Stress vs Overwhelm – And Why You Should Know the Difference

[00:00:00] Rachel: A few months ago I had an awful lot going on, both with family stuff at home, business stuff, lots of delivery to do, lots of prep to do, and there were some staffing issues and I just felt completely overwhelmed. Now often when I’m feeling stressed or when I’ve got a lot going on, I’ll talk to a coach or a friend and just talking to them helps me get my head straight, I get a list of actions, things get really clear and I know what I need to do going forwards.

[00:00:29] Rachel: But this time sitting down, talking to people, making lists of what I had to do didn’t help. I still just felt overwhelmed and actually looking at the solutions and the list of things I had to take action on just added to the feeling of overwhelm. And I’m sure you can think to times when actually making lists of things to do and getting the solutions don’t help with that feeling of overwhelm.

[00:00:55] Rachel: I think often we get stress and overwhelm a bit mixed up and we actually think that having too much to do and being overwhelmed leads to us feeling stressed. But I’ve realised that what I got wrong about stress and overwhelm is not understanding that there is a difference between the two. And yes, they are linked, but stress is caused when the demands on us outweigh our perceived resources for being able to cope. Therefore, we feel stressed, we feel worried, we’re not going to cope. So stress can happen when things are unpredictable and uncontrollable and the demands are just too much.

[00:01:36] Rachel: Now, overwhelm is slightly different. Overwhelm is caused by extreme stress as Brené Brown talks about in her book, The Atlas of the Heart, she says that Jon Kabat Zinn describes overwhelm as the all too common feeling that our lives are somehow unfolding faster than the human nervous system and psyche are able to manage well.

[00:01:59] Rachel: And this really resonates with me, because when I’m feeling overwhelmed, it’s not just about too much to do. It’s about the fact that I just can’t cope with too much to do and I can’t seem to get into action and I feel this paralysis. And the reason it’s really important to know the difference between stress and overwhelmed and what it is that you’re feeling is that the way out is very different for each of them. And if we get this wrong, what happens is we keep trying to hit the nail in with a screwdriver. It just doesn’t work. And often when we’re overwhelmed and we’re misdiagnosing it just to stress, we’re trying to do more and more to solve the problem, which adds and adds and adds to our sense of overwhelm.

[00:02:41] Rachel: If we get this right, it means we can spot when we are overwhelmed rather than stressed and take some appropriate steps that are going to really, really help us get out of it.

[00:02:51] Rachel: This is a you are Not a frog Quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we talk about on our full podcast episodes. I’ve chosen today’s topic to give you a helpful boost in the time it takes to have a cup of tea so you can return to whatever else you’re up to. Feeling energized and inspired for more tools, tips, and insights to help you thrive at work. Don’t forget to subscribe to you are not a frog wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:03:19] Rachel: Jon Kabat Zinn, who is the person that brought mindfulness really to the Western world, he says that mindful play, no agenda or non doing time is the cure for overwhelm. Not doing more and more, not trying to find solutions, it’s actually stopping and giving your brain a rest. And actually we know that in overwhelm, your brain can’t process emotions very well. We make really bad decisions. So actually stopping is probably the best thing for us.

[00:03:49] Rachel: That can be stressful in itself because if we’ve got too much to do, what are we doing stopping? That’s going to make things worse, but no, it won’t. It will give your system a chance to settle down. It will give you a chance to get out of the corner, just to get out of that sympathetic fight, flight or freeze zone and into your parasympathetic rest and digest zone where you’re able to think much more clearly. So doing nothing or rest is the way out of overwhelm.

[00:04:16] Rachel: So how do we do this? Well, first of all, we need to recognize when we’re in overwhelm, that feeling of our nervous system not being able to cope. And then we really need to be pretty ruthless about saying that is it, I am going to put some downtime here. And it may well be canceling things. It will also be ruthlessly eliminating hurry from our lives at that point.

[00:04:38] Rachel: And this is something someone did with me once when I was really in overwhelm. They looked at my diary and said, right, Rachel, let’s cancel this, this, this, and this. They were all things that I thought were incredibly important, I couldn’t cancel. But actually it was very easy to cancel them. People weren’t at all offended and they totally understood. So get some help with this. Ruthlessly eliminate hurry, cancel stuff out of your diary and take the time that you need.

[00:05:03] Rachel: Taking the mindset of f it can be really helpful here, just thinking actually, what does it matter? What do these things matter? Is the world going to end if I don’t do this, or if this doesn’t happen? Get a little bit of perspective on things. And that will give us time to start to think about what some of the stories in our head are.

[00:05:23] Rachel: Now, Nikki Odgers who was on a previous podcast, always says that we tend to overestimate the severity of the stuff that’s happening and underestimate our ability to cope. And that’s what causes us anxiety. And I think this is the same in overwhelm. We’re probably overestimating the importance of all the things we need to do, and we’re underestimating our ability to cope with them. So just getting everything out on a piece of paper can be really helpful. And that’s what Gerrie Hawes talked about in the episode about how to deal with overwhelm from a year or so ago. So we’ll put the link to that in the show notes, do download that and have a think about that.

[00:06:03] Rachel: And try to catch some of those stories of people pleasing and perfectionism and asking yourself, is it really important? Is this thing that I’m feeling overwhelmed about really mission critical right now? What if it didn’t happen? What does it matter long term? So just start to question the importance of the stuff that you’re really attached to in terms of outcome. And once you’ve had a break, once you’ve been able to rest and look at some of the stories in your head, well then you can move to some of the strategies you might have for dealing with stress.

[00:06:34] Rachel: And that’s all the things we talk about, about managing your time, prioritising, looking after yourself, putting in those wellbeing factors, having the right conversations, being able to say no, being able to recognize when you’re rescuing too much and getting out the drama triangle. So there are definitely actions to do when you’re overwhelmed, but they have to follow a place of rest and a place of non doing.

[00:06:58] Rachel: So, how do we reduce overwhelm in the future? I’ve got a couple of suggestions. One thing that you can do to help you with this nothingness is to firstly, ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. So make sure that you are not crowding everything into your diary. Make sure you are leaving buffer zones between appointments, between things you’ve got to do just to sit and be, to allow time for a bit of nothingness.

[00:07:26] Rachel: One question that it might be helpful to ask yourself is What will the future me thank me for? So I know when I’m looking at my diary and someone’s saying, Well, can you do this delivery here? Or can you come and do this training? And can you come to travel here and here? And I’m really tempted to fit it all in back to back, it’s fine now looking at my diary in the future, but when the future me comes to do that, what will the future me really thank me for?

[00:07:52] Rachel: And I know that there’s been times when I’ve said no to stuff and I’ve been coming home thinking thank goodness I don’t need to go home do that other thing now Thank you past me for sorting that out. So that’s one way you can start to protect yourself from overwhelm in the future to put buffers in. Eliminate hurry and ask yourself. What is the future me gonna thank myself for?

[00:08:16] Rachel: So stress and overwhelm are very closely linked and if you want to know more about this I would really recommend Brené Brown’s book, The Atlas of the Heart, where she talks about all of this. but when you are in overwhelm it’s really important to recognise that the way out of overwhelm is perhaps different from the way out of stress. And then take the time that you need for a bit of non doing. Let your nervous system settle down so that you can then return to problem solving with a clear head.

[00:08:44] Rachel: And if you are feeling overwhelmed right now, here is permission to stop. Here is permission to admit it to yourself, take some time out. Because you need to be in this for the long haul. You need to bid it for the long run. And being overwhelmed constantly put so much stress on your nervous system that eventually it will lead to burnout So look after yourself, recognise the overwhelm, give yourself the time so that you can serve your colleagues, your patients, your families in the way that you know that you want to.