If you feel overstimulated as a mom, you’re not alone. This is something that so many moms experience, including myself. While there is no “cure” there are really impactful changes you can make that will help. After applying these practices in my own life as a mom as well as with my clients inside Mom On Purpose Membership, I’ve come up with a list of 11 tips for coping with overstimulation as a mom that I think you’re going to find incredibly powerful. Here’s a look.
Tips For Coping With Overstimulation As A Mom
Before we dive into the 11 tips for coping with overstimulation as a mom, I want to first mention why we get overstimulated in the first place. It’s because of the nervous system. It’s wired to scan your environment for anything alarming. When too much stimuli is perceived, your nervous system gets activated and shuts down.
Enter the mental chatter: “this is too much I just need a break right now!” And from there, you are in the land of overstimulation.
Because you’ll always have a nervous system as long as you’re a healthy functioning human being, there isn’t a way to solve this completely (i.e.: so that you’re never overstimulated again), but that’s okay! There is a lot you can do to set yourself up for success so that the sensory input isn’t making you so overwhelmed on a consistent basis.
These are the 11 tips I’ve found to be the most powerful for helping myself and the thousands of clients I’ve had the privilege of working with.
Tip 1: Identify the sensory overload when you notice it.
Because the nervous system works behind the scenes to keep you safe and alive, it’s often activated without you even noticing it. The problem with letting it go wild without paying attention to it is that it will keep getting louder and more overwhelmed. So the starting point to cope with overstimulation as a mom is to identify when it’s happening.
All this takes is checking in with yourself and acknowledging that you’re overstimulated. Say to yourself, “I’m feeling overstimulated right now.” Take a breath and allow yourself to be in that moment.
Just the awareness alone of what is happening will be helpful because you won’t be avoiding, resisting, or reacting to it. You’ll be allowing it, which means it can move through you and decrease.
Tip 2: Normalize overstimulation as a mom.
It’s common to think that overstimulation means you’re doing something wrong. This is not true! You’re not doing anything wrong. In fact, with so much stimuli in our environments it’s a very normal part of the day to experience overstimulation.
Remind yourself: “Overstimulation is normal. Nothing has gone wrong. I can cope with this.”
Normalizing overstimulation as a part of the day is helpful because it prevents any fear, worry, or resistance to it.
Tip 3: Find what helps you decompress.
Everyone has different levels of sensitivity as well as various ways to decompress. Get to know yourself so you can discover what your most common triggers are as well as your preferences for decompressing.
For example, I really like to put my hand on my heart, take a deep breath, and repeat a mantra. This helps me process the feeling and give myself validation.
What is it for you? Do you need to excuse yourself to use the bathroom so you have a minute alone? Do you want to do something else?
Check in with yourself and see what helps you decompress when you’re with your kids.
Tip 4: Go inward and process the feeling.
Overstimulation is caused by the human brain and body. The cause of it is not what’s happening in your environment. This is counterintuitive because in the moment it seems like it’s coming from what’s happening in your home, with your kids, etc. But if you weren’t there, the home and kids would be doing the same thing. You wouldn’t be overstimulated though because your brain and body wouldn’t be interpreting that environment.
Knowing this is really helpful because the solution requires going inward to solve this from the root cause. Most experts get this completely wrong. And it’s not that their advice is bad (suggesting removing the stimuli, for example), it’s just not always effective. There are times when your environment is what it is and you can’t change it. In those times, the best thing you can do is go inward and process the feeling you’re experiencing.
Name the feeling, welcome it, describe it, and breathe through it. This is the process I teach inside Mom On Purpose Membership, in the Processing Feelings Course.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change your circumstances if you can. That’s something you can consider if it’s possible. Just note that the only reason it works is because you’re removing your brain and body from interpreting the stimuli; it’s not because the stimuli is the cause of your feelings. Your thoughts always create your feelings, so learning how to process feelings is a tremendously important skill for navigating overstimulation as a mom.
Tip 5: Have go-to mantras on hand.
Since your thoughts create your feelings, mantras have a real impact in the way you feel. If you think differently, you will feel differently. The key with a good mantra is to make sure it actually feels good to you when you say it. Every mantra won’t be one that feels good to every person, so try them on and practice the mantras that feel best to you.
Empowering Mantras For Overstimulation:
- I’m feeling overstimulated and that’s okay.
- My nervous system is activated, but nothing has gone wrong.
- I can feel discomfort in my body. It’s not a problem to be solved, it’s a feeling to feel.
- This won’t last forever.
- I can cope with this.
You can also come up with your own mantras by thinking about what you want to tell yourself in a moment of feeling overstimulated, like you were talking with your best friend.
Download the 10 Mama Mindset Mantras (Free Guide) here.
Tip 6: Drop the mom guilt.
In modern motherhood, it’s not uncommon to think that anything short of perfection is an absolute failure. This just simply isn’t true. As human moms we’re supposed to make mistakes, get it all wrong, and try again. This is what it means to be a human.
So when you’re going through a hard moment, even if you handle it as less than ideal, give yourself a break. There’s no upside to beating yourself up about it. Drop the mom guilt and allow yourself space to be a human mom. This doesn’t mean you go to the opposite extreme of not caring at all, but if you’re like me and most of my clients that’s hardly a concern. The typical response is for us to beat ourselves up and think we’re failing as a mom simply because we’re overstimulated and have a human body doing what healthy human bodies do. So give yourself a break.
Resources:
- Mom Guilt (podcast)
- Embracing Imperfection In Motherhood (podcast)
Tip 7: Put down your phone.
If your default is to try to escape the madness at home by picking up your phone to scroll, resist the urge. Screens add more stimulation and will make it worse. Even if you find a little dopamine hit from that scroll, you’ll likely feel worse after scrolling if you’re already overstimulated. It just isn’t the fix we tend to think it will be in the moment.
Tip 8: Have no touch and/or quiet time.
You can put boundaries in place to help you show up as the mom you want to be. A great way to do this is through “no touch time” and/or “quiet time.” If your mind and body need space, that is legitimate. It’s you taking care of yourself and giving yourself what you need. This can be something you put in place as a daily routine (e.g.: quiet time from 1pm—3pm every day) or on an as-needed basis (e.g.: set the time for 15 minutes of “no touch time” and set the kids up with something for them to do on their own).
While “no touch time” and “quiet time” aren’t possible 100% of the time, what I see more commonly than it not being possible, is the mom guilt that comes up from the thought “I must be doing something wrong if I can’t handle this.” That, my friend, is total B.S. You’re a human being with many needs (we all are) and you’re taking care of you. Not only is this good for you but it sets an amazing example for your kids to learn that mom matters, too.
Tip 9: Journal in the morning.
Journaling is a way to get your mind in the right headspace for the day ahead. You can write about how you want to show up when your kids behave how they normally behave. Practically, this means that instead of feeling frustrated that they’re doing what they always do, you can anticipate it, feel more empowered, and have less resistance to what they’re doing.
This is a skill I teach in Mindful Journaling, a course inside Mom On Purpose Membership, where I teach you how to create the version of you who you want to be from your future, instead of from your past.
I keep a journal by my bed and use this practice whenever I need it. It is truly life changing.
Download 75 Journal Prompts For Moms here.
Tip 10: Practice and schedule self-care ahead of time.
If you don’t plan self-care in advance, you’ll end up needing to escape your life to feel better. Not only is this less than ideal in the moment because typically it’s when you need to get away, but it’s also ineffective insofar as when you return, you likely have all the same feelings come up (you go back to feeling overwhelmed).
Self care doesn’t have to be complicated or take a lot of time, but it does need to be personal. When you make it personal, you get the benefit of it actually replenishing yourself so it “works.” This means that it’s not as useful to take specific actions someone recommends (e.g.: a bubble bath, podcast, or walk), but instead is more effective for you to check in with yourself and uncover how you can better take care of yourself.
Tip 11: Remember it won’t last forever.
As humans, we tend to project our feelings into the future, with a subconscious thought that our current experience will last forever. For example, if you’re feeling stressed, it’s common to think that the stress is going to last indefinitely.
The next time you’re feeling overstimulated, remind yourself that “this is temporary and it won’t last forever.” Being reminded of this in the moment is a powerful way for you to navigate the experience without making it mean something has gone wrong.
Grab 10 Mindset Swaps to help you change your mindset here.
A Final Note
Overstimulation is a common part of modern motherhood, and yet by using these coping tips above, you can create a new way of relating to the stimuli so that when you experience overstimulation it’s not so bad. You’ll be equipped to navigate overstimulation both in the moment and out of the moment by using the practices above, and from personal experience, let me say that it is worth it, my friend!
