One of my most annoying traits is that I am very easily overwhelmed. I’ve known this about myself from an early age and have always blamed it on the fact that I’m an introvert. Being around people drains me and I get so overwhelmed that I have a hard time functioning.

As I’ve grown older I’ve come to realize that my environment is what overwhelms me the most. I avoid being around large groups of people because having many people talking at once makes me completely lose focus. Sometimes I can’t even hold a conversation with the person sitting next to me because all I can hear are the other voices around me.

When Brett and I bought our house my mental health started to deteriorate. I was so overwhelmed with cooking, cleaning, laundry, unpacking, organizing, etc. Brett and I had an apartment before so it wasn’t the stress of moving in with him that created this monster inside of me. We had way more space in our house than our apartment and I was feeling overwhelmed taking care of all of it.

My environment is important to my mental health. When my house is clean, I am calm. When my house is a little messy, I feel a bit chaotic. When my house looks like a tornado blew through it, I am a hot mess. 

Let’s be super honest here, I’m not the neatest person in the world so I constantly feel chaotic. I’ve learned to deal with these overwhelming feelings in a couple of ways.

1. I take a quick break. Sometimes I just need a moment to breathe away from the chaos that I’ve created around me. I’ll grab Oscar and head out for a quick walk around the block or just hang out with him in the backyard for a bit. Anything to get me out of my head.
2. I read a book. Reading is so therapeutic to me. I love getting lost in someone else’s story and it makes me forget about my life for a few minutes.
3. Create a to-do list. When I’m feeling super overwhelmed I grab my notepad and jot down all the things I think I need to do. This is fun to look at hours later when I’m not so stressed because I can tell how chaotic my brain was when I wrote it. Creating a list gets my stress out of my body and onto the paper.
4. Have Brett talk me down. Brett and I have been together for almost 9 years so he almost understands me better than I understand myself sometimes. He knows how to deal with me when I’m at my most overwhelmed and always talks me back into a good place.

Being overwhelmed is a normal feeling and there’s nothing wrong with feeling it at times. I always tell myself that I’m stronger than any feeling I’m having and I’ll get through it like I always have before.

Life is for living. By being so overwhelmed with housework I was truly forgetting to live. I’m trying to be better about how I spend my time. One of my Q1 goals is to spend more time tidying and less time cleaning. I hope this helps me calm down and enjoy everyday.

I hope these tips help you if you are also feeling overwhelmed! Let me know if you have any other tips.

Photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash