Are you drowning? Feel frustrated and defeated?
It’s time you take back control of your life and your sanity!
Being overwhelmed is not a pleasant experience. We can all relate to the feeling of being overwhelmed at some point in our life and we can each easily recognize that it’s certainly not a very nice thing to be subject to. It can come in many different forms and can strike at any time.
If you fall behind on a heavy workload and it seems that life keeps getting in the way of you managing to progress; if you experience a personal trauma or loss of a loved one; if you have children and ‘it’s just been one of those days’, that overwhelming sense of everything being too much can strike at any time.
That is why anyone and everyone needs ways to ease overwhelm and find peace and calm in their lives.
From this article, you will gain useful tips and insight into steps that you can take to not only ease the feeling over overwhelm when it arises. You will also learn to develop a mindset and a way of life that stops you from becoming overwhelmed or at the very least reduces the amount of times it happens or the level of impact that it has when it strikes.
First, let’s understand the negative impacts that being overwhelmed can have on your life and your overall well-being.
Understanding Overwhelm
The opposite of being overwhelmed can be seen as a perfectly balanced life. When our actions and thoughts, commitments and interactions have been carefully structured so as to not allow things to get on top of us, it can be said that we have managed to develop a perfectly balanced approach to life.
On the other-hand, when our minds and lives are left unstructured we can quickly find ourselves having too much to do, having too many unobtainable tasks or perhaps even just too many people dictating what we should and should not be doing. This can leave us either in a state of exhaustion or confusion and many times with a feeling that we just can’t handle it anymore. This is the feeling of being overwhelmed.
If we don’t learn how to manage this we will quickly see ourselves spiral into various negative states of thought and emotion, which leads to greater discord and dis-ease in our lives. We might see ourselves becoming depressed at the seemingly unobtainable or un-finishable amount of things that we have to do.
We might also see ourselves having greater fits of frustration and anger because our inability to relax and take time out has left us feeling aggressive to every little thing that gets in our way.
Some people spend their lives in this state without ever recognizing the fact that if they could just manage their time, and their minds a little better, they would be able to go through their days still getting everything done and achieving everything that needs to be achieved, but with a much higher level of calm and sense of wellbeing.
We want to understand how we should be structuring our lives so that we can still work very efficiently and still be very effective at doing whatever needs to be done, but we also want to know how to manage everything so we don’t end up being exhausted to the point of overwhelm. So let’s get to it.
50 Tips To Ease Overwhelm
1. Learn to develop wisdom regarding your every day encounters and situations. This means that you must begin to look at life objectively with your energy levels and capabilities in mind. Turn down any work that you cannot do so that you can dedicate yourself fully the things that you can do.
2. Work out the most practical and efficient means of achieving your aims whatever they may be. If you can work out the most efficient course of action, you will ensure that you will only ever be spending energy in places that it needs to be spent, rather than wasting energy on something that isn’t going to benefit you in the long run.
3. Stay open to suggestion regarding your jobs and goals. If people suggest a new way of doing something or even if they offer to help, take on board what they are saying and consider it. This doesn’t mean you have to do what they suggest but many times having an outside perspective can help us to see things in a way that actually makes things easier.
4. Remember that your aim is to simplify. This means that if you can figure out the efficient and effective way of doing things, without overspending time and energy you will lessen the chance of being overwhelmed. Simplifying everything in your life, quite simply keeps things simple, and when things are simple they tend to be a lot easier to handle.
5. Do not rely on others to help you, but stay open minded if someone does offer to give you a hand. Not relying on others means there is less chance for you to be let down by their un-reliability, but remaining open to outside help also means that friends and family can ease the amount of pressure that is on your shoulders.
6. Become a master of note making. Making notes allows us to apply order and discipline to our thoughts. It also helps us to remember everything that needs to be done. People who are effective at time management always, always, always make notes because they understand the importance of being able to see the big picture and they can do this at any time by simply referring to what they have written down.
7. Remind yourself constantly that your intention is to lessen and eventually remove overwhelm from your life. If you let that thought slip and begin to pick up your old habits and mentality again, you are sure to end up with too much to do, or too many expectations to fulfil. In other words, you will just end up being overwhelmed again.
8. If you come across something that will lessen your workload, take it on board. For example, if you regularly sweep the floor in your house while cleaning, consider buying a vacuum cleaner, which will help speed up the process. This is only an example but it means to consider if there is a more efficient way of doing a specific task or job.
9. Plan your day so that you have enough time to do your chores, tasks and jobs, but make sure that you also incorporate many times where you can sit down and relax, maybe have a cup of tea or even just a casual talk with a friend. This is very important to allow your mind to have a break from all of the expectations.
10. Learn to stay focused on one job at a time. If you let your mind run all over the place thinking of the various things you need to do, you may find that you quickly become overwhelmed. Staying focused on one task a time means all of your energy will be going into that one thing. This will help you be more efficient and more effective.
11. Developing greater control of your mind and life, so that you can effectively decrease levels of overwhelm is going to require conscious effort, energy and determination on your part. Consciously recognize now that you are going to apply yourself to this and that you are committed to the process.
12. You must learn to effectively design a more balanced approach to your life. This must include a healthy diet, some form of physical exercise, time outdoors where you can breathe in fresh air and feel the sun and wind on your skin, time to just sit and breathe without any pressure or expectation, in other words, time to meditate.
13. To completely manage your life you must take into account all three areas of your being. These are all things physical, mental, and spiritual. Incorporating all of these areas means that you will not be lacking and so can ensure that you provide yourself with enough attention to remain at ease throughout your day.
14. Overwhelm strikes when things are left to get out of control. Developing a balanced approach to life ensures that things are kept at manageable levels to the point that provides just the right amount attention and energy. This means that as soon as things have received enough attention they are exhausted and so we are able to free our minds of that concern.
15. By developing greater awareness of ourselves, our lives and our inner feelings and thought processes we can gain greater mastery over our energy levels and capabilities. If this is developed sincerely and to a high degree, we will never allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by accepting too much responsibility.
16. Mindfulness is a great asset to anyone who wants to learn how to better balance his or her life. Mindfulness is what will give you the ability to be aware when things are starting to get to be too much. Without mindfulness our thoughts and energy levels are left unguarded and this is a sure-fire way to find ourselves heading deeper into the depths of overwhelm.
17. Gaining greater control leaves you in a place where you experience greater liberation from negative and overwhelming energies. Once this has been securely developed you will be able to effectively implement strategies to better manage your time. This is the key to keeping overwhelming energy at bay.
18. There are many physical exercises that you can investigate that once learned will give you the ability to settle your mind and access a space of peace. These disciplines are absolutely essential for the mind to relax into a state where it can become reinvigorated and re-energized.
19. Yoga is a science that encourages mindfulness of the body and the breath. While practicing yoga you will learn how to put the chaos of the world down for a few moments and remain intimately connected with the body. In this state, any overwhelming energies are allowed to dissipate.
20. Mediation is a useful tool that will teach you how to develop greater control over your thoughts. Practice meditation throughout the day to keep your mind focused on the present task at hand. This will ensure that you are only spending your energy in places that require it.
21. Chi-Gung and Tai Chi practices will teach you how to enhance and manipulate the amount of energy that you have. This can be used to further your work and inspire a greater ability to handle more pressure. They take years to learn properly and even longer to fully master, but these two disciplines are well worth your time and effort.
22. Learn how to consciously relax your body and mind, through various forms of meditation and self-hypnosis. When the body is relaxed, you are able to feel more at ease, even in very stressful and overwhelming environments. Relaxing the mind allows your thoughts to dissolve into a space of peace that has a revitalizing effect on your body and your mind.
23. One of the most important parts about this kind of mental training is learning to remain present with the breath. Mastering awareness of the breath is the main aim of meditative discipline and is the first step to greater self- control. This is what will give you the ability to remain relaxed in situations where you would normally become overwhelmed.
24. Self-Hypnosis can be used to re-train the way you think about things, yourself, others, situations, environments, really anything at all. By learning to control our thoughts and remain focused on positivity instead of negativity, we can stop our thoughts from spiraling out of control and keep overwhelming energies at bay.
25. Physical exercise will help you to generate greater awareness of the body. At the same time, it will encourage higher energy levels and your all- round sense of wellbeing. Having a regular regime of gentle exercise is of high importance to bringing greater balance to one’s own thoughts and daily life.
26. Similar to Yoga, having a routine of gentle stretching will help you to enter into a space that doesn’t require more thoughts or high levels of energy. You can learn to relax and give your mind a break by practicing gentle stretching routines at the end of the day, to help and allow yourself to wind down.
27. In order to fully develop the ability to remain centered in a space of calm, you must practice the various disciplines outlined here for a long time. You will feel some benefits immediately as your body and mind are given a break, but in order to maximize their effectiveness and bring about great personal change you must apply these various techniques for many years.
28. Don’t get involved with the trivial goings on of others. If you do, you will find that your energy will be sapped from you and it will be used in places that do not further your progress towards gaining greater self-control. In many cases people will infect you with draining and negative energies and this will only further enhance your feelings of overwhelm.
29. Learning to keep your mind free of concern is the main way of keeping overwhelm at bay. Anything that causes a disturbance to your mind is encouraging you to become overwhelmed, even though it may be very subtle at times. The best way to keep this from happening is to simply ‘stay out’ of anything that does not really concern you.
30. In order to balance out the activity of your life you must learn to recognize the time when you must put down that activity. In other words, you must know when to be ‘in-active’. At the end of the day, you must force yourself to relax and not get involved with any more stress inducing activities.
31. Be patient with yourself while you learn to develop greater self-control. There will be many times on this path that you still get overwhelmed. There will be many times when you fall and need to pick yourself back up. The important thing here is that you recognize that this is a process that is going to take some time.
32. When you do experience overwhelm, take note of this, and do your best to figure out what has happened. What exactly is it that is making you feel overwhelmed, and then work out a strategy to effectively manage it or quite simply remove it from your life completely.
33. Do your best to remove negative and overwhelming influences from your life. When you encounter something that overwhelms you, take a minute to ask yourself if this thing is really an essential part of your life, and is it worth all the effort to keep going with it? If not, just get rid of it. If it is however, commit yourself to finding a way of dealing with it that is manageable.
34. In many cases you will experience overwhelm because of your inner-self trying to fight the situation. When this happens, or when you recognize that you have been doing this, learn to let go and ‘go with the flow’. This is a form of acceptance that will immediately cause the overwhelming feelings to dissolve.
35. When there is something that you want to change, you must carefully consider whether or not it is really possible for you to change it. If it is, make plans to bring about that change and set about putting them into action. If it isn’t, just accept that you can’t change the situation and force yourself to move on.
36. There will be times when you just need to spend some time alone. Doing this will allow the stress of your daily life to settle and will often put things into perspective. Make sure that you dedicate either a small amount of time each day or a greater amount of time each week to be alone and allow yourself to simply relax and reflect.
37. Always bear in mind that your life must be about balance. Be honest with yourself if you are beginning to feel overwhelmed and if this is the case, put down your projects and responsibilities for a while until you feel better.
38. Learn to apply just the right amount of intensity to your daily tasks and don’t allow yourself to rush to get things done. If you look at the things that need to be done as a never-ending list, you will soon see that one completed task simply becomes replaced with another. In this way you can see, there is no need to rush.
39. Uncovering the right amount of balance in your daily life is a trial and error process. Through careful observation and mindfulness of how you feel throughout the day you will learn to recognize when things are in balance and when they are not. Ultimately, this is something that only you can really know for yourself.
40. Surrounding yourself with people who regularly overwhelm you, whether they do this consciously or unconsciously is a not a good idea. At the same time, surrounding yourself with people who motivate you, inspire you, and offer to help you out with things is not a bad idea.
41. Being consistent with your efforts of gaining greater self-control is the main key with regards to ensuring that you will eventually secure great and positive change. If you add one drop of water each day into a bucket, it is inevitable that you will eventually have a bucket full of water. All that is required is consistent effort and determination to keep going.
42. Remember to take time out and immerse yourself in nature. This will have the effect of giving your mind space to relax. At the same time, you should practice some deep breathing exercise in places where there are plenty of trees. Breathe in the fresh oxygen and let your inner self relax.
43. Go outside for short or long walks. This will allow you to burn off any pent up energy if you feel anxious or over-excited. At the same time, it will serve to reinvigorate you if you feel tired and lethargic. The natural world holds a secret power that is intimately connected with balance. It is wise to meditate in this environment and discover this power for yourself.
44. Be creative in your approach to figuring out for yourself better ways to effectively manage the feelings of overwhelm. Make it an intimate process by trying to figure things out for yourself. Just remember that the feelings of overwhelm are something that can be reversed. Then go ahead and figure out exactly how to do that.
45. Use your newly found abilities to help other people if they too suffer from constantly being overwhelmed. Don’t force these lessons on people but if they do start to enquire, let them know of the changes you have made which have helped you to better manage your time and energy. This way you will become a force for positive change that benefits the rest of humanity.
46. Use logic to figure out the best way to do things. When you know that you want to achieve your goals with maximum efficiency but you don’t want to burn out at the same time, come up with multiple approaches to get the job done, and see what works for you.
47. Sometimes you just have to take a step back to allow your mind to settle, so that you gain the ability to clearly see exactly
what is overwhelming you. Don’t be afraid to take a five minute break and consider if there is a better, more efficient and hassle free way of doing things.
48. Allow other people to help you out if they are able to. Remember that two people can share the same amount of work with half the stress and pressure of just one, and more than two people helping means even less pressure for you. Don’t be afraid to let others get involved with helping you out every once in a while.
49. Sometimes when you are tired, you just need to go to sleep. If things really are getting too much for you, see if you can arrange a time to lay down for a couple of hours. Turn off your mobile phone and lock your doors to make sure you won’t be disturbed. Give yourself a well-earned break in the form a nap.
50. Learn to say no. This is another major key in making sure that you don’t get overwhelmed with too many jobs and expectations. Set yourself some personal boundaries and enforce them with everyone who tries to demand things of you. This applies to yourself just as much as other people.
In Summary
So there you have it, fifty tips to ease overwhelm and to help you gain greater control of your life. Reading them is easy and now it’s over to you for the hard part, putting them into action. Just remember that it will take time.
When you are trying to change behaviors that you’ve had for many years, it would be unwise to expect things to really change overnight.
If you are prepared to put the necessary effort and energy into this for the long term, eventually you will see some great changes have occurred through the constant application of these techniques.
One Last Tip
One of the most important things you can do is quite simply learn to breathe. This is the number one tool when it comes to feeling overwhelmed and at the same time, you can learn to approach every situation with the aim of maintaining balance in your day-to-day life.
Learn to listen to your body and your mind and be honest with yourself when things get too much. Take time out when you need to and allow yourself to relax.
After all, it’s the moments in between all the chaos where we actually get to take a step back and enjoy our lives.
Without these moments, life is just a constant stream of stress and pressure and who would want to live a life like that?
I know I certainly don’t. And neither should you. You, me and everyone deserves better.
