Why "Overwhelm" Has Become Your New Normal (And How To Change It)
Why does overwhelm feel normal, even though it's exhausting you?
If you can't remember the last time you felt fully calm, you're not alone, and it's not a personality problem. Many people thing being overwhelmed is because they don't know how to relax or it's because of their personality in some way. But the actual issue is most likely that you have inadvertently taught your nervous system that overwhelm is your normal, baseline state. Not because you want to be overwhelmed but because constant busyness was rewarded and praised, rest was treated as a luxury, and your system learnt that slowing down felt unsafe.
Is overwhelm actually changing your nervous system?
Yes, and once you understand why, everything will make more sense. Overwhelm isn't just a feeling you have and it's not just a mindset problem, it builds up over time, your nervous system is adjusting to everything you are teaching it.
Every time you are under pressure, your sympathetic nervous system activates and your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis releases stress hormones like cortisol. This is useful in short bursts to help activate you and support you in dealing with the stressor. The problem is what happens next. When the body doesn't get enough time to return to a calm, parasympathetic state before the next stressor hits, the impact accumulates. Researchers call this allostatic load, and it has been linked to impacts on cognitive and physical functioning.
Put simply, the more time you spend in survival mode without recovery, the more your nervous system starts to treat survival mode as it's new normal.
Mini example:Think of a phone that's never allowed to charge past 20%. It still works, but it's running on a fraction of its capacity, and the battery itself degrades faster over time. Your nervous system works the same way.
How does your nervous system learn that overwhelm is "safe"?
Your nervous system doesn't decide what's safe through logic. It decides through repetition and experience.
Dr. Stephen Porges used the term neuroception to describe the subconscious process by which your nervous system constantly scans for safety or danger, without you ever consciously thinking about it. If chronic busyness, people pleasing, stress and pushing through exhaustion are the consistent pattern, your nervous system doesn't register that as a problem. It registers it as the norm. Calm then starts to feel unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, simply because your body doesn't recognise it anymore.
This is why slowing down can sometimes trigger guilt or restlessness rather than relief. It's not a personality flaw. It's a nervous system that has learned a different definition of "normal" than the one your body actually needs.
Why are women carrying so much of this load?
This isn't just about workload, it's about identity and conditioning.
Recent research backs this up. Women experience significantly higher levels of burnout than men, with one 2025 study showing 59% of women reporting burnout compared to 46% of men, and women in the workforce were found to be 8 percentage points more likely than men to report feeling like they're struggling or in crisis.
Many millennial women have spent years performing a version of themselves built around other people's expectations, the "good" employee, the endlessly capable mother, the friend who always shows up, the daughter who "has it all". When performing becomes constant, intuition gets quieter. You stop noticing the small body signals (a tight chest, shallow breathing, a gut feeling about a decision) because you've trained yourself to override them in favour of getting things done and being who you "should be" rather than who you are.
That override doesn't just affect your mood. Sustained high allostatic load has been associated with consequences including cardiovascular, cognitive, and immune system impacts, which means this pattern doesn't only cost you peace of mind, it can also impact your physical health.
Mini example: Have you ever noticed a knot in your stomach when you are agreeing to take on work that you don't have capacity for or something outside of your usual scope, but you say yes anyway because you feel like you have to. When you repeat that pattern of saying yes when your body is sending a signal, your body learns to stop sending the signal at all.
Can small changes really make a difference?
Yes, and it can be more effective than you think. Your nervous system didn't become overwhelmed overnight, and it won't unlearn it overnight either, but it doesn't need a complete life overhaul to start shifting.
Nervous system regulation isn't about forcing calm. It's about sending your body small, repeated, believable signals of safety until it starts to trust them. Polyvagal-informed approaches emphasise practices like breathwork and mindfulness that engage interoception and support a return to a more flexible, regulated state, rather than one dramatic intervention.
This is also why getting to know yourself deeply matters so much. You can't regulate a nervous system you don't understand. Knowing your specific patterns (what genuinely drains you, what restores you, which situations trigger old survival responses) is what makes the small changes targeted instead of generic. That's what I help clients with in my coaching.
5 ways to start teaching your nervous system that safety is the new normal
1. Start listening to your body
Start noticing early cues: tight shoulders, shallow breath, irritability, that gut "no." The earlier you catch a signal, the smaller the intervention needed to respond to it.
2. Schedule or habit stack recovery
You don't need a spa day to recover. Three slow breaths between meetings, a minute of silence in the car, or stepping outside before responding to a stressful message all count as recovery the nervous system can register.
3. Question the "should"
When you notice yourself doing something purely because you feel you "should," pause and ask whose voice that actually is. This is often where people pleasing and self-override begin.
4. Make rest non-negotiable, not conditional
Many women only rest once everything is done, which never happens. Schedule rest the way you'd schedule a work meeting, as something that simply happens, not something you earn. And true rest doesn't include doom-scrolling.
5. Get curious about your patterns instead of judging them
Instead of asking "why do I always do this," try "what was this pattern protecting me from?" Curiosity regulates the nervous system. Self-judgement activates it further.
What does life look like once your nervous system learns a new normal?
When you are regulated, you notice your own gut feelings again before you override them, you feel like you can rest without feeling guilty, you have energy, clarity and confidence to make decisions for yourself. You stop running your life based on "should's".
It's not about perfection. It's about consistency, self-awareness, and a willingness to listen to signals you may have been ignoring for a long time.
Key takeaways:
Overwhelm becomes "normal" because your nervous system learns through repetition, not logic.
Chronic stress without recovery contributes to allostatic load, which affects both mental and physical health.
Small, consistent, targeted changes are more effective long-term than one big overhaul.
Understanding your own specific patterns is what makes nervous system regulation actually work for you.
If you recognise yourself in this, you don't have to figure it out alone or wait for burnout to force the change.
Next steps:
Take the free Nervous System Quiz to understand your specific patterns
Join the free 7-Day Nervous System Reset for daily, bite-sized practices
Book a free discovery call to talk through what regulation could look like for you
