Feeling of the Week: Overstimulated
Sunlight slams through the blinds at 6 a.m., the neighborhood lawn crew starts its morning symphony, group texts are vibrating like a chorus of cicadas, and your brain feels like a crowded crosswalk at rush hour. Congratulations, you are officially overstimulated.
The Emotional Equation
Overstimulation = Sensory Input + Emotional Load – Recovery Time
When the volume of sights, sounds, tasks, and feelings coming in is greater than the time and space you have to process them, your nervous system flashes the neon sign: “System Overload.” Think of it as having fifty browser tabs open—with autoplay videos on every one. No wonder you feel foggy and irritable.
Why Summer Turns the Dial Up
Longer daylight hours extend activity windows, which means more invitations, more errands, and fewer cues to wind down.
Higher temperatures raise heart rate and stress hormones, priming your body for fight-or-flight before breakfast.
Social pressure tells you that if you are not paddle-boarding, grilling, or road-tripping, you are wasting the season. Layer that on top of family schedules and work deadlines and you have sensory soup.
Body-First Reset
Temperature Triage
Stand in front of an open freezer for thirty seconds or glide an ice cube along your wrists. Cool skin signals your brain that danger is dropping. Immediate relief, zero cost.
Five-Sense Scan
Close eyes. Name one thing you can taste, two you can smell, three you can feel, four you can hear, five you can see. This simple ladder yanks attention from the tornado back into the present.
Mini-Movement
Ten slow neck rolls, both directions. Gentle input organizes scattered sensory data and invites the parasympathetic system to take the wheel.
Mind-First Reframe
Expectation Audit
List every should swirling in your mind: should answer, should attend, should enjoy. Cross out any that are not mission-critical. It feels tiny, yet each scratched-out should returns a byte of mental RAM.
Permission Slip
Write a sticky note: “I can opt out.” Place it on your laptop or steering wheel. Every glimpse reinforces autonomy, which lowers the threat response tied to external noise.
Micro-Boundary Scripts
“I would love to join, but tonight is my quiet recharge slot.”
“Let me check how full my plate is after lunch and circle back.”
“Sounds fun. If my social battery cooperates, I will swing by for an hour.”
Short. Kind. Clear. People adapt faster than you think.
Build Psychological Capital While You Cool Down
Hope: Visualize the moment you close those extra tabs and feel airflow in your chest.
Optimism: Remind yourself that a quick reset often shifts the entire mood.
Resilience: Every time you scale back sensory input, you practice bouncing back.
Efficacy: Notice the tools you can reach for...earplugs, fan, shaded porch. Your environment can support you when you direct it.
Five-Minute Recovery Drill
Silence phone notifications for five minutes.
Find shade or air conditioning. Sip cold water.
Set a timer and breathe in for four counts, out for six, until the timer chimes.
Ask, “What is one sound or task I can remove from my field right now?” Do it.
Log the calm on a notes app or journal. Data builds belief.
Closing Thought
Overstimulation tricks you into thinking everything is on fire. Most of the time it is just too many sparks at once. Cool one ember, and the blaze settles. By pairing body-first resets with mind-first reframes, you chip away at the equation’s left side and gift yourself the recovery time that balances it out.
Stay curious, stay kind to your senses, and trust that emotional endurance is built one cooled core and one crossed-out should at a time. Next week we will tackle another summer curveball.