Why Your Overstimulated & Overwhelmed
In today's fast-paced world, overstimulation has become a common issue, especially for millennial women who juggle multiple responsibilities daily. Understanding the signs, symptoms, and coping strategies for overstimulation is crucial for maintaining mental and physical well-being.
Understanding Overstimulation
Overstimulation occurs when our senses are overwhelmed by excessive stimuli, such as constant noise, bright lights, or multitasking. Millennial women are particularly susceptible due to the demands of modern life, including careers, social commitments, and personal responsibilities.
What is Overstimulation?
Overstimulation happens when the brain receives more input from the environment than it can handle. This can lead to a state of sensory overload, where the brain struggles to process all the incoming information effectively. Common sources of overstimulation include:
Constant Connectivity: Smartphones, social media, and the internet keep us perpetually connected, bombarding us with notifications, messages, and updates.
Multitasking: Juggling multiple tasks at once can overwhelm our cognitive capacities, leading to decreased efficiency and increased stress.
Sensory Overload: Bright lights, loud noises, and busy environments can flood our senses, making it difficult to concentrate and relax.
Why Millennial Women are More Susceptible
Millennial women often face unique challenges that make them more prone to overstimulation:
Career Pressures: The modern workplace demands high productivity, long hours, and continuous skill development, leading to chronic stress.
Social Commitments: Maintaining social relationships, networking, and engaging in community activities can be demanding and exhausting.
Personal Responsibilities: Balancing personal life, family obligations, and self-care can create a constant state of busyness, leaving little time for relaxation and mental recuperation.
Career Pressures: The modern workplace demands high productivity, long hours, and continuous skill development, leading to chronic stress.
Social Commitments: Maintaining social relationships, networking, and engaging in community activities can be demanding and exhausting.
Personal Responsibilities: Balancing personal life, family obligations, and self-care can create a constant state of busyness, leaving little time for relaxation and mental recuperation.
The Mental Load of Women
The mental load refers to the invisible labor involved in managing a household and family, which often disproportionately falls on women. This constant cognitive and emotional burden contributes significantly to overstimulation in millennial women.
Emotional Labor: Women often take on the role of managing family dynamics, resolving conflicts, and providing emotional support to their loved ones. This ongoing emotional labor can be draining and adds to the overall mental load.
Cognitive Load: Remembering birthdays, scheduling appointments, managing the household budget, and planning meals are just a few examples of the cognitive tasks that women frequently handle. These responsibilities require continuous mental effort, contributing to cognitive overload.
Balancing Multiple Roles: Millennial women often juggle various roles, including career professionals, caregivers, partners, and community members. Balancing these roles requires constant mental switching and multitasking, which can lead to feelings of being constantly on edge.
Invisible Work: Tasks such as maintaining social connections, organizing family events, and ensuring everyone’s needs are met often go unnoticed but require significant mental energy. This invisible work can contribute to feelings of overwhelm and overstimulation.
How the Heavy Mental Load Shows Up in Your Daily Life
Consider a day in the life of a millennial woman who works full-time, manages her household, and cares for her family.
She starts her day early, responding to work emails while making breakfast and ensuring her kids are ready for school.
Throughout the day, she juggles work meetings, grocery shopping, and planning family activities.
By evening, she is emotionally and mentally exhausted, with little time for self-care or relaxation.
The constant mental load leaves her feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed, impacting her overall well-being.
The Science Behind Overstimulation
When overstimulated, the brain's amygdala (responsible for emotional responses) can become hyperactive, leading to increased anxiety and stress. Simultaneously, the prefrontal cortex (responsible for decision-making and focus) can become impaired, making it harder to concentrate and make rational decisions. This imbalance can create a cycle of stress and decreased cognitive function, exacerbating the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Signs and Symptoms of Overstimulation
Recognizing the signs of overstimulation is the first step toward managing it effectively.
Common symptoms include:
Physical Signs:
Headaches
Fatigue
Muscle tension
Emotional Symptoms:
Irritability
Anxiety
Mood swings
Cognitive Symptoms:
Difficulty concentrating
Forgetfulness
Mental fog
Behavioral Signs:
Restlessness
Avoidance
Snapping at others
What Overstimulation Looks Like in Everyday Life
Workplace Overload: Imagine you've been in back-to-back meetings all day, your inbox is overflowing with emails, and your phone keeps buzzing with notifications. By the end of the day, you feel mentally drained and unable to focus on any single task.
Social Media Fatigue: You wake up and immediately start scrolling through Instagram and Facebook. Throughout the day, you check your phone constantly, trying to keep up with messages, notifications, and updates. By evening, you're exhausted and feel disconnected from real-life interactions.
Family Chaos: After a long day at work, you come home to a noisy household with kids running around, the TV blaring, and dinner to prepare. The constant sensory input leaves you feeling frazzled and irritable, unable to enjoy time with your family.
Sensory Overload in Public Spaces: You visit a busy shopping mall on a weekend. The bright lights, loud music, and crowds of people quickly become overwhelming. You find yourself feeling anxious and needing to leave sooner than planned.
Event Burnout: You've had a week filled with social events, including dinners, parties, and networking gatherings. By the end of the week, you feel socially exhausted and crave solitude, finding it hard to motivate yourself to attend any more events.
Overstimulation and Self-Sabotage
Constant overstimulation doesn't just drain our energy and focus; it also makes us more prone to self-sabotage.
Here's how:
Increased Susceptibility to Triggers: When we are overstimulated, our emotional threshold is lower. This means we are more likely to be triggered by small annoyances or stressors that we might usually handle better. These triggers can lead to overreactions or emotional outbursts, disrupting our day and adding to our stress.
Heightened Self-Sabotaging Behaviors: The constant state of overwhelm can lead to behaviors such as procrastination, avoidance, and perfectionism. For example, feeling unable to tackle a large project because our minds are already overloaded can lead us to put it off repeatedly, ultimately harming our productivity and self-esteem.
Guilt and Self-Criticism: When we fail to manage our overstimulation effectively, we often feel guilty for not being able to perform at our best. This guilt can turn into harsh self-criticism, further eroding our confidence and making it harder to break free from self-sabotaging patterns.
Misplaced Priorities and Poor Decision-Making: Overstimulation impairs our ability to prioritize effectively and make clear decisions. We might focus on minor tasks that feel more manageable instead of tackling important projects, leading to a cycle of busyness without productivity.
Persistent Push Through: Even when overstimulation peaks at the worst possible times, such as before a major deadline or during an important event, we often try to push through it. This approach not only leads to burnout but also reduces the quality of our work and interactions, reinforcing the cycle of self-sabotage.
Overcome Overstimulation
Recognizing and managing overstimulation is essential for maintaining mental and physical health. By identifying triggers and implementing both immediate and long-term strategies, you can effectively cope with overstimulation and lead a healthier, more balanced life.
If you're ready to take control of your life and break free from the cycle of self-sabotage, grab my self study course the Ultimate Self-Sabotage Solution Program+ Implementation Toolkit.
Led by licensed therapist Joyce Agne, this workshop will provide you with practical tools, strategies, and personalized support to overcome self-sabotage and create lasting change.
Get my entire step by step implementation program & toolkit for just $97 and gain lifetime access to all replays and resources. (VALUED AT OVER $1997)
Learn exactly how to FIND YOUR BREAKTHROUGH in 6 easy steps so you can walk away with a customized action plan that fits into your busy life!
What's included:
Comprehensive Self-Study Course: Walk through all six steps of the Ultimate Self-Sabotage Solution at your own pace
Step-by-Step Action Takers Guide: Practical, easy-to-follow steps to keep you on track including where to start and common mistakes to avoid
Implementation Toolkit: Exercises, templates, and comprehensive guides for each step.
Breakthrough Implementation Strategies Workbook- trackers, dashboards, and techniques to fast track your way to breakthrough self-sabotage
6 Months Live Support: Get all your questions answered during 6 monthly live Q&A calls (or pre-submit questions if you can't make it live)
Lifetime Access: Review materials at your own pace, whenever you need
BONUSES:
Beat the Overwhelm Guide: Strategies to help you manage and overcome feelings of overwhelm
Step-by-Step Guide to Identifying Triggers: Detailed instructions to help you pinpoint and address your triggers effectively.
Emotional Safety Guide for Inner Work: Grounding techniques & tools to create a safe and supportive environment for your emotional journey.
