Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out of Feeling Overwhelmed

When everything feels like too much, one of the first things many of us do is start thinking harder.

What am I forgetting?

What should I do first?

How am I going to get everything done?

Why am I feeling like this?

What do I need to change?

Maybe I need a better system.

So you make another list.

You rearrange the list.

You search for solutions.

You read another article.

You mentally run through everything that needs doing for the tenth time.

And somehow, instead of feeling clearer, you end up feeling even more overwhelmed.

I know that pattern very well.

For years, when life felt unmanageable, my instinct was to find the answer.

Surely if I could just work out the right system, remember everything, organise myself properly or find the right thing to help, I could finally get on top of it.

But when your mind is already carrying too much, asking it to think even harder isn't always the relief it sounds like.

Sometimes it is simply more work for an already overloaded brain.

There is nothing wrong with thinking. Obviously.

We need it to solve problems, make decisions, plan our lives and work out what needs to happen next.

But there is a difference between useful thinking and thinking that goes around and around without actually taking you anywhere.

Useful thinking might be:

The bill is due Friday. I'll pay it now.

Done.

Overwhelmed thinking sounds more like:

I need to pay that bill. And what about the other one? I haven't checked the bank account. I should really sort all the finances out. I need a better system for this. Why am I so disorganised? Other people don't seem to struggle with this. And didn't I need to cancel something? What was it? I know I've forgotten something...

Nothing has actually been solved.

But your brain has now opened another twelve tabs.

One particularly frustrating thing about feeling stressed or overloaded is that it can affect exactly the abilities you need in order to deal with everything.

Concentration.

Working memory.

Decision-making.

Mental flexibility.

Research into stress and executive function has found that stress can interfere with working memory and cognitive flexibility - the mental skills we use to hold information in mind, switch between tasks and make decisions.

The CDC also lists difficulty concentrating and making decisions among common responses to stress.

So when you find yourself standing in the kitchen unable to decide what to make for dinner, it doesn't necessarily mean you've suddenly become incapable of choosing food.

Your brain may simply be trying to make one decision too many.

That's why advice such as:

“Just prioritise.” can sometimes be maddening.

Prioritising is itself another decision.

And when everything already feels urgent, deciding what deserves to be first can feel almost impossible.

This was certainly something I recognised in myself.

When there were too many things to do, I didn't naturally think:

I'll calmly choose one thing and forget about the rest for now.

My mind wanted to hold all of it.

The bills.

The appointments.

The shopping.

The washing.

The work.

The things other people needed.

The thing I had forgotten.

The thing I was afraid I might forget.

The thing I had been meaning to deal with for three months.

It all felt as though it had to remain mentally visible, because if I stopped thinking about something, perhaps it would disappear completely.

And then I'd forget it.

So the mind keeps checking.

Don't forget this.

Remember that.

What about the other thing?

Better think about it again.

It can feel like thinking is helping you stay in control.

But eventually all that mental checking becomes part of the load.

I have made plenty of lists.

Sometimes they helped.

Often I lost the list.

Sometimes I made the list and immediately felt worse because there, in black and white, were thirty-seven things I hadn't done.

A list can be incredibly useful because it gets information out of your head.

But a list cannot create more hours in the day.

It cannot make three appointments happen simultaneously.

It cannot clean the house while you're at work.

It cannot give you more energy.

And it can't solve the problem of having more demands than you realistically have capacity for.

Sometimes we treat organisation as though it can eliminate overload.

It can't always.

You can organise twenty things beautifully and still have twenty things to do.

This is where things become tricky.

When you're lying awake thinking about something for the fifteenth time, it can feel as though you're working on it.

But are you?

A useful question can be:

Am I getting somewhere new, or am I travelling around the same mental roundabout again?

Perhaps you're replaying a conversation:

Why did she say that?

Did she mean this?

Maybe I should have said...

What if she thinks...?

Or you're trying to solve tomorrow before tomorrow arrives.

Or you're searching for the perfect decision because making the wrong one feels unbearable.

The mind keeps working because it wants resolution.

But sometimes there simply isn't any more useful information available right now.

At that point, more thought doesn't necessarily create more clarity.

It may just keep you inside the problem.

This one deserves its own section because it is almost absurd when you notice it.

You realise you're overthinking.

So now you start thinking about how to stop thinking so much.

Why do I do this?

How do I stop?

Am I doing it again?

Should I meditate?

What technique works best?

Maybe I need to research overthinking.

Twenty browser tabs later, you have developed an entire project devoted to becoming less mentally overloaded.

I have encountered versions of this repeatedly with wellbeing.

Something is supposed to make life easier.

But before you can benefit from it, you need to:

learn the method,

watch the lessons,

understand the theory,

remember the exercises,

and find another chunk of time in which to do all of that.

When you're already overwhelmed, even help can become mentally expensive.

I think this is an important one.

There is great value in understanding ourselves.

Learning why we respond the way we do can remove a lot of confusion and shame.

But sometimes we accidentally create another rule:

I must completely understand why I feel this way before I can feel differently.

That isn't necessarily true.

You don't have to analyse every stressful thought before you're allowed to have a moment of ease.

You don't have to solve your entire childhood before you can listen to a song you enjoy.

You don't have to understand every reason you've become overwhelmed before you can put something down for ten minutes.

Insight can be valuable.

But sometimes experience needs to come before explanation.

You may also recognise the opposite problem.

Sometimes you're thinking about everything constantly...

until suddenly you need to think clearly.

And your mind goes blank.

Someone asks you a question.

You know you know the answer.

But nothing comes.

You walk into another room and have absolutely no idea why you're there.

You reread the same paragraph three times.

Someone asks what you'd like to do and you genuinely can't decide.

During conflict, you may find it even harder- words disappear, your thoughts become muddled, or you simply shut down.

If that happens to you particularly during arguments or tense conversations, you may also relate to Why You Shut Down During Conflict.

Difficulty thinking clearly under stress isn't simply a lack of intelligence or effort.

Stress can affect attention, working memory and other executive functions involved in exactly these sorts of tasks.

Which means demanding:

“Come on. THINK!”

from yourself may not produce the result you want.

When we don't know what to do, modern life gives us an almost irresistible option:

search.

Google it.

Watch YouTube.

Ask someone.

Read reviews.

Find another expert.

Compare another method.

Save another post.

Sometimes that's exactly what we need.

But there comes a point where more information becomes more information to process.

You start with:

How can I feel less overwhelmed?

And an hour later you've discovered seventeen morning routines, six supplements, three productivity systems, breathwork, meditation, journalling, cold showers, exercise plans and somebody who insists you should wake at 5am.

Now you aren't merely overwhelmed by life.

You're overwhelmed by all the ways you're apparently supposed to fix being overwhelmed.

There is a point at which better searching isn't the answer.

Closing the browser may be.

This is one of the messages I wish more women heard.

When we are struggling to manage everything, we often assume we need to become better at managing everything.

Faster.

More organised.

More disciplined.

More productive.

But perhaps the problem isn't always your efficiency.

Perhaps there is simply too much.

If you are carrying the practical and mental responsibility for work, family, household, appointments, finances, relationships and all the little things that keep life running, the solution cannot endlessly be:

become better at carrying more.

Sometimes something has to become easier.

Sometimes something doesn't need doing today.

Sometimes somebody else needs to take responsibility.

Sometimes good enough really is good enough.

And sometimes your mind needs permission to stop treating every unfinished task as an emergency.

If that constant sense of carrying too much feels familiar, I've written more about it in Why Do I Feel Overwhelmed When Nothing Is Actually Wrong?

This is where I prefer to keep things very simple.

Not because simple solves everything.

But because the more overwhelmed you already are, the less useful another enormous list of things to do becomes.

Sometimes it helps to ask:

What is the one thing that actually needs my attention next?

Not this week.

Not the entire project.

Not the whole house.

The next thing.

Perhaps that's paying one bill.

Putting dinner on.

Sending one email.

Or perhaps the next thing genuinely needs to be sitting down for ten minutes.

Then, where you can, get the other things out of your head.

Write them somewhere you will actually find again.

Put the appointment in the calendar rather than rehearsing it mentally.

Set the reminder.

Let the list hold the information instead of requiring your brain to keep refreshing it every few minutes.

And then allow yourself not to think about the entire list at once.

Another thing that can help is recognising that having a thought does not automatically create a task.

I wonder if I should reorganise that cupboard.

Not a task right now.

I really should look into changing insurance.

Maybe later.

I wonder what she meant by that message.

Possibly nothing you can solve.

I should really get my entire life organised.

Definitely not a Tuesday-afternoon emergency.

The mind produces thoughts constantly.

You are not required to pick each one up and turn it into a project.

Sometimes you can simply notice:

There's another thing my brain wants to solve.

And leave it there.

This was part of what eventually became important to me

.

When my brain was already exhausted from thinking, I didn't particularly want another practice that required more thinking.

I liked the idea of something sensory.

Something I could hear.

Something physical and gentle.

Something familiar.

Something I didn't have to analyse.

For me, music became a natural way into that.

I already loved songs.

If I liked one, I would play it repeatedly without anyone telling me to.

And gentle touch was something I had previously found very helpful.

Eventually those two things came together.

Music gave my attention something else to follow.

Touch gave me something physical to experience.

The words were already inside the song.

I didn't have to sit there desperately trying to generate the right thought.

That eventually became part of the thinking behind The Sanctuary Collection.

Not:

Think harder until you feel better.

But something much simpler that I could actually use.

This also explains why simply sitting down doesn't always help.

You can physically stop while mentally continuing at full speed.

Planning.

Remembering.

Analysing.

Worrying.

Rehearsing.

Feeling guilty about sitting down.

If you've ever technically “rested” but got up feeling as though you hadn't rested at all, you might also like Why Rest Doesn't Always Leave You Feeling Rested.

Sometimes the thing preventing rest isn't what your body is doing.

It's everything you're still carrying while your body sits there.

None of this means avoiding problems.

Some things really do require thought.

Some decisions deserve careful consideration.

There are conversations we need to have, circumstances we need to change and practical problems we genuinely need to solve.

The distinction is between thinking that leads somewhere and thinking that simply consumes your remaining capacity.

Ask yourself:

Is there an action available to me right now?

If yes, perhaps take the smallest useful one.

If not, continuing to mentally rehearse the problem for the next three hours may not create an answer.

You are allowed to put something down temporarily without pretending it doesn't exist.

If you're overwhelmed, it is very tempting to believe that somewhere out there is the perfect piece of information that will make everything click into place.

I understand that impulse.

I spent a lot of my life searching for answers.

And sometimes finding new information really did change things for me.

But I've also learnt that there are moments when another answer isn't what I need.

Sometimes I need less noise.

Less input.

Fewer decisions.

Something familiar.

Something enjoyable.

A moment where I am not trying to fix myself.

Because when your head already feels full, sometimes the kindest thing you can do isn't think your way out.

It's to stop asking your mind to carry everything at the same time.

You don't need to solve your entire life before you can have one easier moment.

And sometimes one easier moment is a perfectly good place to begin.

When life has felt heavy for a long time, even helping yourself can feel like one more thing to do.

The 7-Day Sanctuary Experience was created to feel different - original music, gentle Sanctuary Touch™ and a simple daily practice designed to help you feel less overwhelmed, more emotionally steady, and a little more like yourself again.

You don’t have to fix everything first.

You can simply begin here.

Stress and mental overload can make concentration, working memory, decision-making and mental flexibility more difficult. When your mind is already trying to keep track of many demands, even relatively simple decisions can begin to feel harder than usual.

Thinking can feel like a way of regaining control. You may repeatedly review tasks, decisions or conversations because your mind is trying to find certainty or prevent something from being forgotten. But once you're no longer finding new information or taking useful action, the thinking itself can become another source of mental load.

Trying to force yourself to stop thinking can sometimes create another struggle. It may be more useful to reduce unnecessary input, externalise things you need to remember, identify one immediate next step, and give your attention something simple and familiar rather than continuing to solve everything at once.

Decision-making requires mental resources. When you're already carrying many responsibilities, worries or pieces of information, another choice — even something as ordinary as deciding what to eat — can feel disproportionately difficult.

For some people, shifting attention toward sensory experiences — such as music, movement, being outdoors or another familiar physical activity — can provide a break from constant analysis. What feels helpful varies from person to person, and a simple sensory activity shouldn't be treated as a substitute for professional care where that is needed.

If overwhelm, anxiety, difficulty concentrating or changes in your ability to function are persistent, severe or concerning to you, consider discussing them with an appropriately qualified health professional.

• CDC — Managing Stress: includes difficulty concentrating and making decisions among the ways stress can affect people.

• Girotti et al. — Prefrontal Cortex Executive Processes Affected by Stress: a review examining the effects of stress on working memory, attention, response inhibition and cognitive flexibility.

• Shields et al. — The Effects of Acute Stress on Core Executive Functions: a meta-analysis finding that acute stress, overall, impaired working memory and cognitive flexibility.