Overstimulated

If you have ever eaten ice cream too quickly, you know how fast a brain freeze can happen! Well, did you know that your brain experiences another kind of freeze? It occurs when you’re experiencing sensory overload (overstimulated nervous system).

Sensory overload can happen when there is so much information or energy input coming at us. Our complete nervous systems (mental, physical, spiritual and emotional bodies) and our brain stop! Our brain, which typically works like a beautiful receptor, momentarily receives so much competing input that it is unable to interpret the sensory information, which results in our brain literally not able to pick what stimulus it needs to interpret and focus on first, then send out a message to you to react. Instead, it experiences a “overstimulated nervous system freeze”.

It’s as if the brain hits the brakes and sends messages to your nervous system that you need to stop! This is when fight, flight or freeze might kick in. Your brain feels stuck/trapped and a chain reaction happens. Maybe it feels like brain fog, confusion, or forgetting what you were saying or going to do.

Given the past year of our collective lives, we have increased our tolerance to high levels of overstimulating energies. The emotional upheaval and constant stream of fear has affected our entire being even if we’re not aware that we are experiencing a constant state of our overstimulated nervous system.

A few months ago, my powerhouse client experienced a devastating miscarriage from her preceding IVF cycle. Her entire body systems were exhausted and weakened. In our session, she shared she was moving into another aggressive cycle and was concerned about time and failure.

That nasty time issue is a gut punch. When we are dealing with a traumatic life circumstance, time has a way of sending us into “future fear thinking overstimulation”. Future fear thinking overstimulation can send our nervous system into sensory overload and create a sense of urgency that can have us making “triggered” decisions, which can result in us stumbling off our self-lovingly connected path for ourselves.

The pause needed when our nervous system is overstimulated is breathing because typically we stop breathing or breath in a shallow manner when experiencing overload. The breath can draw us back to this moment and keep us at our highest functioning brain. The much needed oxygen-rich blood helps to quickly prioritize what needs our attention first and problem solve from a grounded place.

You can consciously stay calm in LOVE energy when triggered in an overloaded pool of energy. This might sound over-simplified, but when we are within the higher loving energy state, fear has no power. It’s easier than you think….

Love accessing can begin with:

Grounding in nature: When possible please make sure to walk barefoot on Mother Earth and pause for a moment to feel the energy and recharge. Read my full blog about grounding here.
Speaking out loud that you’re in fear (or writing it down)
Connecting to your heart: Try this… with one hand on your heart, imagine breathing into your heart chakra, imagine your heart has expanded to your shoulder width. Stay within your heart energy for a few moments, feeling the calm centeredness within.
Stomach breathing (aka baby belly breathing): Place one hand on your stomach/abdomen and perhaps one hand on your heart. Begin to feel your breath rise and fall within your abdomen. When you are breathing in, your hand on your stomach should rise higher than the hand on your heart. Ensure that you are filling all the way up; and emptying completely.
Check within: Ask your heart for one word or image to describe your current state. With a hand on your heart, ask your go-to spiritual connection to help you understand what you need to know about yourself right now.

Circling back to my client, the word she received was overstimulated. She said she felt it and heard it (we all have this type of powerful intuition), and she listened and changed her fertility game plan for her upcoming cycle, doing a low stimulation IUI and is currently pregnant.

Checking in with yourself is a great way to step out of the fear-triggering stimulus. The “checking in” awareness is so powerful in order to live in your personal flow. Consciously try to unplug and disengage in people, places or things that trigger future fear thinking overstimulation.

Conscientiously coming to the awareness of understanding when your overstimulation takes practice is a form of self-love and self-care.

I would love to hear from you… how do you know when you have hit the overstimulated state?

If you’d like to learn more about how coaching relationships can help you with this learning and growth, please take advantage of your initial complimentary coaching session here.