Are you feeling overwhelmed?

0:00Kimberley Wilson:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:31Kimberley Wilson:Get Summer Splash savings now at Whole Foods Market.

1:00Kimberley Wilson:seat. Take five. The stay in your car 10 minute oil change. Find your nearest shop at take five.com.

1:08Kimberley Wilson:Hello and welcome. I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a counseling psychologist and this is Complex. The psychology podcast that I hope can help you find your way through the cracks and crevices of all the information out there about our mental health. In today's episode, I'm exploring how to calm your mind.

1:39Kimberley Wilson:And I think you know what I mean. Everything is too much. Your brain is going too fast. You can't stop criticising yourself. You can't stop worrying. We're constantly plugged in, right? scrolling on social media, checking our emails, updating our calendars and before we know it our minds are full to overflowing. In fact three quarters of adults in the UK said they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope with the amount of stress they've experienced at some point in the last year and that's especially true for women and young people. so in this episode my dear friends we're going to take a deep breath i'm really excited about today's guest who's going to help us to have a reset and a spring clean of our minds and i'm pretty sure we all need that so let me be your guide from the junk drawer of misinformation to the color-coded bookcase of understanding

2:48Kimberley Wilson:My guest today is clinical psychologist, Dr. Trudy Edgington. Welcome to the show, Trudy. Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here today. So thank you for inviting me. Can you tell us a little bit about your work, please? Absolutely. So I'm in a really unique position because I'm a clinical psychologist. I have my own private practice. So I work with young people and adults at different stages of the lifespan. but I also teach at a university. So I'm an associate professor at City St George's University of London. So I have a really nice way of being able to combine my research, my teaching, working with young people and students at university, but also having my clinical practice and everything sort of integrates really beautifully.

3:35Kimberley Wilson:So you have that kind of practice-based evidence and the evidence-based practice, which we talk about, which is lovely. Exactly that. Yes, absolutely. And what is the area of your research? So I teach mindfulness and not only do I teach it and guide it and use it myself in my own life, I also do research in mindfulness and I'm really interested in the neuroscience and the physiology. So what is it doing to our brain? What's it doing inside our bodies? And how is it effective for everything that we need it? So I look at psychological interventions and looking at all of the ways that these things can integrate to help us regulate our emotion and also soothe and calm the mind and the body.

4:17Kimberley Wilson:Thank you. You are the optimum, perfect, supreme person for us to be talking about this subject with. So let's get into the complexity.

4:30Kimberley Wilson:As our listeners will know, this is the point of the show where I like to get a definition. So what do we mean when we talk about resetting or calming the mind? So I think in some ways, a reset is very much about understanding ourselves. I think that's where we start and how a busy mind or sort of a mind full of stress or overwhelm can also then start to affect the body. And it can lead to different sensations in the body and it can lead to different emotions. and that link between our thoughts, our sensations and our feelings is something that we don't always really fully appreciate. So for me, that reset is about giving ourselves space, mental space, physical space, and being able to sometimes just switch off, distract ourselves from the busyness and from the global pressures that are very present at the moment for everybody and being able to be curious about where we are and where we want to be and how we want to make a change.

5:35Kimberley Wilson:You've been describing things like slowing down, becoming curious. And I'm wondering, for the listener, how is this idea of a reset different than, say, something like recovering from burnout? It's a really good question because in some ways I view it in the reset is about almost a protective mechanism. So it's something that you can establish in advance that you can build into your everyday life for the management of stress. And I have to almost talk about stress for a moment before I answer your question, because stress is multifaceted and there are parts of stress that can be really challenging.

6:15But there can also be parts of stress that are actually quite good for us. We need to be aroused in order for us to be able to feel motivated for the day. And different people have a different tolerance for stress. with a reset it's almost about recognizing when that stress is sort of building and you realize your optimum level so finding your sweet spot I think is really important. Thank you Trudy that's really helpful.

6:46Kimberley Wilson:Now at this point we usually hear a listener story but I wonder whether since Trudy you have so much experience in this area you might actually be able to kind of paint us a portrait of what mental overwhelm looks like if we were observing someone? It's something that is becoming a lot more common now. And I think it's because of the demands of juggling work or studying, juggling home life, juggling social life, and trying to do it all. And that's not always possible. And sometimes those demands play on our minds. And the way that our mind works and the way that our brain works, essentially it's designed to protect us.

7:29It's all about survival and identifying threats, either to the self or to the way that we think about the self. So when we're overwhelmed, we sometimes feel that we're not coping, that we're not good enough, that everyone else seems to be doing a great job and we end up comparing ourselves to other people.

7:49Kimberley Wilson:So overwhelm might manifest as this heightened inner critic, louder or more persistent than usual. Absolutely. But also because of that design that the brain has in terms of detecting threat, it also has a negative bias. So it's very similar to if somebody was on a stage and acting or singing and you look at all of the feedback if 99 % of it is positive that's brilliant but one negative comment and that will be the one that stays with us and we then ruminate over it we think about what we could have done how we should have done what we should have said what they were thinking are they correct so then you have it's almost layers upon layers upon layers of that mental overwhelm.

8:38Kimberley Wilson:And how then would that translate into the body? What we find, and I think it's quite an interesting way of thinking about our individual differences, we all have, I really like this term, our stress signature. So we all have a different way of stress manifesting in our bodies. Some people get tightness in their jaw, or sort of pain in their neck or shoulders. Some people their tummy becomes the most sensitive part and they notice that tension there and they're very real mechanisms very powerful and something to not be minimized when people are noticing that their bodies are responding to stress and mental overwhelm because in a way that's the body's way of signaling to us that we need to pay attention.

9:25Kimberley Wilson:yes and I certainly work with a lot of people for whom when they've been trying to override psychologically cognitively pushing through I just need to toughen up actually it's the signals from their body that actually get them to stop and think something's going on here I need some help yes and I have to say on a personal level my stress signature is a migraine and in some ways it's really quite clever because it will stop me from working you can't work because I can't I can't work. So we have this sense of this mind-body interaction and it'd be really good to talk about the psychology. So let's dig into that.

10:08Kimberley Wilson:I'm seeing a lot at the moment online about the need to reset, change your mindset. Yes. But if we can get below the buzzwords, what's actually happening neurologically? What's happening in the brain when we are overloaded or overwhelmed? There are three main structures in the brain that are interconnected and when things are going smoothly they're synchronized and they work beautifully together. However when we're feeling overwhelmed each of them have a different response to that overwhelm. So the three structures I'm going to talk about are the hippocampi, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex and they're interconnected.

10:49So I'll start with the hippocampi So we have one on either side and these structures encode new information and help us lay down memories. So they give us a sense of our past, our experiences, both positive and negative. They sort of guide our responses. We learn from what we've experienced in the past. And it's where we really process that stress. The stress has an impact on the brain in that region. so if we are chronically stressed we actually see a change in the volume of the hippocampus it gets smaller the amygdalae and again one on the left and one on the right very close to those hippocampi they provide that emotional coloring so whether the experience was positive or negative and how it made us feel was it threatening was it something that actually made us feel good but they are the areas of the brain that are our threat detectors and then the prefrontal cortex is the sophisticated part of our brain that allows us to think about the past think about the present but also think about the future so we're almost mental time travelers and we go back through those experiences that we've had in the past we think about what we've learned we think about whether it was positive or negative and that also colors the way that we actually think about what's actually happening in the present moment and then it can influence the way you think about the future we are also releasing stress hormones and neurotransmitters that not only affect the body but also affect our mood and our ability to sleep our appetite and also emotional aspects of who we are so if we're feeling overwhelmed one of those structures the amygdala they tend to become quite hyper aroused much more sensitive and it then links to the hippocampi and activates oh this happened before this is a pattern i'm always feeling like this and then that then sort of transmits itself to the prefrontal cortex and sort of informs the way we think and it gives us the perception that things might always be negative i'm thinking because then you've got a vicious

13:01Kimberley Wilson:cycle haven't you because the more stressed you become the more of these hormones are released the more the amygdala becomes oversensitive the more you look out for negative things which reinforce the fears you're already having absolutely so we have to really almost step back and look at it with sort of fresh eyes and that's where that space comes in pausing being able to observe with something called equanimity where you just you're not judging you're being a little bit more sort of curious. So it feels like a lot of what you're describing as resetting is about slowing down. But there are some people who will say that this faster pace of living is a good thing because it's training young minds to adapt to a digital future.

13:47Kimberley Wilson:So what do you think about that, Trudy? It's interesting. It's so interesting. I can see the benefits of both, actually. For me, I think the core element here is about flexibility and if we're one way or the other and you become too embedded in one or the other I think that's when it can be problematic if we can be open to both approaches but with much more flexibility because I don't think if you're just trying to be on it and striving all the time and sort of training yourself to keep going constantly you're missing out if you're not savouring the moment because there can be a tendency to just be sort of caught up in everything without actually paying attention.

14:35Kimberley Wilson:Yes, that's a good point. I often encounter people who are ticking off achievements, but not actually registering them internally. And so they don't actually get the felt benefit of all of their hard work. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a little bit like doing a marathon. You don't want to set off at 100 miles an hour because you're not going to be able to pace yourself right to the end. So slow and steady can be really helpful, but it's adapting to the current circumstances in your environment and also your goals and how it's making you feel. If it's making you feel distressed or uncomfortable, then listen to those signals and adjust.

15:15Kimberley Wilson:Why does slow and steady sometimes feel really uncomfortable for people? quite often and this is the whole richness and diversity of being human because we have to think about all of these different characteristics and contributions of who we are and what has influenced who we are so quite often it can be our childhood how we were brought up so if all of a sudden someone's then telling you to slow down if that isn't part of who you are and all of those expectations and values and beliefs you have about the world it's not going to sit well with you so that might not necessarily be the right thing for that person at that time but to encourage opportunities to do something a little bit slower can be the way in because quite often as well when people are working at a fast pace they're also not listening and noticing and being with themselves and that might be for a reason as well.

16:16Sometimes people don't want to think and they're unconsciously avoiding. So that slowing down can bring up unwanted thoughts, feelings, expectations.

16:27Kimberley Wilson:So for those people, just slamming on the brakes and this hard stop is actually not a good idea and something a little bit more gentle, a gentler approach might be a better option. Thank you.

16:49Kimberley Wilson:so Trudy if we assume that in this busy modern world that we could all do with a bit of a mental reset what is the tipping point where we might start to become a little bit concerned yes we're busy yes we've got some things going on but are there particular signs we need to look out for when we might just be tipping over into something a little bit more problematic yes I think so I I think there are some clear signs and they're not always the ones that you think. So, for instance, if somebody's working on a computer and you're communicating by email, if you suddenly feel that you're overwhelmed with emails and all of a sudden your tone is changing, you might not feel that you care as much.

17:30You don't feel that same sense of either responsibility or accountability because it just feels too much. So things get shorter, a little bit more abrupt. the daily hassles starting to really get to you you know trying to buy a ticket at a train station and there's a queue and you're going to miss your train and those sorts of things start to build up you notice you're getting more frustrated in situations that you might not have got frustrated in before spending too much time watching tv you know sort of that netflix sort of next episode just keep going i think that's a big one i certainly know people who on the surface it

18:08Kimberley Wilson:feels restful but it's a kind of numbing out you're just kind of flattered in front of the tv because everything else is so overwhelming and you can just let the tv roll when sometimes it says are you ready to turn the television on yes but the tv's like are you are you okay are you okay can you please pick up the remote to show it so you're still here um i've experienced that i think we all have but if that's happening on a regular basis it's it's those sort of very subtle things or if you're invited out for an evening with friends and you're declining invitations because it feels effortful as opposed to something that would just feel quite natural.

18:48Yes, so even the effort for positive, enjoyable things feels a bit too much. Yeah, if you're not feeling 100 % it can start to slip particularly if you're noticing that the mental overwhelm is becoming more chronic.

19:06Kimberley Wilson:so for everybody listening truly what kinds of things can we do to calm ourselves down and to reset our minds we're fortunate that we have so many options before i start listing some of those options i just do want to highlight that not all of them are for everybody it's so important that it's based on your own preference and what works for you so for instance I would say one of the most powerful things for me is mindfulness so mindfulness for me is something that's really important being able to spend some time just with yourself in a present moment where you're not distracted by anything else that you're listening to what's around you maybe if you're on to walk and as you're walking you don't have to be sitting inside somewhere definitely not and i think quite often what i tend to do when i'm talking about mindfulness is try and dispel some of those myths you don't have to empty your mind you don't have to be sitting in like cross legged you can run a marathon and be mindful it can reduce that mental overwhelm because what you're then doing is that you're dropping into your sensory experience in that moment so listening really carefully, like noticing birdsong if you're outside, noticing sounds that are coming from inside your own body, and then noticing how you're feeling and what thoughts are coming up for you.

20:34And when you start noticing those sorts of things, then you have some choices. Because one mindfulness technique that I use is that you can actually choose which ear to listen out of if you're hearing and you don't have a hearing impairment. And just by changing, whether you just focus on your right ear or your left ear, and then expanding it back to both ears, it's something really quite transformative because you notice the quality and the physicality of sound. And we take so much for granted.

21:09Kimberley Wilson:There was a time, I think, where mindfulness slash meditation was this panacea. We should all be doing it at all times. but there's some people for whom that's really not a good idea. Absolutely. So I'm a mindfulness teacher and practitioner and I think the way that we focus on mindfulness needs to be with caution. It isn't for everybody and there are some times when mindfulness is just not the right thing at the right time. For instance, if somebody's had a recent bereavement or if somebody is experiencing acute depression, you might not want to actually be with your thoughts or what's actually happening in your body or if somebody's experienced trauma also for people who are neurodivergent mindfulness can be something that feels too overwhelming because it makes you focus on just one thing at a time so it really does have to be with caution now that doesn't mean that it can't be right at some point but I always recommend that it's done with guidance and somebody who's a trained practitioner another aspect for me when I'm thinking about sort of managing that overwhelm is CBT so cognitive behavior therapy, understanding how your thoughts affect your feelings, the sensations in your body, and how to then adjust and adjust your response.

22:26And then alongside all of these different approaches is to bring in things like physical activity and exercise. I think they're so important and we forget about their benefits, but it's about finding the right one for you. So things like dancing. For me, dancing is something that synchronizes the brain. It coordinates your body. You're doing it usually with other people. So you've got that social connection, which is also so beneficial. When people are feeling overwhelmed and they start to isolate, it's about coming back in and working with people. And dancing is a physical activity where you can do it with others and get pleasure, get that joy.

23:09For some people, anything that involves balance. and again that can be really helpful for people who are neurodivergent even just standing on a balancing board or a skateboard or a surfboard when you're trying to balance your body it's a hack going into your body then calms your mind so all of these different things are going to be really helpful and then the normal sort of creative things that we can do as humans art culture, going to the theatre, learning a musical instrument, learning a new language. And all of these things build up the hippocampus and the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex and improve wellbeing.

23:47So they all have measurable effects on the brain.

23:52Kimberley Wilson:So you've kind of laid out a smuggler's board there for us of options. And so it sounds like really it's a question of partly knowing yourself and who you are, but also of trial and error, just trying something and seeing, dropping into yourself, noticing the effect it has on you. Do you leave this activity feeling a bit calmer or a bit more energised or a bit more connected? Or did you feel like you really had to force it, that kind of thing? Yes, absolutely. There isn't one thing that is going to work for every single person because we're all unique. And that's the beauty of our humanity.

24:30Kimberley Wilson:truly thank you this I think has been so helpful and such an optimistic open kind of outward looking conversation and what I've loved about it really when we get underneath is the simplicity of the options because I think there's overwhelm and we all feel a bit fraught all the time and up against it and as if we should be doing things and that the more we do the more successful we'll feel and the happier we'll be whereas what you're suggesting is actually if we can slow down and become more curious and thoughtful apply some introspection we can extract more joy and pleasure from where we are right now without actually having to do anything more really savoring every single bit of being human, I think is, yeah, for me, that is everything.

25:27Kimberley Wilson:And I love that because I think it's something that's accessible for people and they don't have to wait until some other time in the future or some other version of themselves to start to improve the quality of their experience. So thank you for that. You're very welcome. Okay, so we are coming up to the end of the episode. Let me first thank you, Trudy, for being here. it's been a real pleasure thank you it's been such a lovely conversation so thank you so much for inviting me to speak about this today thank you and thank you to everyone listening as you can hear i am on a mission to clear up the misunderstandings the misapprehensions in the mental health space and i want complex to be your trusted place where you can come for expert thoughtful information and advice.

26:19Kimberley Wilson:So tell me what you want me to talk about. Email us your stories in a paragraph to complex at bbc.co.uk. And please note that I can't answer you personally. So if you have a concern about a medical or mental health issue, then I'd strongly urge you to seek expert help. And if you want details of further support with some of the issues raised in the podcast. You can find them at bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. And the link is also in the show notes on BBC Sounds. And that's it. Thank you to my guest, clinical psychologist, Dr. Trudy Edgington. And thank you to the lovely production team at Loftus Media.

26:59Kimberley Wilson:Producer Claire Justin, researcher and assistant producer Samara Linton, executive producers Kirsten Lass and Rami Zabar, technical producer Ruben Huxtable, studio engineer Andres Albert, sound engineer Ruth Rainey, and at BBC Sounds, Assistant Commissioner Izzy Lee Poulton and Commissioning Editor Rhian Roberts. I'm Kimberley Wilson. Thanks for listening. Take care and go gently.

27:50Kimberley Wilson:Absolutely.