We’re all overwhelmed. But what does it actually mean?
This week in sessions, the word overwhelmed came up a lot.
Different people. Different circumstances. Different symptoms. All with the same conclusion - I’m overwhelmed.
It got me thinking. What do we actually mean when we use that word?
Is overwhelm a specific experience? Or is it sometimes the word we reach for when we can’t articulate or haven’t yet identified what’s happening underneath?
As a Mental Health Occupational Therapist, I’ve always understood overwhelm as what happens when the demands placed on us exceed our current capacity to meet them. A simple, but useful definition. The challenge is that both demands and capacity look different from person to person.
For one person, overwhelm might be emotional. For another, sensory. For someone else, it could stem from too many decisions, responsibilities, or a nervous system that has been running on empty for too long.
Stress, overwhelm and burnout: what’s the difference?
While these terms are often used interchangeably, they’re not quite the same thing.
Stress often occurs when demands increase or challenges arise. We may feel stretched, but still capable of managing what’s in front of us, learning and growing from the experience.
Overwhelm tends to occur when those demands exceed the resources, energy, support, or capacity available in that moment. Growth is halted.
Burnout can develop when this mismatch continues over time without enough recovery, support, or adaptation. Nil growth, recovery needed.
Rather than separate experiences, it can be helpful to think of stress, overwhelm, and burnout as points along the same continuum.
What does overwhelm look like?
Overwhelm can show up in many ways, including:
Difficulty thinking clearly or making decisions
Increased irritability or emotional reactivity
Feeling stuck, frozen, or unable to start tasks
Brain fog and forgetfulness
Anxiety or a sense of urgency
Fatigue that doesn’t improve with rest
Increased sensitivity to noise, light, touch, or social interaction
Withdrawal, shutdown, or emotional numbness
For neurodivergent women and girls, overwhelm often occurs at the intersection of sensory processing, executive functioning, emotional regulation, social expectations, and life demands.
Many spend years masking - suppressing discomfort, monitoring their behaviour, and working hard to meet expectations that don’t align with how their nervous system naturally functions. Combined with sensory and executive functioning demands, this invisible workload can consume enormous amounts of energy and leave little capacity for life’s inevitable stressors.
Hormonal changes can also play a role. Many neurodivergent women notice fluctuations in overwhelm across the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, postpartum, or perimenopause, as changes in hormones can influence energy, attention, emotional regulation, and sensory processing.
Looking beneath the word
One of the most useful questions we can ask is - what’s contributing to the overwhelm?
This may be either easy or difficult to answer depending on your circumstances and often requires support. The answer could be sensory overload, decision fatigue, grief, burnout, chronic stress, sleep deprivation, competing demands, or simply carrying too much for too long.
Thoughts are part of the picture too. Worry, perfectionism, self-criticism, uncertainty, people-pleasing, and the pressure to keep everything together can consume significant mental energy and add to the overall load a person is carrying.
A nervous system perspective
From a nervous system perspective, overwhelm often occurs when the brain and body receive more information, stimulation, demands, or emotional load than they can comfortably process.
When this happens, our ability to think clearly, plan, organise, problem-solve, and regulate emotions can temporarily decrease. We might become reactive, anxious, tearful, avoidant, shut down, or feel completely stuck.
Rather than a sign of weakness or failure, overwhelm is often useful information that something in the current situation is exceeding available capacity.
The Occupational Therapy approach
At Tempo, we don’t view overwhelm as something to simply push through. We’re interested in understanding the relationship between the person, their environment, and the demands they’re navigating.
We might explore questions such as:
Are the demands realistic and sustainable?
Is sensory input contributing?
Are executive functioning challenges increasing the workload?
Are thoughts, beliefs, or expectations adding pressure?
Are there signs of burnout?
Is the environment supportive?
What helps restore energy and capacity?
The goal may be to build skills and strategies, creating a more supportive environment, or learning to recognise the early signs of overwhelm before the nervous system reaches breaking point. Often, it’s a combination of all three.
Perhaps overwhelm isn’t one thing at all, but a signal that something needs attention.
When we become curious about what’s sitting underneath the word, we can move beyond simply surviving and start creating lives that feel more manageable, sustainable, and aligned with how we actually function.
If overwhelm has become a regular part of life, support can help. Mental health occupational therapy offers a practical, neurodiversity-affirming approach to understanding your unique nervous system, reducing environmental mismatch, and building sustainable ways to navigate everyday life.
This article draws on occupational therapy frameworks including the Person-Environment-Occupation (PEO) model, sensory processing theory, energy accounting approaches such as Spoon Theory, and contemporary nervous system-informed practice.
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