Key Takeaways Key Takeaways

  • Emotions are biological signals designed to help us meet our needs, but they can become overwhelming when stress or trauma disrupts emotional regulation.

  • Modern life creates constant stimulation, leading to frequent feelings of overwhelm, triggering our brain’s survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

  • Therapy can provide essential skills for grounding, emotional regulation, and managing overwhelming feelings, helping individuals achieve greater emotional stability.

Feeling Overwhelmed? How Understanding Your Emotions Can Help You Regain Control

What Are Emotions?

When we think of emotions, they at times feel almost magical and intangible. Sometimes we have clear cause and effect, such as “I was in such a rush leaving the house this morning I can’t believe I forgot this one specific item I wanted to bring and now I am annoyed.” Other times they can be more vague or unknown, like if someone was hanging out comfortably at home or with friends and noticed that for some reason, they suddenly felt sad or anxious despite being in an objectively happy situation. Sometimes they are powerful and seem to take us over without us wanting that to happen; for example, some people experiencing “black outs” when they are angry and seem to have clarity only after the event ended. To better understand this, we explore the biological process of emotions.

The reasons emotions exist is to have a need to be met. If we did not have biochemical responses, it would decrease the likelihood of an action being taken. For example, if there was express danger in front of someone and there was no panic or fear, then they would not try to get away from the danger. We can see this in instances when there is dysfunction in emotional experiences. Using the example of individuals with no safety awareness, such as individuals with severe autism or dementia where this area of behavior is affected, they may elope and walk into unsafe situations that result in bodily harm or, in some cases, death. Fear is an easily understandable example of this, but this process applies to all emotions. Happiness is a biochemical reward for activities that feel good, positive emotional experiences of love drive us to be connected to others, anxiety drives us to pay attention to our surroundings and situations to better prepare ourselves and more. Even depression has a purpose, for example giving us low energy when we are sick or injured so we stay in and rest and are less likely to be happy and dance around, causing further injury.

So, if all this is normal, why do we struggle so much with symptoms? This is because symptoms are these normal human experiences cranked up to 1000% when the brain is in distress. This occurs from a variety of factors—whether it be situational stressors putting strain on our system, long term trauma exhausting the system, a chemical imbalance that makes it difficult to regulate, or more, and oftentimes with multiple factors at once.

When the brain is in distress, it channels its energy away from the frontal lobe’s higher level processing emotions, and the amygdala takes over. The amygdala is the primal survival part of our brain, and it doesn’t have time to think of the nuances of situations because it is registering danger and wants to keep us safe. To use a metaphor, you don’t have time to admire the sky when there is a tiger just behind you in the bushes, otherwise you will get eaten by the tiger. So, we enter Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn phases, the four basic survival modes or four types of trauma responses.

Fawn is a lesser-known response. It is a pacifying behavior to reduce the threat—even at the expense of the individual’s wellbeing. Sometimes these are manageable, while other times they can be destructive to relationships. For example, lashing out in anger, or against ourselves, or numbing out with substance use. Though these examples don’t remotely cover all the ways our survival mode may manifest, they help paint a picture. Moreover, when survival mode is prolonged beyond just short reactions, it’s incredibly taxing on the body and makes emotional regulation even more difficult.

When this begins to impact our social functioning, occupational functioning, academic functioning, our capacity to regulate our emotions, or activities of daily living (such as hygiene or meeting our needs), that is when therapy is an important intervention. Therapy introduces a calm and supporting environment to process what factors are affecting you and your system and explore behavioral, environmental, and chemical changes that can alter these factors and stabilize the system. People and life are complicated, so the length of this varies by situation.

Are You Feeling Overwhelmed?

I am sure that if I ask someone that question randomly, I am more than likely going to get a resounding yes from most people. Even reading that question, there may be some readers who immediately think of their to-do list or something they have to do/forgot to do, or if somehow they don’t have anything to do, some may still have a sinking feeling in their stomach that they may have forgotten to do something.

We live in a world that is more stimulating than any other point in human history. We have knowledge of events happening everywhere at all times, as well as more complex social and environmental systems than ever before. Not to mention, our brains have no way to change structurally to accommodate all this new input.

It is notable that this is a common experience in so many people in our current society, and one has to ask why. There are many reasons people get overwhelmed, every building financial stressor with people often living paycheck to paycheck, social dynamics with new and old faces post pandemic, health stressors as we navigate the ever-complicated world of insurance, and more. There is no singular cause. If there were, me and many other therapists (and people in general) would happily wave a magic wand and let it disperse into the ether. Unfortunately, life is not quite so simple.

So how does being overwhelmed interact with all of this? We live in a world that is more stimulating than any other point in human history. We have knowledge of events happening everywhere at all times, as well as more complex social and environmental systems than ever before. Not to mention, our brains have no way to change structurally to accommodate all this new input.

Evolution happens across generations; meanwhile, most of these huge societal advances have occurred in a singular lifetime, two maybe if we are being generous. Prior to this point, we lived in a very different environment.

The historic past of humans was an Immediate Return Environment. What this means is that if there was a need, such as hunger, that typically the need was either immediately filled or the system is in distress until it is satisfied. While we do have a social need as well, the social environment was significantly smaller and limited to a family and local environment.

Currently, we live in a Delayed Return Environment. Most of our needs have many more barriers to be met, we can look at the current cost of living and housing crisis as evidence of that. In addition to intense complex social relationships with anyone around the globe, people frequently are missing key indicators of connection such as body cues or physical connection, as evident by the current loneliness epidemic across the globe.

Whew. What a headache.

I am sure we have a lot of emotions that come up when we are personally overwhelmed and, as explored previously, emotions are cues to have our needs met. And think about how many cues are firing off at once when we exist in an environment such as ours. There are cues pointing in every single direction and oftentimes conflicting with each other.

How does the brain process this? As explored previously, our brain enters survival mode. But in this case, the brain is not accounting for a singular, but multiple “tigers.” And not only multiple distresses, but some you see and some you don’t, some close and some far, and surrounding in every direction. What an obscene level of panic!

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So How Do We Deal With Our Emotions?

There is another way; through grounding our nervous system, processing our thoughts, filtering out aspects that are outside our control, establishing plans within our control, and caring for ourselves, overwhelm becomes a far more manageable process and allows us to live our lives more comfortably.

Many people get burnt out and fall back on unhealthy coping skills, not because they want to but because they don’t know any other option. There is no curriculum in schools on emotional regulation and techniques to manage stress, and most of our parents are in their own survival mode, so how in the world do you teach kids how to manage it if you are still figuring it out?

There is another way; through grounding our nervous system, processing our thoughts, filtering out aspects that are outside our control, establishing plans within our control, and caring for ourselves, overwhelm becomes a far more manageable process and allows us to live our lives more comfortably.

Not sure how to do those things? Talk to a mental health professional and together, you can develop a plan that works for you.

References

  1. Clear, James (n.d.). The Evolution of Anxiety: Why We Worry and What to Do About it. https://jamesclear.com/evolution-of-anxiety

Authored By 

Isabella Lombardo, MSW, LSW

Isabella Lombardo, LSW, is a compassionate therapist at LifeStance Health, dedicated to empowering individuals across New Jersey to create their best quality of life. Through empathetic support and a person-centered approach, Isabella helps clients develop emotional validation skills and build a strengths-based mindset. She provides individual therapy to adolescents, adults, and seniors, creating a safe space where clients can explore their emotions, gain clarity, and achieve personal growth. Isabella is particularly passionate about positive psychology and neurodiversity-affirming therapy. She specializes in helping individuals embrace their unique strengths, especially those navigating challenges related to anxiety, depression, and ADHD.

Her approach integrates evidence-based techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT to promote resilience and emotional well-being. By fostering a sense of empowerment and self-compassion, Isabella guides clients toward achieving meaningful and lasting change. In addition to her focus on individual therapy, Isabella has extensive experience working with diverse populations, including women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those on the autism spectrum. She is skilled in addressing issues related to PTSD/trauma, bipolar disorder, and grief, tailoring her therapeutic methods to meet each client s unique needs. Her practice emphasizes creating a supportive environment where clients feel seen, heard, and understood.

Outside of her professional life, Isabella enjoys creative pursuits such as playing Dungeons and Dragons and exploring various artistic projects. Her passion for creativity and storytelling reflects her commitment to fostering meaningful connections and understanding different perspectives.