What to Do When You're So Overwhelmed You Cannot Think
What Happens to Your Body When You Become Very Distressed
When you perceive a crisis situation, your body immediately kicks into high gear. Your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Your heart starts pounding. Your muscles tense up. Adrenaline floods your system, preparing you to either fight or run away from whatever danger you're facing. This is your body's ancient survival mechanism—and it happens automatically, whether the threat is real or perceived.
Why Is It So Hard to Think When This Happens?
Here's what's happening inside your brain: energy is literally moving away from your prefrontal cortex—that's the thinking, analyzing part of your brain—and redirecting toward your muscles. Your body is preparing you to take action, to either fight the perceived danger or flee from it. In this state, rational thought takes a backseat to survival instinct.
How Can This Lead to Problems?
Since the thinking part of your brain isn't functioning properly when you're in this heightened state, this is not a good time to try to analyze or resolve the situation. You're quite vulnerable to overreaction and can easily make things worse. We've all been there—saying or doing something in the heat of the moment that we later regret.
What's the Best Thing to Do When This Happens?
First, simply observe what's occurring in your body and mind. Just notice it without judgment. Then, reach for skills you already have in place—strategies you can use easily in that moment without having to think too hard about them.
DBT's TIP Skills: Practical Tools for Intense Moments
DBT offers a set of practical distress tolerance skills that are both easy to use and effective. Let me walk you through them:
Temperature: Hold onto a cold object—a frozen orange works surprisingly well for this. Even more effective is putting your face in a bowl of cold water and holding your breath for about 15 seconds. This triggers something called the dive response. Your body actually believes you're diving underwater and adjusts your physiological responses accordingly, which reverses that fight-or-flight effect.
Intense Exercise: Go for a run or a brisk walk. Do jumping jacks or play a vigorous sport like basketball. This helps your body burn off the adrenaline so you can feel calmer.
Paced Breathing: Engage in deep diaphragmatic breathing. It's helpful to make your exhale breath slightly longer than your inhale. This deep breathing pulls more oxygen into your bloodstream, which goes immediately to your brain and helps it regulate. Also, when you extend your diaphragmatic muscle, you activate the Vagus nerve, which runs from your tailbone up your spine into your brain stem. This sends a powerful relaxation response throughout your entire nervous system.
Practice Makes Prepared
It's important to be familiar with these strategies ahead of time so they're easy for you to do when you feel triggered and don't require much thought. That's the key—having these tools ready to go.
When You've Calmed Down
After these skills have helped you calm down, you may notice that your body feels more relaxed. Your emotions don't feel as intense. Your brain is more regulated, and you're able to think clearly again. You're less vulnerable to black-and-white thinking and other cognitive distortions.
At this point, you're in much better shape to revisit the situation that was so triggering. You can observe and check the facts more objectively. You can assess whether you were overreacting. And you can determine what about the situation might need some actual problem-solving.
If you'd like to learn more about these distress tolerance skills, as well as many other coping strategies and how you can benefit from dialectical behavioral therapy, please contact me so we can discuss your current needs.