What to Do When You’re Overwhelmed
I’m going to be honest with you.
I wrote this because I needed it myself.
The school year is in full swing. The holidays are coming. My dog just had surgery. My child woke up vomiting in the middle of the night. Life is life, and sometimes it all seems to happen at once.
And my brain has been going a million miles a minute.
So I did what I often do when I’m overwhelmed.
I sat down and wrote it all out.
Because sometimes you need to stop trying to hold everything in your head and actually put it somewhere.
And this is what came out.
FIRST, UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING
When you’re overwhelmed, everything feels urgent.
The email.
The appointment.
The dishes.
The thing you forgot yesterday.
The thing that’s happening next week.
The thing you haven’t even dealt with yet.
It all piles into one giant mental mass, and suddenly you can’t tell what actually needs your attention first.
There is a reason this happens.
Stress can interfere with the very cognitive functions we rely on to manage a complicated life: working memory, flexible thinking, planning, and decision-making. When the brain is under significant stress, it becomes harder to step back, prioritize, and see the bigger picture.
So if you’ve ever looked at a completely manageable list and thought, “I literally cannot do one more thing,” there is nothing inherently wrong with you.
Your system is overloaded.
And I think the first step is recognizing that instead of judging yourself for it.
Then we do something about it.
Here are my seven.
1. Call a Timeout
I have no problem canceling my day when I need to.
Sometimes I literally stop.
Not to fix anything. Not to make a plan. Just to stop.
Because when you're already overwhelmed, adding more doesn't create clarity. It creates more overwhelm.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing.
Give yourself permission to pause.
Then breathe.
2. Trim the Fat
Once I've stopped long enough to think, I look at my schedule and start cutting things.
Not because everything is unimportant.
Because everything cannot be equally important.
Ask yourself:
What absolutely has to happen?
What can be moved?
What can wait?
What can someone else handle?
What can simply not happen?
It is amazing how much we fill our lives with things that feel urgent and necessary but really aren't.
We say yes because we've already said yes.
We keep appointments because they're on the calendar.
We maintain commitments that made sense three months ago but don't make sense right now.
You are allowed to reprioritize.
You are allowed to change your mind.
You are allowed to decide that something you thought you had to do actually doesn't need to happen.
Trim the fat.
3. Fall Apart
I had a nervous breakdown this morning.
And honestly?
Sometimes life is just hard.
We go to work. Our children wake up sick in the middle of the night. Our dogs have surgery. Someone needs something. Something breaks. Another thing gets added to the list.
And sometimes you just need to fall apart for a minute.
Cry.
Scream into a pillow.
Let yourself be pissed off.
Let the tears come.
Let the energy move.
We spend so much time trying to hold ourselves together that we forget there is value in letting ourselves come undone.
The goal isn’t to live there.
The goal is to stop fighting the fact that you’re having a human moment.
Allow it.
Surrender to it.
Then let it move through.
4. Move Your Body
I think one of the first things we abandon when life gets overwhelming is exercise.
And I understand why.
When you’re exhausted and your brain is overloaded, the last thing you want to do is put on workout clothes and make yourself move.
I didn’t want to get on my Peloton this morning.
I did it anyway.
Because I know myself well enough to know that movement is not just about physical health for me. It changes what happens in my head.
Sometimes I can get away with skipping it when life is calm.
When I’m overwhelmed, I need it.
You don’t have to feel motivated.
You don’t have to want to do it.
Sometimes you just have to start.
And then let your body help your mind catch up.
5. Write It Down
This is literally why I’m writing this blog.
My thoughts were moving too fast. I couldn’t organize them in my head, so I put them on paper.
And suddenly there was somewhere for all of it to go.
Research supports part of what we’re intuitively doing here. Unfinished tasks can keep showing up in our thoughts, and recent research has found a relationship between unfinished work and continued work-related thinking during time that is supposed to be restorative.
So write it down.
Everything.
The appointment.
The email.
The grocery list.
The thing you’re worried you’ll forget.
Then sit down with your planner.
Because overwhelm loves the aggregate.
Everything at once feels impossible.
Today is different.
This hour is different.
This one thing is different.
You don’t have to solve your whole life today.
You just have to figure out what comes next.
6. Find Something That Makes You Feel Good
I saved this one for a reason.
Because when we are overwhelmed, joy is usually one of the first things we cut.
We tell ourselves we’ll have fun when the list is finished.
We’ll relax when work slows down.
We’ll laugh when everything is handled.
But what if that’s backwards?
What if feeling good is part of how we get through hard things?
This is where I say: fuck it.
Find something you genuinely enjoy and go do it.
Dance.
Go outside.
Put on music.
Make something.
Watch something stupid.
Call the friend who always makes you laugh.
Play with your kids.
Do something that reminds you that you are a person who is alive, not a machine whose only job is to get everything done.
And please do it without guilt.
Because here is the question I keep coming back to:
Do your kids like you better when you’re tweaked out, stressed, serious, and rigid?
Or when you’re relaxed, smiling, laughing, and actually there with them?
It’s obvious.
And I think that matters far beyond the moment.
Our children are watching how we live. They are learning what we do when life becomes too much.
I want mine to learn that overwhelm doesn’t mean you have to suffer until the storm passes.
I want them to know you can stop.
You can breathe.
You can ask for help.
You can change the plan.
And you can still find something good in the middle of it.
7. Ask for Help
I almost forgot this one.
Which is probably exactly why it belongs here.
Ask for help.
Call someone.
Tell your partner you are maxed out.
Ask a friend to take something off your plate.
Let someone bring dinner.
Tell your therapist you’re struggling.
Say, “I can’t do all of this today.”
There is no prize for being the person who can carry the most.
We are not meant to do everything alone.
And asking for help doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It means you recognized that you are human.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARRY ALL OF IT TODAY
If you’re overwhelmed right now, I don’t want you to add another thing to your list.
You don’t need seven new habits.
Pick one.
Cancel something.
Write it down.
Cry.
Move your body.
Ask for help.
Do something fun.
Take a damn break.
Whatever brings you back to yourself.
Because we are not here to spend our lives stressed out, rigid, and trying to keep everything perfectly under control.
We are here to feel.
To grow.
To learn.
To connect.
To heal.
To laugh.
To love.
To actually be here for our lives while we’re living them.
So if today feels like too much, make it smaller.
One day.
One hour.
One thing.
And then the next.
You don’t have to carry all of it at once.
Rachel Gordon, MA, MEd, is a psychotherapist and founder of Humble Warrior Therapy, where she supports individuals in the Denver area with heart-centered, trauma-informed care.