4 Ways to Process When You’re Beyond Overwhelmed

Overwhelm. Confusion. Anger. Anxiety. Stress.

When the world around you feels chaotic, you might cycle through every single one of these emotions in the 30 seconds it takes to check your phone, read a few headlines, and feel the return of the familiar pit in your stomach—the one that always asks, during desperate times, “What do I do with all this?”

At one point or another, each of us experience this kind of emotional whiplash. As if you’re feeling everything at once or maybe you’re just numb. There’s no right or wrong way to feel.

In this way, your inner world tends to demand more from you during stressful times. Although that can feel like, “I have to deal with my feelings on top of literally everything else??”, interpreting our personal tumultuousness as a signal to pause might actually be the most reliable tool.

Pauses are significant in yoga. Kumbhaka is the word for the pause between your inhalation and exhalation, and it’s a moment that’s believed to hold great potential. Because pausing—the negative self-talk, the doomscrolling, even the episode on Netflix—helps us return to what’s actually taking place within us. It won’t change your situation, but it will change how you show up to it.

4 Things to Do When You’re Beyond Overwhelmed

These practices encourage that same spirit of pausing and breathing. Even if those are the only things you can manage to do, they aren’t small things.

1. Take a Breath

Your new go-to strategy for grounding yourself while driving, working, in the middle of a conversation, or literally any situation? Taking deep, slow breaths, which helps calm your nervous system. As you will experience when you practice any of the techniques below.

2. Ease into Movement

These practices, which keep you low-to-the-floor and grounded, don’t require you to feel motivated or energetic. They have a low-intensity, make-you-glad-you-checked-in-with-yourself vibe.

3. Move Your Body

Sometimes one of the most effective ways to cope with overwhelm is to let your body outwardly express it—as you can with any of the Downward Dogs, Warriors, and Chaturangas in the practices below.

4. Pause

There are ways you can (even slightly) step back from stress during the day. And it doesn’t have to be meditation. Find a way that works for you, even if it’s just for a few seconds.