Is It Ok To Feel Overwhelmed At All Times?
Feelings and emotions are complicated entities. No one has ever understood them completely, let alone figured them out.
It is the lack of comprehension that makes us emotionally paralyzed in multiple areas of our lives. Feeling overwhelmed is one such emotion.
Have you ever wondered why you feel a sudden wave of emotion that is so intense that you do not even understand how to process it? That is precisely how it feels when you are overwhelmed with emotions.
These emotions have a wide range. They can go anywhere from happiness to depression. However, it is mostly the negative emotions that are associated with feeling overwhelmed.
Being overwhelmed will only be enjoyable to an individual when their emotions related to it are positive, such as feelings of gratitude and happiness. It can cause quite a trauma when feeling overwhelmed is associated with feeling sad or stressed.
When you learn more about these causes, the symptoms that come with them, and the solutions to feeling overwhelmed, it will become easy for you to keep a hold of yourself when a condition as such arises.
In this article, I shall talk about every detail related to feeling overwhelmed and how you, as an individual, can overcome it without getting entangled in the complicated stems of emotions.
So, without any further delay, let us get started!
What Is Called Feeling Overwhelmed?
Have you ever come across a weird experience that created such an intense rise of feelings inside that you could hardly contain yourself with the overflowing tub of emotions? That is exactly what is called being overwhelmed.
Think of those days just before you get your period when you don’t have any explanation for what you are feeling. Every inch of emotion that you feel is too much to deal with; that is exactly what being overwhelmed feels like, minus the periods.
The feeling of being overwhelmed happens when a situation causes an intense reaction in you, which can be both emotional and physical.
Therefore, you may react with tears, happiness, anger, or simply a combination of all three based on how intensely you are feeling it.
You would be surprised to know that overwhelm is an emotion that grows slowly over time. There may be multiple instances where overwhelm can keep growing, and then a small incident will just be the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
This usually happens when you keep ignoring the little things that bother you, which eventually pool to become an ocean of resentment.
You may get overwhelmed when all the emotions that you have been bottling inside crash down over you, and you have no idea what to do.
Can Overwhelm Be Called An Emotion?
To answer your question, yes, being overwhelmed is indeed an emotion. Anything we feel as humans is an emotion. Even simply reading the word can make you imagine how it feels to be overwhelmed.
An individual may be overwhelmed with anger, joy, gratitude, wonder, or any intense emotions that you may think of. Overwhelm is a term that acts as an umbrella term under which a wide range of emotions may fall.
To explain overwhelm as an emotion, you can think of it this way. Imagine you are at your workplace, and you suddenly feel different. Things were alright initially, but as the day started to pass, your condition gradually got worse.
You felt this weird nausea inside you; your hands kept shaking, and you could not concentrate on work, which got so extreme that every inch of your body started to ache. This is what being overwhelmed feels like.
Feeling overwhelmed at a workplace mainly happens due to work stress or multiple reasons related to work. However, it is very normal to face this emotion. As a human being, you are bound to feel emotions of different degrees, which will initially be tough for you to handle. But over time and with proper knowledge of it, they will not be as suffocating as they were before.
What Is The Opposite Of Feeling Overwhelmed?
When an individual feels overwhelmed, they simply feel out of control and question their ability to get a hold of things. The exact opposite of this is being extremely controlled and confident in your life no matter how tough a situation you have to come across.
Resilience is the ability of an individual to rebound immediately from an adverse situation and is the skill that may help relieve one from feeling overwhelmed.
People who are resilient are known to get more physical and emotional regulation, where one study has proved that “accelerated cardiovascular recovery from negative emotional arousal” (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004).
If you feel that you are constantly getting overwhelmed, you must try to build resilience to protect yourself from being overwhelmed.
Symptoms Of Feeling Overwhelmed
A negative feeling of being overwhelmed is psychological stress, which may be “when an individual perceives that environmental demands tax or exceed his or her adaptive capacity.”
When you are talking about the negative overwhelm of being stressed, here are the symptoms that you may want to look for:
- Unable to feel happy reasonably.
- You lose sleep because you worry too much.
- You constantly find yourself under strain.
- You feel depressed and unhappy.
- You cannot concentrate on anything.
- You lack the ability to enjoy normal activities.
- You lose self-confidence.
- You cannot overcome difficulties.
- Facing up to problems becomes difficult.
- Lack of capacity to make decisions.
- You are not able to play a useful part in anything.
- You consider yourself worthless.
What Are The Causes Of Feeling Overwhelmed?
The actual reasons for feeling overwhelmed may differ based on individuals. However, some of the common categories remain common for all cases. Some of the reasons why individuals feel overwhelmed may be:
- Health
- Finance
- Career
- Marriage
- Fitness
How To Overcome The Feeling Of Being Overwhelmed?
If you find yourself getting constantly overwhelmed, here are some of the ways in which you can overcome them easily:
- Evaluate those areas where you are feeling overwhelmed.
- Identify those causes that you can rectify easily.
- Make logical plans to rectify your behavior.
- Always stick to your plan.
Final Thoughts
Feeling overwhelmed mainly happens when you cannot deal with the pool of emotions that are bottling up inside you. They can be negative emotions like anger, sadness, or depression. They can be positive emotions like happiness, love, and so on.
However, feeling overwhelmed constantly can have a negative impact on your life – both physically and emotionally. Therefore, if you constantly feel overwhelmed, this is the time to take needed measures for it. Do not let it ruin the good life that you have.
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