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How to deal with overwhelm is a question that plagues many writers, especially academics. Here I offer 17 tips to help make your writing life much calmer.
I’m generally a calm person, but I can remember a time when I felt truly overwhelmed.
My children — triplets — were about five months old, and I was home alone with them. It was late afternoon, and all three of them started screaming at the same time.
They weren’t hungry (I’d just fed them) or wet (I’d just checked), but they were all desperately unhappy. I put one in a bouncy chair, the other in a kiddie swing and I rocked the third in my arms, and they still all howled. I’d heard that the noise of a vacuum cleaner would help some kids calm down, so I turned it on. Our house sounded as loud as an airport runway (with babies!). Or a rock quarry.
After 10 minutes of enough noise to cause permanent hearing loss, my very kind next-door neighbour came over to offer her help. I was embarrassed, but I gladly accepted.
Writing overwhelm usually doesn’t involve screaming babies, but the feeling of helplessness and paralysis is remarkably similar.
Here are 17 ways to deal with overwhelm related to writing:
1-Make sure you’re getting enough sleep
Odds are high you’re not getting enough sleep. According to data from a Gallup poll conducted in December 2023, Americans are currently averaging only 6.5 hours of sleep per night. We all require seven to 10 hours a night, and if we don’t get it, our creativity and our calm suffer. The next time you’re on holiday, figure out how much sleep you really need by tracking the time you go to bed and the time you wake up (without an alarm). Then, plan to get that much sleep every night moving forward.
If you’re feeling stressed about a writing project, you may think it makes sense to stay up late and get the work done when it’s quiet. Actually, this is a bad idea because you need your sleep more when you’re stressed. Figure out how you can protect your sleep. Your body will thank you by helping you stay calmer.
2-Remember to breathe
Many of us forget to breathe when we get stressed. I call this writing apnea. Whenever you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, the first thing to do is to pay attention to your breathing.
A 2017 study involving university students suggested that deep breathing can help reduce stress and improve mood. When you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, try box breathing, a technique recommended by Navy SEALs. Here’s how to do it:
- Inhale through your nose for four counts. Expand your belly and ribs to ensure a full breath.
- Hold for four counts without inhaling or exhaling.
- Exhale through your mouth for four counts, emptying your lungs and allowing your belly and ribs to return to their normal positions.
- Hold with empty lungs for four counts.
The beauty of this technique is that you can practice it anywhere — at your desk, in a meeting or even while staring at a blank document. Just 30 seconds of intentional breathing can reset your nervous system and help you approach your writing with renewed focus.
3-Stop multitasking
Many people figure they can become more efficient by trying to do two things at the same time. But neuroscientists will tell you this is impossible. At best, you can do what’s called “rapid sequential tasking,” which means you move quickly back and forth between different tasks. And while this may make you FEEL as though you’re accomplishing more, the evidence shows it will cause you to make more mistakes and to feel more stress. If you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, don’t make the situation worse by multitasking.
4-Reflect on your “why”
When we are overtaken by overwhelm, we feel lost in a sea of misery. Our brains race, and we find it hard to focus on any one task or feeling. This is a good time to require yourself to focus on your WHY. Why are you doing this task? What do you hope to achieve? Why is it worth putting up with the pain you’re currently experiencing? Focusing on your why will help you stay immersed in what you’re trying to accomplish.
5-Name your feelings
Underneath overwhelm, most people have more specific feelings — fear, impatience, shame, anger, guilt. If you can name the feeling, you can start taking specific steps to deal with it. Ninety-five per cent of the time, I find the problem behind overwhelm is fear.
Remind yourself that no feeling — not joy, not unhappiness, not pride and certainly not fear — lasts forever. Awful as the fear may seem, you can be assured it will go away, likely soon.
6-Accept your feelings
Many of us don’t want to accept feelings we don’t like — we think ignoring the problem is the best way to overcome it. But telling yourself to ignore something is usually a sure-fire way to cause yourself to think about it. Research into what’s known as the “white bear problem” (from a scientific experiment that told subjects not to think of white bears) suggests that we need permission to accept and think about something in order to prevent unhealthy rumination.
7-Get your thoughts on paper
It’s fine to think about issues in your own mind’s eye, but as writers we get far more value from writing down our thoughts. When we write, we focus more clearly and become more aware. Take five minutes a day to note your feelings (on screen or on paper) so you can make them more concrete.
8-Clean up your immediate surroundings
Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I like to clean something — my desk, a drawer or a cupboard. It makes me feel calmer and more organized. Don’t use this as a chance to procrastinate about working on your writing project. Instead, give yourself five minutes to restore order to your immediate surroundings. “Outer order, inner calm” is how the expression goes.
9-Rethink your to-do list
One of the problems with feeling overwhelmed is that you likely have too much stuff to do. Many of us have ridiculously long to-do lists with several hundred or, worse, several thousand items on them, all jockeying for attention. If you’re battling overwhelm, now is the time to pare your list to the bone. Do ONLY the bare essentials. Delegate (or ignore) everything else.
10-Take the next tiny step
The biggest mistake most of us make is setting goals for ourselves that are way too daunting. I’ve worked with many writers (frequently academics) who beat themselves up for not being able to write two hours a day. They don’t realize that two hours is an enormous amount of time that only makes them want to procrastinate. If you start small (say, five to 15 minutes), you’re less likely to procrastinate and you’re more likely to achieve success.
11-Use some techniques from psychologists
Here are two tools recommended by psychologists for how to deal with overwhelm:
The 5-4-3-2-1 method, which aims to ground you in your senses:
- 5 – Name five things you can see, right now, from where you’re sitting.
- 4 – Name four things you can hear.
- 3 – Name three things you can touch, like the pages of a nearby book.
- 2 – Name two smells you can smell.
- 1 – Name something you can taste.
Use cold as a distraction: Grab some ice and eat it, put an ice pack on your back, legs or arms or dunk your face in some really cold water. (This allows your neurotransmitters to refocus on the “pain” of the cold.)
12-Be sure you’re taking enough breaks
When we’re overwhelmed by a work project that feels too big for us to handle, we’re often tempted to try to work harder. Remind yourself that you don’t want to work harder — you want to work smarter. Paradoxically, if you take more breaks, you’re likely to do your work faster and more efficiently.
13-Make enough time for fun
If you have a big project, you may figure you no longer have enough time for fun. That’s crazy thinking! This is precisely when you most need a break. Writing is a creative act, and it’s fueled by the fun we have in our lives, like:
- listening to music
- going for walks with friends
- seeing movies and plays
- spending time with loved ones
14-Take enough sensory breaks
Sometimes, we just get worn out by the demands of our go-go-go society. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, consider dimming the lights and steering clear of loud environments (or wearing earbuds or earplugs when you can’t avoid noise). Make sure your clothes are comfortable and even consider using a weighted blanket when you go to bed at night.
If you’re spending a lot of time staring at a computer, your eyes are probably getting tired from taking in so much light. Take frequent breaks (every 20 minutes, look at something at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds). Then, at the end of the day, spend five minutes with a warm compress on your eyes.
15-Get some exercise
Exercise can help burn off some of the “fight-or-flight” response that appears when we’re feeling overwhelmed. Yes, I know you’re pressed for time, so I’m not suggesting you take an hour to go to the gym. But how about taking 10 minutes to walk around your block? Or doing 10 jumping jacks beside your desk? Or shrugging your shoulders a dozen times? Every small bit of activity helps.
16-Make your self-talk more positive
Writers talk to themselves every day (usually saying pretty negative stuff), but people who speak to themselves as if they were another person (in my case, by using the word “Daphne” or “you”) perform better under stress than people who use the word “I.”
When people talk to themselves in the second or third person, “it allows them to give themselves objective, helpful feedback,” says Ethan Kross, associate professor of psychology and director of the Self-Control and Emotion Laboratory at the University of Michigan.
In fact, Olympic athletes are taught to say such things as “Come on!” or “Let’s go” or “You can do this!” This is motivational self-talk, and it really works.
17-Accept what you cannot control
It’s possible you’ll be unable to complete your writing project — for reasons entirely beyond your control. Perhaps you bit off more than you could reasonably chew, or maybe your boss or supervisor made an unreasonable decision on your behalf. Trust that you’ll be able to deal with the consequences of whatever happens.
Remember that learning how to deal with overwhelm isn’t about pushing through the discomfort or ignoring your body’s signals. It’s about recognizing when you’re reaching your limits and responding with self-compassion and action.
Start by choosing just one or two techniques from this list. Small, consistent changes often lead to the most sustainable improvements.
Taking these concrete and easy-to-implement tips will help make the difference between burnout and balance.
If you liked this post, you’ll also like Dealing with burnout and boredom.
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Need some help developing a better, more sustainable writing or editing routine? Learn about my three-month accountability program called Get It Done. There is turn-over each month, and priority will go to those who have applied first. You can go directly to the application form and you’ll hear back from me within 24 hours.
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My video podcast last week addressed how to deal with competing great ideas for writing. You can watch the video or read the transcript, and you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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Do you know how to deal with overwhelm? We can all learn from each other, so please, share your thoughts with my readers and me in the comments section, below. If you comment on today’s post (or any others) by March 31/25, I’ll put you in a draw for a digital copy of my first book, 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. To enter, please scroll down to the comments,” directly underneath the “related posts” links, below. You don’t have to join Disqus to post! Read my tutorial to learn how to post as a guest. (It’s easy!)
