Ever feel like the lights are too bright, your shirt is too tight, your phone won’t stop pinging, and you can literally hear the fridge humming in the background?
You’re not just being dramatic. It could be sensory overload, and it’s more common than people think.
What Exactly Is Sensory Overload?
Sensory overload happens when your brain receives more input than it can process. This could be noise, light, movement, textures, or even too many tabs open on your screen, both mentally and digitally.
Whilst it’s often associated with neurodivergence such as ADHD and autism, anyone can experience sensory overload from contexts such as loud environments, multitasking, crowds, or even just working under pressure.
How to Know You’re Having Sensory Overload
Some signs to look out for include being unusually irritable or snappy. You’re unable to tolerate background noise, even low-level stuff, and find yourself wanting to escape the room or situation. You may even feel “frozen”; not in a place to even think of escaping. Please don’t worry, it’s always temporary. These feelings can be managed.
How to Deal with Sensory Overload
While sensory overload may feel overwhelming, it’s not impossible to overcome it. Here are some practical tips you can try the next time everything feels too much.
Adjust or Control Your Environment
If possible, retreat to a quiet space with minimal stimuli. Choose a dimly lit room with natural lighting if you can. Noise-cancelling headphones or earplugs help too. And avoid strongly scented products, as strong smells can be overwhelming for some individuals. For some people, creating a different stimulus to focus on can be just as helpful as silence: blasting music, feeling a specific texture, tasting something familiar.
Practice Calming Habits
Regardless of setting, you can always employ grounding techniques. Take slow, deep breaths to regulate your nervous system and reduce anxiety. Tensing and releasing different muscle groups at a time to relieve physical tension. Recite something you have knowledge of (eg the periodic table, the alphabet backwards, dinosaur species you can think of). If you have more time, practice meditation to help you further feel grounded.
Use Sensory Toys
Tools like sensory toys are a great help when experiencing overload. They help to distract you from your surroundings, whilst at the same time regulating your brain through deliberate expulsion of nervous energy.
When everything is coming at you, a good fidget gives your brain something digestible to focus on– something repetitive, soothing, and manageable. Textured, flexible, or squishy toys give your nervous system grounding input that can help to calm a loud mind.
The best part? You don’t need to leave your desk or write off your day. A few minutes of focused sensory input can help you recover clarity and avoid spirals.
Sensory overload isn’t a weakness. It’s your brain waving a little flag saying, “Hey, I’m at capacity.” And that capacity is ever-shifting depending on the way in which you care for yourself. You have the power to break down and overcome any source of overwhelm. You just need the right tools and strategies.
At Katico, we make weird, tactile, wonderfully calming creatures for grown-ups to hold on to whilst they tackle the world, one step at a time.
If you’re feeling fried, frayed, or just done, reach for something that helps you breathe better.