Tired of Feeling Overwhelmed and Overstimulated? Try These Tips!

What's Behind That Overwhelmed Feeling?

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many people are living in a near-constant state of mental and emotional overload. While some stress is normal, chronic overwhelm can erode your focus, mood, sleep, and even physical health.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) offers practical, evidence-based tools to help you understand and manage these feelings. In this blog, we’ll explore how CBT can help you untangle the mental mess and find more calm, clarity, and control in your day.

First, Let’s Understand Overwhelm from a CBT Lens

CBT teaches us that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are all connected. When you feel overwhelmed, it’s not just because of what’s happening around you, it’s also shaped by how you’re thinking about those situations.

For example:

• Situation: You have multiple deadlines approaching.
• Thought: “I’ll never get all of this done. I’m failing.”
• Feeling: Anxious, panicked, maybe defeated.
• Behaviour: You freeze or avoid the task altogether, which increases the pressure.

This cycle can become automatic and self-reinforcing. Overstimulation, from social media, news, noise, or even internal pressure, can feed into this loop, leaving your nervous system constantly “on” and your brain stuck in overdrive.

The good news? CBT gives us ways to break that loop.

1. Catch the Thought Spiral

One of the first CBT strategies is to become more aware of your automatic thoughts. When you feel that familiar wave of stress building, pause and ask yourself:

• What am I telling myself right now?
• Is this thought helpful or realistic?
• Am I catastrophizing (imagining the worst), mind reading (assuming others think poorly of me), or “should-ing” myself?

Once you identify unhelpful thought patterns, try to challenge and reframe them. For example:

• Instead of “I’ll never get this all done,” try:  “This is a lot, but I can start with one small thing and reevaluate from there.”

This mental shift can calm your nervous system by reducing pressure and realigning expectations to help you engage more effectively with the task at hand.

2. Take Manageable Steps

From a CBT perspective, behaviour shapes emotion just as much as thoughts do. When tasks feel too big, we tend to avoid them, which increases stress as the deadline or consequences of inaction arise.

Try this:

• Write down everything on your mind or to-do list.
• Pick one small, manageable task (even if it feels “too small”).
• Do that one thing. Then check it off.

This activates a behavioural activation loop, where small successes build motivation and lowers feelings of overwhelm. It’s not about doing everything, it’s about doing something.

3. Create Sensory Boundaries

Overstimulation often comes from not just tasks, but from your environment too. Our brains weren't designed to process endless notifications, background noise, and visual clutter.

Here’s a CBT-informed trick: modify your environment to reduce environmental “noise.”

• Mute notifications (yes, even just for 30 minutes).
• Clear off one small space in your home or on your desk.
• Choose a calm, neutral playlist, silence, or noise-cancelling headphones
• Use grounding tools like a weighted blanket or deep breathing.

This is part of stimulus control, a CBT strategy that helps you shape your surroundings to support your mental state rather than drain it.

4. Practice Thought Diffusion, Not Thought Suppression

CBT and mindfulness-based approaches both teach that it’s okay to have thoughts, you just don’t have to believe or act on all of them.

Next time your brain says “I can’t do this” or “This is too much,” try saying:

• “I’m having the thought that this is too much.”
• “My brain is on high alert right now, it’s trying to protect me, but I don’t have to follow every thought it sends.”

This simple language shift creates psychological distance, allowing you to respond with intention rather than reaction.

5. Build in Recovery Moments

Your brain needs breaks. Not just scrolling breaks, but real rest. We can call this self-soothing, self-care or positive activity scheduling.

Try scheduling small recovery moments into your day:

• A short walk outside
• Five deep breaths between tasks
• A warm drink without multitasking
• A few minutes of stretching or music

These moments act like nervous system resets. They signal to your brain: “You’re safe. You’re okay. It’s good to slow down.” That message makes a big difference.

Team Voices: Here is what one of our team members at Cognito has to say:
“When I am feeling overwhelmed I follow my 3 step plan: brain dump on a blank sheet of paper, walk outside, hydrate.” - Amon Arani, Cognito CEO

Final Thoughts: You’re Not Lazy - You’re Overloaded

If you’ve been blaming yourself for not “keeping up,” it’s time to shift that narrative. Shut down or avoidance caused by overwhelm isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a signal that your system needs care, not criticism.

CBT tools help you slow down the mental spiral, tune into your thinking patterns, and take small, actionable steps forward. You don’t have to fix everything overnight. You just need a path and the belief that change is possible.

Ready to feel more in control?

Our CBT-trained care providers can help you develop personalized tools for managing overwhelm and overstimulation. Check out our other blog articles to learn more about how to manage burnout, executive dysfunction and how CBT can help you.

You deserve clarity and calm. Let’s build it together.

‍Written by: Anna Spilker

References: 

Beck, J. S. (2011). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-22098-000

Clark, D. A., & Beck, A. T. (2012). The anxiety and worry workbook: The cognitive behavioral solution. Guilford Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-30505-000

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and commitment therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-00755-000

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