More Than Anxiety

Ep 108 - Overwhelm Is Optional: Strategies for Stress Relief

• Megan Devito • Episode 108

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Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious? 

Join me, Megan Devito, in this episode. We'll dive deep into overwhelm, exploring its causes, symptoms, and effective stress management strategies.

Discover why overwhelm is often optional and learn how to take control of your life through practical techniques for stress management, setting boundaries, and prioritizing self-care. I'll also share personal stories and insights from my experience as a life coach.

Key takeaways from this episode:

  • Understand the root causes of overwhelm and its impact on your mental and physical health.
  • Learn practical strategies for managing stress and anxiety.
  • Discover the importance of self-care and setting boundaries.
  • Challenge limiting beliefs and negative self-talk.
  • The multiplicative effect of managing stress, anxiety, and overwhelm.


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Take this quiz to find out what's making you feel so overwhelmed and what you need to do to feel calm, confident, and have more time for fun!



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You know you're overwhelmed, burned out, sick to death of work but also trying to do everyting for everyone at home. TAKE THIS QUIZ to find out why you're so overwhelmed and what to do about it.

Megan Devito:

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety cycle that keeps them frustrated and stuck. Get ready for a lighthearted approach that will change what you think, how you feel and what you believe about yourself. This podcast is full of simple steps, a lot of truth talk and inspiration to take action. So you walk away feeling confident, calm ready to live. Let's get to it.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to episode 108. I'm Megan Devito. I'm a life coach. I help women who deal with a lot of overwhelm, anxiety and stress figure out how to navigate those problems in their lives to be able to do what they want and have a lot of fun. If this is your first episode, I'm really happy to have you here and if you've been with me through the whole thing, thanks for coming back this week.

Speaker 2:

I want to talk about overwhelm and yes, we know that's a really big feeling how it might feel like everything's out of control going crazy. But I also just want to offer that overwhelm is totally optional. Don't hate me yet. I'm going to explain every reason that I believe that's true and give you some advice on how you can start to manage overwhelm and get some help with that. So I just want to tell you that overwhelm is not something that is specific to anyone who is feeling anxious or depressed or anything else. Overwhelm can come from just life, because life is going to throw a lot of stuff at us, especially if you are a woman who has a lot of requirements at home but also a lot of requirements at work, ideas about what you're supposed to do or not supposed to do, it can feel like a lot. Women are much more likely to feel overwhelmed than men. So, ladies, if you're listening to this, I'm with you.

Speaker 2:

I've been there. I'm the mom of four. I was basically the taxi driver for all four of my kids to get them to their activities. My husband works a ton of hours so, thank goodness, I had the privilege of having my parents, not very far by or not very far away, to help me out. But between school and at one point I was teaching and trying to do, you know, I was coaching a sport. I was trying to stay up with the house and stay up with all of these different things that were going on. It's a lot. So if you feel like you're drowning in everything that you have to do, you are in exactly the right space today. Because, remember, overwhelm is optional and there are really effective strategies that you can use to manage the stress so that your life feels balanced so you feel like you've got time for yourself to go out, to relax, to have fun. Fun is kind of the antidote to everything, everything that I'm talking about. I'm always going to bring it back to having fun. It's hard to be anxious, it's hard to be stressed, it's hard to be depressed, it's hard to be all up in your head when you're just out having a good time. And that doesn't mean not to be a productive citizen and to just blow everything off. That's not where I'm going either. So let's talk about what overwhelm is really.

Speaker 2:

The definition of overwhelmed itself is just this feeling of being burdened or taken over, kind of overpowered by a ton of work or a ton of responsibility. It can be overwhelmed by emotions, overwhelmed by tasks, overwhelmed by things that are going on in your life. We'll just call those circumstances. It could also be that your overwhelm might lead to feelings of even more stress or feeling anxious and totally feeling exhausted and defeated. If you are like, oh yeah, that's me. Hey, guess what? Let's talk more about overwhelm. Let's figure out what to do about it. Let's say you're identifying with that. I know that this sounds like me. I'm definitely feeling like I can't keep up. I'm definitely feeling extra emotional. I just can't get a minute to go to the bathroom by myself when I don't have my phone going off. All of those things can definitely bring you to a place where you're feeling really drowning in everything around you.

Speaker 2:

Things you might notice that are symptoms of overwhelm and remember, these are going to be different for every person, not everybody feels anxious the same way. Not everybody feels depressed the same way. Not everybody feels stressed out the same way. So you might identify with some of these signs of overwhelm and you might hit every single one, and you might only hit a couple. It could depend on how buried in stuff that you are. Maybe it's like I don't know, I feel like I'm just getting into this place of overwhelm. It could be that your couple of symptoms are just super intense and nonstop, or it could be that you just bounce from feeling to feeling. There's not a right or wrong way to do this. There never is. So things that are really common symptoms of overwhelm that you might be noticing in your life right now is constantly feeling stressed out.

Speaker 2:

Constant stress can be a symptom of overwhelm, and what's harder about that is that constant stress can lead to more overwhelm. That's going to be a really key point when we start talking about what in the world you need to do to get out of this Constantly feeling stressed, constantly feeling also anxious, just like something is always about ready to go down the hole. So, constant stressed or also constantly feeling anxious the more stressed you are, the more likely you are to feel anxious, because stress feeds anxiety. So if you've been constantly stressed and feeling like just really tense, really grouchy, really just all the time grouchy with your family, things like that could move into a place where now it's like I feel like something is wrong, like I just can't shake this feeling in my body, and that really comes down to how much cortisol you're building up, how much time you're focusing on yourself and taking care of yourself, and that could be for another episode, or we might talk about that in a little bit. We'll just see where this episode goes.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that can be a symptom of overwhelm is difficulty concentrating If you sit down and your brain keeps going to every other thing that's going on in your life. Now, to be clear, if you are one of my friends with ADHD, you may sit down and notice that you can't concentrate on a good day. So not being able to concentrate isn't alone, specifically, a symptom of overwhelm. But if you normally can concentrate and all of a sudden, in the last week, or however long you're like, every time I sit down I just think of the other thousand things that are going on in my life. I keep thinking about everything I have to do, I keep thinking about all of the things that are stressing me out. That could be part of overwhelm. That could be a symptom of overwhelm.

Speaker 2:

Procrastinating Also, yes, an ADHD thing. But putting things off because it just feels like you have too much on your plate is different than putting things off because you can't self-start. So the self-start portion would be an ADHD thing, where it's like, I don't know, I just can't really get myself to do that thing, yes, but procrastinating because it just feels like too much and you can't handle one more thing, that could be a little bit different. Again, it's person to person, and what's true for you and how your body and your brain works may not be for someone else. So remember, we're talking about specifically about you here.

Speaker 2:

Feeling exhausted or just sluggish, or just sluggish. I'm just spent, I just need to lay here, I just need to completely turn off for a while. But I don't have time, like I just can't, I don't have the energy for anything. That kind of exhaustion, the kind where you're like just please not, don't make me move, I just want to sit here for a minute and maybe you're not mentally tired. I'm not saying sleepy, I'm saying exhausted. And you know the difference, right? If you don't, if you don't, it's so easy. If you're like, tell me the difference between exhausted and sleepy. I'm happy to do that. Just message me. You can catch me on any of my socials and my DMs are always open for you guys.

Speaker 2:

I want to be able to answer your questions about these podcast episodes, but also about anything that comes up for you related to overwhelm, related to stress, related to anxiety. You also might notice that you have a lot of headache or my stomach is driving me crazy, like I just like it's in knots lately. I don't feel like I can eat the same foods. It's just it comes and goes. It's so annoying. That can be from physical tension, carrying all of that stress around inside your body so that your shoulders are always up by your ears and you're like gritting your teeth at night. You might notice that you wake up and your jaw is clenched or your teeth hurt. That can be a symptom of stress, and remember that stress leads to overwhelm.

Speaker 2:

So if you're noticing that you have more headaches or more stomach aches, take a minute. Are you stressed? Is that stress keeping you up at night? Are you having trouble sleeping because you're thinking of everything else that you need to do or everything else that's making you feel all of the emotions? If that sounds like you, it is absolutely vital that you are getting good sleep. One, so that you can move those stress hormones out of your body and give yourself rest to be able to think clearly, so that you don't feel anxious. But two, you've got to have energy to make it through your day. And then you're tired and even more exhausted at work. We don't want that. We've got to work on that sleep thing.

Speaker 2:

You might notice that you are irritable or that your mood it just flies from one end to the other. So if you are snapping at your kids, at your partner, at your coworkers, at your parents, at your best friend, at the neighbor, at the guy at the grocery store. If you notice that you are really grouchy or that one minute you are crying and the next minute you're laughing and then you're furious and your mood is going all over the place. Remember, if you're not sleeping, that makes a lot of sense, because our moods can get really wonky when we're exhausted, but when you're stressed you're just trying to keep up. You're kind of in this low level, maybe even high level, survival mode. So mood swings, irritability, are a huge indicator of overwhelm.

Speaker 2:

If you notice that you're just not doing in anything because you don't have the brain space or the energy to actually go out and have fun, you are buried in emotions, or you are buried in a to-do list, or you're buried in expectations, that can really shut off any interest you have in going out, because everything feels like too much anyway. And what's really hard about overwhelm is that when you're in a place of overwhelm, you feel like you don't have time to go take care of yourself or have fun because you barely have time to do the things that you think you need to do. That's where we want to create the pause that I've talked about so many times in the other episodes. When you're in that cycle whether it's a stress cycle or an anxiety cycle we have to find an exit so that you can choose a new way of being. And when you're overwhelmed, that new way of being is really finding a place to rest, to take care of yourself and to go out and insert fun into your life.

Speaker 2:

The last thing you might notice is that you're really feeling disconnected from other people, like how do they have time to go out and do something? I don't have any time for anything in my life ever. How do they have time to go laugh and joke around? Why are they not freaking out about this deadline? Do their kids not need them all the time? What is going on at my house? That everything's wrong?

Speaker 2:

If you notice that you're feeling really isolated or like disconnected, and especially if it's making you resentful; boom, that is a symptom of overwhelm. So if you are experiencing any of these symptoms, especially if you're experiencing several of them, it's really important to start taking some steps to manage that stress. And then let's get to the root and figure out what's actually causing the overwhelm, because you might think that you have too much on your to-do list, and that's probably true. You might think it's because you're not sleeping well, and that's also probably true. Or it could be that you got in a fight, maybe there was a death in your family.

Speaker 2:

A ton of stress is, for sure, a huge cause of overwhelm, but that's not the only reason. It's not just your to-do list, it's not just the amount of things you know, the circumstances that are going on in your life. It's things like over committing yourself. If you are taking on a ton of responsibilities and you are terrified to say no to people because of what they might think of you, or because of what you think your responsibilities are, we have to take a step back and say what's on your calendar, what's on your to-do list, what's on your mind that doesn't actually need to happen. It is okay to say no.

Speaker 2:

And if you have a fear of saying no to things, that can lead to feeling like you're drowning in the things that are on your calendar, and that is preventable. That is optional. You do not have to overcommit yourself. That's one way that overwhelm is optional.

Speaker 2:

The second way could be lack of boundaries, again, if you're saying yes to everything because you're afraid to say no. But if you're saying yes to people so that they like you, so that you feel included, so that they think you're productive, so they think you're a good employee. That also is optional. You're allowed to tell people yes to the things that light you up and to be really excited about the things that you know are good for you, for your schedule, for your life, for your kids, for your goals, for all of those things. And on the flip side of that is that no we were talking about, and I just want to offer that every time you tell someone no to something that isn't making you really excited or that you don't feel like is in line with you, you are giving someone else the opportunity to say yes to something that they might love, that is perfect for them. So if you have some guilt around, like if I don't do it, nobody will - remember, there's somebody else out there who could be really excited to do that thing. Give them a shot, let them do it. It's not for you, but it might be for them. So overcommitment is one lack of boundaries.

Speaker 2:

The third one I want to talk about is perfectionism. If you are striving to be perfect, if you have unrealistic expectations which, by the way, are only in your mind, because everybody has a different idea of what perfect is, and you are constantly criticizing yourself because you can't do it well enough, it's not big enough, it's not good enough, it wasn't fast enough. It wasn't the same as so-and-so's; pause. That is optional. You can learn to really love and appreciate yourself, to take care of yourself and to let go of the idea that something is supposed to be perfect.

Speaker 2:

The next one I want to talk about is stress that you have not resolved. If you have unprocessed stress that accumulates over time, all of that cortisol builds up in your body and it can make you feel overwhelmed and anxious. Stress is not optional. How you handle it is. I cannot ever tell you that you'll have a stress-free life. Stress happens. It's part of being human. You have a really high stress tolerance because back in the day when our caveman ancestors were running around, they had to do things like outrun saber-toothed tigers. But you don't. That processing system hasn't updated. But if you have stress that you just can't stop, if you don't know how to de-stress, if you don't have techniques to help you burn it off, to get it out of your head, to take care of it, it will accumulate and it will make you feel overwhelmed and you will eventually start to feel anxious if you don't process it out. Stress itself is not optional. How you handle it and learning to let it go is so. Again, that makes it optional.

Speaker 2:

If you have emotions that are not processed, what I mean is if you are ignoring or you are suppressing your emotions, this can contribute to overwhelm, this can contribute to anxiety and this can contribute to burnout. So let's start with something like grief. If you refuse to process grief if you lost your job, if you lost someone in your family, if you lost your pet, if you sit in that and you don't let it out and you just roll in it, if you don't deal with the grief, that is going to accumulate and it's going to stay knotted in your nervous system. So let's say that you have that grief in there and then, all of a sudden, you feel resentful. Something happened and you have resentment towards a sibling or someone at work and you start to feel resentful and you don't process that either. I'm just going to sit in there, I'm going to pretend like I like I'm going to keep my mouth shut, just going to talk, think about it in my head all day. If you have that, that's going to get knotted up with the grief and then, let's say, something happens that makes you feel guilty and instead of having to deal with guilt, which is my least favorite emotion, you let that knot up in there too, and pretty soon you have this collection of emotions that are sitting inside your nervous system and that gets really overwhelming, and that is a quick trip to feeling anxious. You have to work with your emotions, so if you're not doing that, that is also something that will lead to overwhelm, and it's also optional. You don't have to leave your emotions unprocessed. You just have to learn how to feel them, to deal with them and let them go.

Speaker 2:

If you're a people pleaser, if you're constantly trying to make everybody else happy, I'd love to do that for you. I'd love to say yes, you're the best, whatever. Yes, you're the best, whatever that looks like. If you are a people pleaser, I get you. It feels good to help people. Helping people is not people pleasing. Helping is done with generosity and a desire to be someone that can be caring. That's not people pleasing. That's being a caring and wonderful human People pleasing is throwing yourself under the bus for everybody else and that is optional. Negative self-talk is the last one I want to talk about.

Speaker 2:

If you are constantly telling yourself what a klutz, what an idiot, what a fool, what a terrible parent you are, how nobody could ever like you you're just ridiculous, I'm ugly, I'm a hot mess If those are the thoughts that are in your head and if they ever come out your mouth, those are going to make you feel overwhelmed and think that those things are actually true, because when your brain thinks them or it says them, if it makes you say them and you don't stop and question what you're saying, your brain believes it and that is optional. So all of these things that are causing overwhelm, whether it's whatever the circumstances, is your life and how you're handling it, those are optional, which means that the overwhelm itself is 100% optional. And if you don't deal with chronic overwhelm which leads to burnout and anxiety and being not productive at all which is probably exactly what you don't want you're gonna end up being more stressed and anxious. You're going to get burnout at your job, where you're in emotional and physical and mental exhaustion. I just told you, your productivity is going to go down, so it's going to be difficult even more difficult to concentrate and to get things done. So, consequently, you get more overwhelmed. And then you start to fight with your spouse or your partner or the people at work, and suddenly you're overwhelmed by your relationship. And then the next thing you know, it's like I don't know. I've had a headache and I feel sick to my stomach. I've had a cold five times already this year. It kills your immune system. Stress will make you literally sick, and when that happens, you become more overwhelmed because you don't feel well, so you can't be as productive, and then you're more overwhelmed again. Do you see how this is breeding itself? Like how it just keeps building on itself? It's like the perfect storm. And then that, of course, leads to mental health issues and it increases your risk for depression and anxiety disorders. And then you end up in therapy and you end up doing all of these other things because you just didn't have the coping skills to deal with it. And I get it.

Speaker 2:

A lot of us weren't taught these things. We were taught that we had to be productive to be valuable. We were taught that we were supposed to give endlessly. We were taught that we were not supposed to put ourselves first. We were taught all of those things and none of that has to be true and it's certainly not productive or healthy for you. Now, if I am speaking to you and you were like I am not supposed to put myself first, it is God first, then me, or it is my family first, then me. I get you. I was taught that too, but I just want to offer a thought switch for you that can make you feel okay about taking care of yourself and really know that you need to take care of yourself.

Speaker 2:

Let's say that you want to be the person who you learned that you need to be at church, or from your parents or your grandparents that said always put everybody else first. That comes from a place of caring and a place of wanting to be a good person to make sure that we're out there helping the world. If it came from that place, then the intention behind it was really good, but somewhere along the line it got twisted to, I shouldn't take care of myself. Because, let me tell you something if you are overwhelmed, if you are sick all the time, let's just say that you're overwhelmed at the point of feeling constantly sick You've had a cold all the time. You've had COVID in the last. You know, I've had COVID three times this year. I've got all of these things going on. I'm so exhausted.

Speaker 2:

And let's say that somebody actually has something where they need a lot of help. Let's say that someone you know has a house fire and they need help with meals or taking care of their kids. You don't have anything left to give to be able to help them with the best of intentions and the fullest heart and wanting to go out and be that person for them. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes, take care of other people, but that doesn't mean at your own expense, because you can't help anyone if you're not taking care of yourself. So some things you can do to reduce stress are really starting to practice mindfulness and meditation. If you haven't done that before, that's something I absolutely teach in my coaching. These are all things that coaches can help you with here.

Speaker 2:

You need to set some realistic goals we need to look at. Here's your overwhelming goal. Let's just break it down so it doesn't feel so big and so in your face. And when you set those goals, let's start celebrating the small wins and stop trying to be perfect. Let's be successful without having to have the perfectionism in there. Let's learn to take care of yourself. Let's make sure you're eating foods that really benefit you, that you're taking breaks, that you're going out and having fun on purpose. Let's learn to say no. Let's find out what your priorities and your boundaries are. Let's find out what your values are, what's really important to you, and if there's something that's not for you and there's something that you don't have time for that someone else would love, let them do it. Learn to delegate tasks to other people.

Speaker 2:

Did you guys know that you can teach your kids to do their own laundry without guilt and that they actually don't hate it? I put it off for a long time and I was doing laundry for six people all week, every day, single. I was like you know, laundry is never done anyway because someone's always wearing clothes, so unless everyone in the house is naked, there's always more laundry. But then I was like, hey guys, you know what, you're gonna do your laundry and I'll change it over for them. Sometimes I'll be like, oh, I need to do my laundry. So I'm gonna change this over. If they have to go to school and they say if they have to go to school and they say, can you please switch it, yes, I will do that, but they need to be able to self-start to do it themselves. They don't hate it. You can delegate that task.

Speaker 2:

Do you have any idea how much more time I had in my life when I wasn't doing laundry for six people? Trust me, you can delegate tasks, and the last thing that I can really help you do as a coach is to help you challenge those negative thoughts that you have about yourself and find the truth. What's actually true about what you're saying about yourself? What would actually happen if you didn't do that exactly perfectly? What would happen If that sounds really good, if that sounds like something that you're like I gotta get out of this.

Speaker 2:

I gotta get out of this cycle? It's so, so easy to talk to me. All you have to do is go to any of my socials and message me and if that sounds like too much, jump on my website. If you're like you don't do social media, that makes me feel overwhelmed. Yeah, social media is a lot. You can go to my website. It's megandevito. com. Just go there and contact me. It's getting a little facelift right now. So if you're listening to this in real time, you can hit the chat button, but otherwise there's going to be a message button up there. I'm getting a shiny new website. It's going to be so much fun. So I hope this was helpful. I hope you're starting to take a look at how can I fit more fun into my life, how can I knock out this overwhelm and feel really good Because, remember, even though it doesn't feel optional, it feels very big and very overwhelming right now. Overwhelm is optional. I hope this was helpful and if I don't talk to you on a consultation call this week, I will be back next week.

Megan Devito:

Take care. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel calm, to stop overthinking and have a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. I'll talk to you soon.