Handling Overwhelm: Stop Pushing Harder & Start Regulating

Overwhelm is not just “having too much to do.” When your body starts feeling unsafe, even tiny tasks can feel impossible, and the result can look like snapping at your family, zoning out on your phone, insomnia, brain fog, anxiety, or that suffocating sense that you cannot take on one more thing. We break down why this happens and why the old advice to push harder often makes you feel worse, not better. 

We connect the dots between chronic stress and physiology, including cortisol dysregulation, blood sugar swings, inflammation, digestive issues, fatigue, and lower stress resilience. When the nervous system interprets pressure as threat, overworking, over exercising, over restricting food, and constant multitasking can keep you stuck in survival mode. You are not weak, lazy, or failing, your body is communicating that it needs support. 

We also get practical with gentle nervous system regulation tools you can start today, even if you only have one minute. From a yoga therapy lens, we share grounding “micro practices” like putting your feet on the earth, wrapping up in a blanket, slowly drinking tea, and using simple visual reminders to pause and ask, “How do I feel right now?” We pair that with foundational midlife health supports like protein, sleep, hydration, overstimulation awareness, and clearer boundaries. 

If you want to move from overwhelm to clarity without adding another impossible task to your day, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend who feels maxed out, and leave a review with the biggest signal your body is sending you right now.

Connect with Amy Wilford on social media at @amywilfordhealth, or on her website at wholebodyharmonycoach.com

Connect with Heather Fontenot on social media at @embodiedrejuvenation, or on her website at embodiedrejuvenation.com

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Body Drama Shift, where we move from confusion to clarity without guessing. Because your body isn't broken, it's communicating. If you're a woman in midlife dealing with stubborn weight, low energy, mood swings, or poor sleep, you're not imagining it and you're not alone. I'm Amy, creator of Whole Body Harmony.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And I'm Heather, creator of Embodied Rejuvenation. Together we help you decode your symptoms by addressing both biology and the nervous system. Because real change happens when both are in alignment. Let's shift.

Why Overwhelm Hits The Whole Body

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Today we are going to talk about overwhelm. So if you've been feeling mentally overloaded, emotionally exhausted, and physically stuck, this episode is for you. Because being overwhelmed isn't just in your head, it impacts your hormones, nervous system, digestion, sleep, energy, decision making, everything. Like we've talked about in other episodes, everything is connected and overwhelm is not exempt from that. So when your body feels overwhelmed, I'm sure that you feel this where everything that you do, even the smallest tasks, feel impossible. So today, Heather and I are talking about where to begin when life feels like too much and why the answer is not pushing harder. So let's start by talking about what overwhelm really is. I think a lot of women believe that overwhelm is just poor time management or having too much to do. Do you hear that too, Heather?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, not really understanding where it's coming from.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah. Biologically, overwhelm is much deeper than just poor time management or having too much to do. And that poor time management piece is also something that makes us feel like there's something wrong with us. And it makes us feel like we should be doing something different and we're doing something wrong. But when our body is perceiving stress nonstop, and that's emotional, mental, any other kind of stressor that causes inflammation, blood sugar swings, lack of sleep, all of those things, the nervous system shifts into survival mode. And it goes back to the other episodes that Heather and I have talked about with needing our bodies to feel safe. When we feel that overwhelm, our body stops feeling safe.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yes. And when your nervous system no longer feels safe, everything starts to feel urgent. Even small decisions can feel heavy. Your body starts scanning for danger all day long. So emails, notifications, expectations, pressure, conflict, noise, rushing. And many women have lived in that state for so long, they think it's normal.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah. And I exactly what I hear women saying is, I'm just busy. I'm just tired. This is life. And we accept the overwhelm as being normal and that it's supposed to be part of our lives. And I think part of that too is that everyone around us is overwhelmed. So we all kind of feed off of each other and it starts to become normalized. And then when we fixate on it, we also talk to those other people about it. We complain about how busy and stressed we are. And being busy and overwhelmed becomes like this badge of honor. I found that I feel like sometimes it becomes this competition, like, oh, well, it's easy for you because you're not as busy as me. And then that person says, Oh, but wait, I am busy because I have this, this, and this. So it's always like this who's busier kind of thing. And that is really what's causing our bodies to scream for support because it's really not normal. We should not feel overwhelmed all the time.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

And Amy, I guess with a

When Busy Becomes A Badge

SPEAKER_01 3:51

little personal um story because overwhelm is something that I would say was a huge struggle for me in my life. I didn't understand why I would snap at my family and like feel in my body just so overwhelmed. It was like if they asked me one more thing, if anybody asked me one more of me to do anything else, like I I cannot handle this. And the smallest things, right? It might be like picking up a card for someone for a gift, or it just felt like everything was an inconvenience.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, and it's it's suffocating. Yeah, it makes you feel like you can't breathe. Like I can't take on one more thing. And like you said, even the smallest little thing feels like you're gonna lose it because it's too much.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yes. And what I noticed was like the snapping, like instantly. If anybody asks anything of me, it was a reaction from me. And I would snap and be like, I can't do this. Totally. So sometimes overwhelm doesn't look emotional at all. Sometimes it looks like what we just said: snapping at your family, shutting down, zoning out, scrolling, exhaustion, insomnia, brain fog, feeling frozen, procrastination, anxiety, tension in the body.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah. And I think for me, one of the biggest things that I can tell when I'm feeling overwhelmed is the scrolling, or like just getting locked into my phone at night, like

How Overwhelm Really Shows Up

SPEAKER_00 5:29

going to school when I was working as a school psychologist and putting all my time and energy into everybody else's kids. And then I come home and I don't have the energy for my own kids. And then I'm at night sitting on the couch, like just staring at my phone, just doing whatever I can on my phone as like my way of downtime. And so I notice that when I am feeling overwhelmed, I do that more than normal.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Could you explain what happens physiologically?

The Physiology Behind Feeling Stuck

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah. So physiologically, when we feel overwhelmed, we start the cortisol becomes dysregulated, which we talked about cortisol in the last episode. It can cause your blood sugar to be unstable and cause your hormones to be out of balance. It can cause inflammation, digestive issues, fatigue, which, like for me, that was that fatigue of oh, I'm just gonna look at my phone so I don't have to think about anything else. It lowers your stress resilience. So the things, like Heather was saying, those little things, things that normally wouldn't bother you, all of a sudden, they feel insurmountable. It feels like the biggest thing in the world and the biggest ask. And that's partially because your body can only compensate for so long before those symptoms start to show up. And honestly, a lot of women don't need more discipline. We need more support, but we tell ourselves we just need to be more disciplined. And then we beat ourselves up and we feel guilty for those emotional outbursts, like Heather was talking about. And so when when we feel overwhelmed, our instinct, because this is old programming. Like we were taught that if we were feeling overwhelmed, we just needed to push harder, we needed to do better, we needed to do more, but overwhelm isn't resolved by adding more pressure.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yes, because the nervous system interprets pressure as threat. So when women respond to overwhelm by overworking, over-exercising, over-restricting food, multitasking constantly, never resting, the body often pushes back harder.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah. And then, like I said, we blame ourselves, but our bodies were not designed to run that way. They were not designed to run in emergency mode forever. Our ancestors, yeah, their bodies ran in emergency mode when they were being chased by an animal. But after that was over, the threat was over, they calmed down. But we don't ever give ourselves a chance to calm down. We're in that constant, like we've talked about before, that bite, flight, or freeze. Like there's we're constantly feeling that stress and overwhelm.

Start With Regulation Not Perfection

SPEAKER_00 8:06

So let's talk about the actual question. Where do you start when you feel overwhelmed? And honestly, you can start smaller than what you think. You don't have to start with perfection. You don't have to overhaul your entire life overnight. You start with regulation. Because if you try to start too big, all you're gonna do is create more overwhelm. And that's what we don't want. So we have to start small, little baby steps. And Heather is great about helping women to do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Thank you, Amy. Yeah,

Grounding Tools From Yoga Therapy

SPEAKER_01 8:38

so I want to talk a little bit more about the individualized approach here and from the yoga therapy lens. I don't think we've talked about it in depth yet on a podcast, but when someone comes to me and they say, Okay, I'm overwhelmed, overwhelm is this, it creates, if we look at it from like an Aervedic lens, it creates more air and space in the body. So movement in the body. So what we want to do is we want to cultivate the opposite of that. So if there's a lot of movement in the body and in the mind, because when you're overwhelmed, think about that. Like there's like we said, we're you're trying to avoid the things that you need to get done because you don't want to feel that, right? Or you're overcommitting to things, you're over-exercising, you're so there's a lot of movement there. So we want to bring down that movement. We want to create the opposite of that. In Aeropedic, they use the um elements. So I like to use that because I think it it helps people understand it a little more. The opposite of that would be like earth or water. So if we can bring in some grounding, then one of those things could be going outside in nature and putting your feet on the earth, or it could be, you know, just wrapping yourself in a blanket. Something that is comforting to you, that's nourishing. Um, so it can be small things like Amy was saying. It might be just a minute of wrapping yourself in a blanket, or a minute of going outside in nature and putting your feet on the ground. Or if you have a garden, you know, spending some time in your garden. Those could be some examples of things that you could do to resource yourself to help with regulation.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

And I think, I don't know if you find this with the women that you work with, but for me, I think sometimes it's hard for us to wrap our heads around doing something for a minute being effective. I think we all have ingrained in us that if it's not an hour workout, you're not doing anything. And so to take that mindset of, I need to work out for an hour, or even like I need 45 minutes, or even 30 minutes, and saying, Oh, but if you do this for just one minute, it's gonna make a big difference. And I think that's a hard concept for us to grasp because of that old programming and because we are ambitious. I think that's a hard thing to get over.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

And I like that you brought that up because if we look at it from a nervous system perspective, the nervous system looks for things that are certain. Like what helps it feel safe is things that are certain. So the nervous system knows we're gonna brush our teeth every morning. It expects that. So that is some safety, right? So if we can build into our day one minute of wrapping ourselves in a blanket, it begins to recognize that, oh, she's gonna give me this little resource at this time. So that creates some safety. And at first, we almost need those little bitty, I call them um snacks, because you're already in an overwhelmed state. So it's really hard for you to add 45 more minutes to your schedule. That's just gonna push you further into overwhelm. So then if we can say, Oh, I only have to do this for one minute, that feels safe to me. Instead of how am I gonna do this for 45 minutes, when I'm gonna create some, I'm already overwhelmed. I'm gonna all of that force the boy out. So if we start with, we call it titrating, right? If we start with little increments, like we can help the nervous system feel safe for one minute. And then maybe in a week, you might be able to build up to three minutes. But if we go at it for 45 minutes, then we're just doing the opposite. We're we're creating more of that overwhelm. Great. So building little rhythms, I would say, into your day.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, and biologically, we need to start with those foundations too.

Consistency Beats Intensity Every Time

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Those little little changes that we can make in our daily lives. Like, are am I eating enough protein? Am I stabilizing my blood sugar? Am I sleeping? Sleep is so underrated. We need our sleep. Am I hydrated? That's another thing that's really hard for women is to make sure they're getting enough water. Am I constantly overstimulated? Going back to that nervous system piece. Am I always like, go, go, go, go, go? Do you feel like you're on this hamster wheel, go, go, go all day long, go to bed, wake up, do it all over again. You're never giving yourself that downtime. And are you saying yes to everything? I think that's another piece that women do a lot is that they just say yes to everything. We don't know how to say no a lot of times. We don't know where to set those boundaries. We just go and we don't even give it a second thought. And so when that happens, your body doesn't fail, it's just depleted and it needs support. It just like anything else, just like a battery needs to be recharged. Your batteries aren't gonna go, go, go forever. Your body's the same way.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, one of the most healing things you can realize is this you do not have to fix your entire life in one day. Your nervous system heals through consistency, not intensity.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah, and that's where I struggle personally is that I want everything to happen today, right now, or you know, three weeks ago. Like, patience is not one of my virtues. I really, really struggle with that. And so I personally have to take a step back and be like, okay, wait, like let's be realistic, let's give ourselves some grace, let's figure out how we can make slow and steady progress instead of trying to do everything all at once, because that just adds to the overwhelm. And in my mind, I know that. But retraining myself is not always easy. It takes practice. And that's why both what Heather and I both do, that's why we call it a practice, because we have to practice and keep working at it. And so what I found though is when I am doing what I need to be doing to support my body, it responds incredibly well. And that's why our work is never about punishment. You know, the days where you were like, oh, if I am gonna have ice cream today, so tomorrow I'm just gonna have to work out extra hard. That backfires. It doesn't work. And so what we need to do instead is not think about it as punishment, but think about listening to the clues that your body's giving you. Because your body is always giving you you clues. We just tend to ignore them and we don't pay enough attention.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

I would like to mention this here that the more we listen to our bodies, if we listen, it needs some hydration. It needs maybe it needs some protein, maybe we need some sleep, maybe we need a moment with a warm blanket. Like learning to listen to the body, I think that's really like coming back to ourselves is so important. The body knows how to heal. We just have to give it the time and space. Like you said earlier, if we're not, if we're not doing these things, we don't give our bodies the time to recover and repair.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

And we don't give our bodies enough credit. Our bodies are miraculous, they are extremely smart, they are extremely intuitive, and they're asking for what they need. And I remember I have a good friend of mine who used to always tell me, you need to listen to your body, you need to listen to your body. And I was like, but I don't know how. Like, how we're how do I even begin to do that? But like, it just takes it takes time and it takes practice. And once you do it once and you're like, oh, I think my body's trying to tell me something, and you listen to it, then the next time it gets easier, and the time after that it gets easier. And before you know it, you're doing it on a regular basis without even having to think about it and process it. So it's also something that I want our listeners to be patient with themselves about. And I know I talked about patience being hard for me, but you you really do have to. Like if you've never truly listened to your body, it takes time to get to a point where you're doing it automatically, just like anything else. Like building that muscle memory of a new skill.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yes. And I think too, um, sometimes it can feel unsafe once you drop into the body.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Because you haven't, we haven't listened for so long that it might be overwhelming, you know, really drop in and and start to to lean into listening. So that's where support I think is so beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Do you have a tip for our listeners to how they could get started in figuring out how to listen to their bodies?

Simple Prompts To Hear Your Body

SPEAKER_01 17:39

I think let's leave with two tips. One would be I invite you to go outside for one minute and connect your feet to the earth, to the ground. And the other one would be, let's just say uh slowly drink a cup of tea.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

What about like trying to habit stack and maybe putting a post-it note on the mirror that says, How do I feel right now? Just like a visual reminder to when you go in the bathroom, look in the mirror, and when you see that post-it note, okay, stop, pause for 30 seconds. What is my body telling me right now? Am I exhausted? Am I dragging? Does my stomach hurt? Do I have a headache? Like any of those little clues that your body might be telling you about, you know, maybe it's an indicator of how you slept the night before.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, I love that. And if you feel like that would be too much, I would start with the other one first. Because there's from my lens, there's levels, right, of overwhelm. If the nervous system is in, for lack of better words, a level 10 state of overwhelm, it might be really hard for a person to even feel their heart beating or to even know what they're feeling. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

It does. And I think where I was going with it was more like I need a visual reminder to do things like that. Like I'm not gonna remember to go put my feet on the earth. Yeah. Unless I have like, you know, again, I could put a post-it note, I guess, on the door going out into my garage when I leave for the day that says, put your feet in the earth. But then also by that point, I'm trying to get out the door, so I might not do it. So I'm just trying to think of ways to how I would personally remember to do something like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah. I like the idea of a post-it note on your mirror.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Or even a post-it note on the door to go out, like, okay, before you leave the house, take three deep breaths.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yes. Or even when you fix your if it's coffee that you drink in the morning or tea, put a post-it note on your coffee machine and say, you know, if you can take three sips mindfully.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Or even like engaging this your senses as in like, okay, I'm gonna breathe in the smell of this coffee. Yes. Things like that. Just that mindfulness is, I think, huge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

And like we think like we were saying, yes, this is very small, but if you're at a level 10 or 8 to 10, it might not feel very small for you.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

It needs small, right? And yeah, it might feel big.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

And that's what I valued about this work. And I was able to meet myself with more compassion when my first uh yoga therapist gave me like this small thing. She said, do this. And I was like, blown away. You mean I only have to do that right now? Because again, going back to when you said, like, we think we have to do this thing for 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah. And my thought to that would be, are you sure that's enough? I don't know if that's gonna work because that just seems too easy. But really, when you try it, you'll realize it it is easy, but it's also really, really effective. And we don't give enough credit to those little tiny moments. Yes. They think it has to be big.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Once you start to expand your capacity, you're able to build more moments of that. But if you're just starting and you're like, I'm at a level 10, I'm I I need some help over here. Yeah, starting small is and I hope that that helps our listeners feel seen and heard and and meet themselves with more compassion. So if you're overwhelmed right now, we want you to know you are not weak, you are not lazy, and you are definitely not failing.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah, your body just might simply be asking for a different approach. And that's why we named this podcast the way we did, because we want you to shift away from those feelings of, well, first of all, overwhelm, but also those feelings of, okay, if I slow down or if I ask for help, then I'm weak or I'm lazy or I'm failing. We want to totally shift that mindset for you. Because sometimes we really just need to slow down and just be present and listen

Compassionate Reframe And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 22:08

to what our body's trying to tell us and find ways to easy, quick ways, like Heather said, to shift out of that overwhelm.

unknown 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

And it doesn't feel like you're just adding another thing. I have to do one more thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

None of us need one more thing to do. We do not.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

So we would like to thank y'all for spending time with us today on the body drama shift.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

And if this episode resonated with you, please share it with somebody else who might need this reminder today. We're really trying to get our message out there to the world. So, as many people as you can share it with, we would be deeply grateful. And if you are looking for some personalized support and clarity around what your body's communicating, you can always connect with me at whole bodyharmonycoach.com or Heather at embodiedrejuvenation.com. We are always here for you. And you're also welcome to leave a comment on Apple, Spotify, or on YouTube and ask us questions too.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

We'll see you next time. I'm Heather, nervous system coach and yoga therapist and founder of Embodied Rejuvenation. My work is rooted in the belief that lasting transformation isn't just about knowing what to do, it's about your nervous system feeling safe enough to actually do it. I know what it feels like to be capable, smart, and driven, and still feel like something is holding you back that you just can't name. Through nervous system assessment and high touch coaching, that's exactly what I help women uncover. I also deeply believe in the power of women, healing and growing in community, which is why community is woven into my programs and why I host retreats for women who are ready to go deeper together. If any of that sounds like what you've been looking for, I'd love to connect. You can book a call with me at embodiedrejuvenation.com. The link is in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

At Whole Body Harmony, I help women in midlife stop guessing and finally understand what their bodies are trying to say. Through comprehensive lab testing, personalized protocols, nutrition, and high touch coaching, we look at the whole picture because hormones, gut, metabolism, stress, and lifestyle are all connected. If you are tired of feeling dismissed or stuck, or even been told that you're crazy, you don't have to figure it out alone. You can learn more or book a clarity call at whole bodyharmonycoach.com. Hope to connect with you soon.