10 Easy Ways to Purposefully Calm Overwhelm

We get overwhelmed when things become too much for us to handle, or when, subjectively, it feels that way.

When little stressors accumulate over time, or too many of them hit us all at once, it is natural to feel we cannot cope.

How overwhelm affects us.

Regardless of the causes, elevated stress levels or overwhelming feelings affect the body by releasing stress hormones like cortisol. The result is physiological changes, including a pounding heart, faster breathing, muscle tensing, and sweating. The body’s combined reactions to stressful events are called the fight, flight or freeze responses.

The normal cycle is for the body to recover after stress; at that point, it stops releasing stress hormones.

However, a constant release of cortisol with no recovery period after a triggering event takes a long-term toll on your body. If this persists over time, some expected outcomes are raised blood pressure, inflammation, and an increased predisposition for depression and anxiety.

When we have ADHD, it is all too easy to tip into feeling overwhelmed, as many of my coaching clients know first-hand. This is partly due to the large amounts of information we take in through our senses every second of the day. Without the ability to filter out and dismiss irrelevant or unhelpful sensory input, our brains will soon feel overloaded.

Overwhelm can also result from things coming in faster than we feel we have the resources to deal with. This perception can easily trip us up, as it is common for all human beings to underestimate our own resourcefulness and strengths. We can counteract this tendency by learning more about our strengths.

Our bodies hold the keys.

When we have ADHD, we are so often focused on our thoughts or on what’s next, we are largely oblivious to the signals our bodies send us about what’s happening below our necks.

Our bodies are a fantastic source of information we can tap into to understand how we navigate our environment.

A raised heart rate and faster breathing may signal a stress response, with the sympathetic nervous system dominant. In comparison, a slower heart rate and slower breathing give our brain feedback that the body is feeling relaxed. In this state, a branch of the autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, becomes dominant.

For more on this subject, this article gives a clear explanation and breakdown of the various parts of the autonomic nervous system and how they connect to different areas of the body.

The parasympathetic system is also known as the rest and digest system.

When this is engaged, our breathing and heart rate are slower.

Techniques that work

You can use techniques that boost the parasympathetic nervous system to manage your stress responses. This is good for your brain and good for you, both short and long-term.

Activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System is a reliable way to reduce feelings of overwhelm.

When the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, it produces a feeling of calm and relaxation in the mind and body. You can learn to activate your parasympathetic nervous system to immediately reduce stressful feelings. This will lift your mood, engage your immune system, and lower blood pressure.

There are many ways to strengthen and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, causing a relaxation response in your body.

10 easy techniques you can try for yourself:

Bring awareness to your breathing, and try this breathing technique to slow down your breathing rate. Lying flat on your back comfortably, with one hand on your abdomen and the other on your heart, focus on lengthening the out-breath. Feel your belly rise and fall as you breathe in and then out. At the same time, send some gratitude to your heart area to thank it for keeping you alive.
Feel compassion for yourself in your current situation.
Spend time in nature.
Get a massage.
Stroke a pet.
Focus on a soothing word like calm or peace.
Practice yoga.
Go for a slow walk and make a point of noticing your surroundings.
Try something you find relaxing, like taking a bubble bath with music.
Get a hug from someone you love.

Bonus way – Practice gratitude. Bringing to mind things that we can feel thankful for in our lives has a grounding and uplifting effect.

When life becomes overwhelming, it is useful to bring to mind the people and resources that we already have around us. Having a selection of favourite ways to get calm to choose from can form a part of those resources.

You can use calm deliberately to relieve and prevent overwhelm.
Experiment with different approaches in various contexts and times to find the most effective for you.

The more you practice techniques like those above, the easier it becomes to switch to and activate your parasympathetic response and feel more relaxed.

What would it be like to spend more of your life feeling calm?

If you are feeling overwhelmed and would like to explore ways to get to a space of more calm in your life, please contact me here for a free discovery call. I would love to hear from you.

Trees Can Help You Focus

Trees can help you focus.

What? You may ask? How does this work?

Will I need to sit under a tree in order to focus or concentrate? Or hug one?

Do I need to walk amongst them? Or, is it enough to see them from a distance?

Consider this: there is now a significant amount of research to support the idea that spending time among trees can help us focus better, reduce stress, and buffer against depression. When we spend so much of our time working in front of a computer screen these days, how can the ability to focus be improved by something as simple as this? I have spoken to many coaching clients over the years who describe sitting in front of the computer, trying to concentrate, and many minutes or even hours passing with nothing to show for it. It may seem counterintuitive, yet there are many excellent reasons for stepping away from the task at hand to find the company of trees.

The many benefits of trees

To start with, trees can benefit you by reducing mental fatigue and resetting your attention.
Getting outside for time in nature can provide you with a new perspective. A change of environment offers new things to look at, which stimulates your brain in ways which don’t happen when you are sitting still looking at a screen.
Trees create a calming atmosphere, reducing stress hormones like cortisol. Less stress means fewer distractions and better focus.
Trees absorb pollutants and increase oxygen levels, which raises air quality and enhances brain function and concentration.
Giving the brain a break from screens and artificial light, while surrounded by trees and exposed to natural light, can help refocus when returning to work.
Additionally, natural sounds experienced while spending time amongst trees, such as wind sighing through the branches, birdsong, and the sounds of other wildlife, provide a soothing background in contrast to the potential distractions of a noisy office.
The movement involved in walking in wooded areas or engaging in outdoor activities stimulates the production of dopamine. This vital neurotransmitter plays a crucial role in maintaining focus and motivation.

Movement has various benefits for focus.

Using the large muscles in the legs is grounding and calming, compared to sitting still. The body and brain become better oxygenated, and other chemicals are produced, for instance, nitric oxide, which helps cognitive functions such as learning and memory.

If you want to train your ability to pay attention, then practising mindfulness near trees—observing their textures, sounds, and smells— trains the brain to stay present, reducing rumination and intrusive thoughts that disrupt attention. Training attention in this way can be invaluable for many with ADHD brain types.

Trees can help soothe and regulate a jangly nervous system.

Trees reduce overstimulation and feelings of stress, and thereby promote activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (also known as rest and digest mode). Therefore, the ADHD nervous system in particular gets a welcome break from being frequently in a state of sympathetic nervous system activation arousal (also known as fight, flight, or freeze mode).

Hugging trees can be particularly beneficial.

Tree hugging stimulates the production of oxytocin, the “trust” hormone. “Studies show that people who regularly hug trees report feeling happier, calmer, and less stressed,” quoted from https://silvotherapy.co.uk/articles/benefits-of-hugging-trees.

Whether through visual exposure, movement, or mindful engagement, trees help regulate attention and sustain concentration.

Here are a few simple and practical ways to increase your focus with trees:

Take a mini tree break.

Simply observing a tree in detail, such as its bark texture, leaf movement, and sounds, will engage your senses and help refocus attention.

When could you fit in 5-10 minutes to give yourself this kind of mental reset?

Watch trees out of a window.

Improve your concentration and cognitive performance by looking at trees through a window if you’re feeling particularly short of time.

How will you recognise when it’s time to top up your focus levels?

Boost Dopamine with Tree-Based Movement.

Walking, hiking, or even stretching near trees encourages the release of dopamine, which is crucial for motivation and sustained attention.

How could you incorporate a “focus prowl” in a tree-lined area before or between work sessions to reset and refocus?

Reduce Sensory Distractions with Natural Sounds.

Nature sounds (rustling leaves, birds) provide soft fascination, a type of background stimulation that can create a calmer environment for deep work.

Have you tried playing nature soundscape tapes to help you focus yet?

Use tree-based sensory cues indoors.

Even when the cold or wet weather makes it challenging to experience the advantages of trees outdoors, you can gain their benefits by using sensory-tailored cues indoors.

Here is a selection of tree-based sensory cues you could try:

Olfactory cues (smell): Essential oils of pine, fir, and eucalyptus can promote calm alertness. You can use diffusers or simply add a few drops to a tissue, which works just as well.

Visual cues: Houseplants or a bonsai tree can reduce stress and restore focus. You could also try paintings of landscapes on a wall or images of forests or greenery as a screensaver for a calming effect.

Tactile cues (touch): Tree bark, driftwood, a pine cone, and wooden beads all have different textures to explore, handle and provide a grounding break.

There are so many ways to bring the benefits of trees into your life, your home and your workplace when you need a boost in focus and concentration. I’d love to hear about any strategies you have for improving focus that involve trees or time in nature.

Please do get in touch with me to share your experiences or thoughts at adhdcoachanna@gmail.com.