those pre-programmed habits and behaviours to save energy. This is why we find ourselves “falling” into old patterns when life gets busy, when we are stressed, or when we have a lot on our minds.
The good news is…it’s normal for this to happen.
Most of us beat ourselves up for “falling off the wagon” but as you can see, this is a normal and protective function of our human brains.
So what can you do if you want to engage in new healthy behaviours?
We can’t remove stress from our lives, but we can learn to manage our thoughts and emotions when we feel overwhelmed, rather than immediately reacting and completely throwing our health plans out the window.
4 tips to work through overwhelm:
1 – Use systems to prevent overwhelm
The more we try to remember things, the less space we have for emotional regulation and self regulation (e.g., those healthy habits and routines).
This is why I often recommend using some kind of notes app to capture ideas, and a good calendar system.
When you’ve got systems like this set up in your life, you no longer need to keep these thoughts floating around in your brain (which contributes to cognitive load and overwhelm). You can find the information at a later time when you actually need to use it.
2 – Write things down
When we feel overwhelmed in the moment, one of the most helpful things to do is to get our thoughts out of our head and onto paper. Write down everything you’re thinking in the moment. Stream of consciousness, no editing, just get it out.
When stuck in our head, our thoughts get very overwhelming. We can’t organise them or see anything clearly.
I like to think of our thoughts like a tangled ball of black yarn. When they’re stuck in our head, it’s impossible to focus or see clearly. We tend to sit and worry about things instead of taking action and problem solving.
When we write all our thoughts out, we’re essentially untangling the ball of yarn.
Written on paper, we realise the tangled ball of yarn is just a single piece of black string. We can see clearly again and organise our thoughts into priorities, then we can get to work on what needs to be done.
3 – Practice the skill of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the skill of being able to notice our thoughts without reacting to them. This also helps us direct our attention and focus the way we want it to go.
In today’s world where a million and one things scream for our attention, this is a crucial skill to have.
One way you can practice mindfulness is through meditation. I recommend the Headspace app for quick, accessible meditations that work really well for mindfulness.
Another way you can practice mindfulness is giving your full attention to a certain task. Eating is a fantastic time to practice mindfulness. Try removing distractions (e.g., put down your phone) and focus on the food you’re eating. Eat slowly, take breaths or put cutlery down between bites, and think about how it tastes and how you feel.
Not only does this help you build the skill of mindfulness, but it’s also a fantastic health habit to have as mindful eating can improve digestion and lead to you feeling satisfied eating less food.
4 – Write a list of your values and priorities.
When you’re clear on your values in life, in the moment you’ll be able to make better choices and more effectively prioritise your to-do list (which is key to getting out of a state of overwhelm).
Knowing our values also helps us feel fulfilled and like we are living in alignment with who we want to be.
Write down 5 values that are the most important to you. Use the list below. There will be more that’s important, but narrow it down to the 5 that feel most aligned for you. Next to each value, write a sentence about why this is important to you or what it means to you.
Keep this list somewhere you can look back on it. When you’re deciding between a number of tasks to do, you can come back to your values and use them as a guide when you’re not sure what to do.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed often, you might just find that a lot of the tasks you’re prioritising aren’t lining up with your values. Making a shift towards prioritising things that align with your core values could be the answer.
We can’t completely avoid overwhelm and stress, but we can build the skills to a) preventing it happening so often and b) manage it when it does come up.
When simple habits feel challenging, remember that our brains make self-regulation harder when we’re focused on stressful or overwhelming situations.
Self-regulation in the face of stress is a skill that will take time and practice to build. Using these 4 tips to work through overwhelm is a good place to start.
Overwhelm doesn’t have to be a roadblock that completely stops you from functioning in your life. When you have the right skills, you’ll have the tools you need to work through any stressful situation while also pursuing goals (like those healthy habits) that are important to you.
