Effective ways to stop feeling overwhelmed

Throughout last year, reports of children and adults feeling overwhelmed and experiencing increased levels of anxiety around the globe, so much so that doctors have warned of a growing ‘mental health pandemic’.

Pamela Roberts, a Priory psychotherapist at the Priory's Woking Hospital in Knaphill, England, stated that feeling overwhelmed is partly due to our natural response system to stressful occurrences.

She noted that people might feel overwhelmed by various things such as financial worries, family issues, difficulties with work colleagues, cabin fever, loss of a lifestyle, losses and grief.

Roberts also expressed her believes things like doomscrolling are another route to easily becoming overwhelmed.

Sometimes people miss the signs that show they are beginning to feel overwhelmed, which could damage their mental health if ignored.

Roberts advised to look out for symptoms such as feeling restless, becoming clumsy, breathless, being obsessive, feeling constantly fearful, shaking, feeling knots in your stomach, having negative thoughts about the future and feeling disassociated from reality.

‘If we can identify this in ourselves, we can bring reason back on board. Therapy is very useful for this, as are close friends or family members who can really listen to us and restore our mind to some kind of equilibrium.’ she noted.

Roberts noted that grounding techniques such as mindfulness and breathing exercises can help.