How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed: The Right Tool for Where You Actually Are
- Aug 3
- 6 min read
AT A GLANCE: How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed: The Right Tool for Where You Actually Are
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In This Article
Overwhelm is restrictive. It narrows what feels possible to think about, it narrows the options that feel available, and it can leave you feeling worse than before you started trying to work through it. This isn't a personal shortfall. It's a specific, physiological state, and what helps depends entirely on where you are within it.
Feeling Overwhelmed Isn't One Fixed State, It Moves Through Stages
Overwhelm isn't one fixed state. It moves through distinct stages, from peak intensity through to genuine readiness for change, and what helps at one stage is often unusable at another. A technique that works well once things have settled can feel entirely out of reach at peak intensity, and a tool built for peak intensity can feel too small once real thinking is possible again. Matching the tool to the stage, rather than reaching for a single fixed technique regardless of where you are, is what makes the difference. That match has a physiological basis, not just a practical one, addressed in more depth in Wellbeing Barriers: Why the Gap Between Knowing and Doing, and understanding why changes how each stage should be approached.
When Intensity Is High, the Body Needs to Settle First
At peak intensity, the instinct to solve the problem in front of you is exactly the wrong instinct, and there's a precise physiological reason why. When a threat, real or perceived, is registered, the stress response activates a rapid cascade: adrenaline surges, the sympathetic nervous system mobilises the body for action, and cognitive resources shift away from deliberate, analytical thought toward fast, reactive processing (Sapolsky, 2004). This response evolved for physical survival, escaping an immediate, physical threat, not for navigating a difficult email or an overloaded diary. The body doesn't distinguish between the two.
This matters directly for what kind of help is actually usable at this stage. Research on the prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for planning, weighing options, and solution-focused thought, shows that even mild, acute, uncontrollable stress causes a rapid and measurable drop in its function (Arnsten, 2009). In practical terms, the exact capacity needed to use a planning tool or work through a to-do list is the capacity that's least available in this state. This is why a breathing or calming practice isn't a soft first step before the real work starts. It's the only step that's physiologically accessible at this point, and it's what allows the prefrontal cortex to come back online enough for anything else to be useful. This same principle underlies recovery more broadly, covered directly in Burnout in Women: Signs, Causes, and What Actually Helps.
As Capacity Returns, One Instant Action Beats Deliberation
Once the body has settled, thinking capacity begins returning, but it returns gradually, not all at once. This is the point where a wide menu of options becomes counterproductive rather than helpful, evaluating alternatives is itself a cognitive task, and it's exactly the kind of task that partial capacity struggles with. What works instead is a single, specific action, something to choose and do without weighing it against other choices.
The action planning tool inside the Stress and Overwhelm resource library is built for precisely this moment. It offers one instant, low-effort decision, rather than the open-ended browsing that becomes useful later, once more thinking capacity has returned. This works through a principle known as cognitive offloading, externalising a decision onto a structured tool rather than holding every option in mind at once, which reduces the mental load involved in choosing. This is exactly what's needed when deliberation itself is hard to sustain (Risko & Gilbert, 2016).
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Once You're Ready to Do the Deeper Work, the Resource Library Holds It
The third stage is different in kind, not just in degree. This is where genuine cognitive work becomes possible again, the kind that changes how a situation is approached going forward, rather than just getting through the next moment. This requires meaningfully more capacity than either of the earlier stages, which is exactly why it comes last, not first. Offered too early, this stage's tools would be as unusable as a planning exercise at peak intensity.
The wider Stress and Overwhelm resource library holds what this stage actually needs: a series of self-coaching videos to work through, the broader bank of additional resources for exploring what's underneath the overwhelm itself, and the option to book a session directly when a specific situation calls for more than self-guided work can offer. Where the previous stage asked for one instant choice, this stage allows for genuine exploration, because by this point, the capacity to explore has actually returned.
Together, these three stages describe a single underlying principle rather than three separate techniques: match what's being asked of a person to what they can actually support in that moment, and let that guide the sequence, not a fixed list applied the same way regardless of where someone actually is.
Client Testimonial
"Elizabeth is a fantastic coach; she allowed me to navigate some big struggles I was having by allowing me to break them down into more manageable tasks and bust some of the barriers I had put in place."
This reflects the same underlying approach: not less support, but support matched to what's actually manageable at each point.
FAQs: How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed
How do you stop feeling overwhelmed?
It depends on which stage you're actually in. At peak intensity, the body needs to settle first. Once that's happened, one instant, simple action helps more than a long list of options. Once real thinking capacity is back, coaching, resources, or working through what's underneath it becomes genuinely useful.
How do you stop feeling overwhelmed at work?
The same three stages apply, settling the body first, then one small action rather than a full plan, then deeper work once there's real space to think it through. What changes at work is often the pressure to skip straight to problem-solving before the first stage has actually happened.
Why do I feel overwhelmed so easily?
This varies by person and circumstance, but the underlying pattern, a stress response activating easily and often, frequently reflects sustained demand without enough recovery in between, rather than a personal shortfall.
What is the 3-3-3 rule, and does it work?
It's a grounding technique: naming three things you can see, three sounds you can hear, then moving three parts of your body. It can genuinely help in a specific moment. Explore this further in The 3-3-3 Rule: What It Is and Why It Works
How does coaching help with overwhelm?
Coaching identifies which stage a person is actually in and matches support to it, rather than offering the same advice regardless of where someone is. That match, not more information or more effort, is what tends to make the difference.
What is cognitive offloading?
Cognitive offloading means transferring a mental task, like a decision or something to remember, onto an external tool rather than holding it entirely in mind. It reduces the mental effort involved, which matters most exactly when that effort is already limited, such as during overwhelm.
Explore This in the Women's Wellbeing Lab
Knowing what helps is useful. Having the right tool ready for the exact moment you need it is more useful still.
The Women's Wellbeing Lab holds tools matched to every stage of overwhelm, from settling the body to planning your next move, so you're never reaching for advice built for a different moment than the one you're in.
References
Sapolsky, R. M. (2004). Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers (3rd ed.). Henry Holt and Co.
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648
Meichenbaum, D., & Deffenbacher, J. L. (1988). Stress inoculation training. The Counseling Psychologist, 16(1), 69–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000088161005
Risko, E. F., & Gilbert, S. J. (2016). Cognitive offloading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(9), 676–688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.07.002
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