You know that feeling when you’re in an environment where everything just feels like too much? Maybe you’re at a busy airport gate packed with toddlers screaming bloody murder, bright fluorescent lights, overlapping announcements on the intercom, and the stench of a nearby tuna sandwich to top it all off—and all you want to do is sit down and cry. If this feels relatable to you, congratulations: You’ve probably experienced overstimulation.
Sometimes called sensory overload, overstimulation is a physiological response to processing too much information (coming from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or touch) at once, says Lila Landowski, PhD, a neuroscientist and senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania. It sends you into a state of hyperarousal, leading to some not-so-pleasant feelings. A sense of fight or flight, irritability, and complete fatigue can all result from overstimulation, says Sasha Hamdani, MD, a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD.
Meet the experts:Lila Landowski, PhD, is a neuroscientist, senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania, and health ambassador for the World Health Organization. Heidi Bender, PhD, is a clinical neuropsychologist at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine. Sasha Hamdani, MD, is a psychiatrist and author of Self-Care for People with ADHD.
Here’s how it works: Your brain normally takes in sensory input through the primary sensory cortices, and then sends it to the thalamus, which is like a built-in filter that decides which sensory information is important to consciously process. But when there’s a pileup of sensory information from your environment, that filtering function becomes less efficient. You become consciously aware of all of the sensory information and your prefrontal cortex goes into overdrive mode, creating that sense of hyperarousal, says Heidi Bender, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine. So, while you’re usually not aware of background information like a whirring fan, chewing noises, or cold air, overstimulation causes you to focus on all of it at once.
Ahead, find out more about overstimulation—including why some people are more affected by it than others, and how to reduce that heavy feeling, according to experts.
Why Some People Are More Prone to Overstimulation Than Others
Everyone has a unique “threshold of comfort” or a level at which sensory input becomes overstimulation, says Bender. That threshold can depend on your present mood, levels of anxiety or fatigue, past trauma, and the makeup of your brain.
Many neurodivergent people (people whose brains function differently than what is considered “typical,” like those with autism or ADHD) experience overstimulation more often, and more intensely, than neurotypical people. That’s because their prefrontal cortices are built differently, and they’re more likely to experience hypersensitivity to sensory input, per the Cleveland Clinic. So, it’s harder for neurodivergent people to focus, regulate attention, and process what’s going on in the midst of overstimulation. They can also perceive all of the sensory input as a bigger threat, and therefore feel more fear or anxiety than neurotypical people, says Bender.
In addition to neurodivergence, about 30 percent of the general population scores high on a personality trait called sensory processing sensitivity, per a study in Scientific Reports. Sometimes called “highly sensitive persons,” people with this trait have more sensitive nervous systems than the average person. They have lower sensory thresholds (and thus experience more overstimulation), heightened emotional responses, and a deeper processing of their environments. So if you’ve ever wondered why you need to take breaks at loud parties but your friends are totally fine, or why you have larger emotional reactions than others…this could be why.
Overstimulation vs. Overwhelm
Yes, there’s a difference—and figuring out which category you fall into matters. While being overstimulated comes from external sensory stimuli, being overwhelmed comes from within. Thoughts, tasks, news, or tricky decision making can all trigger that overwhelming feeling of “too much”—but it’s not the same as overstimulation, says Dr. Hamdani.
That being said, overstimulation and overwhelm can co-occur. In fact, being overstimulated can intensify pre-existing feelings of overwhelm, and being overwhelmed—especially by a new or challenging situation—can lower your threshold for overstimulation. Say you’re navigating bumper-to-bumper traffic in a new city, desperately trying to figure out how to get to your destination on time. Your brain is paying extra attention to the sensory information around you—the flashing blinkers, the road signs, Siri’s “proceed to the route” chides—to keep you safe in a new environment. All this sensory input on top of already feeling stressed can cause you to tip into sensory overload, says Landowski.
When you’re feeling that rising sense of panic, take a sec to identify the root cause (is it sensory input, or internal feelings?), says Bender. Are you melting down because of the fluorescent lights above you, or is it the swath of unpleasant news headlines you’re reading? Is your heart beating fast because of the noise in the subway station, or because your weekend to-do list is getting out of hand? Where is the feeling of, “This is a lot,” actually coming from?
If it’s external stimuli that’s bothering you, try these seven tips to cool your jets and hit reset.
7 Ways to Reduce Overstimulation
1. Take some space.
Once you figure out what’s bugging you, separate yourself from that stimulus (if you’re able). “Drink a glass of water [and] find a place to calm down,” says Dr. Hamdani. So, if you’re at a work happy hour and the lights, loud music, and voices of your coworkers are getting to be too much, step into the bathroom or outside for a moment. Sometimes, giving your brain a moment to reset (and clear out its filter) is all you need for some relief.
2. Sigh—literally.
Exhale-focused cyclic sighing (a kind of breathwork that emphasizes sighing) is proven to calm you down. A 2023 study in Cell Reports Medicine had 114 people do three different daily five-minute breathwork exercises, including cyclic sighing, compared with an equivalent period of mindfulness meditation over one month. It found that breathwork, especially the cycling sighing, led to greater improvements in mood and reduced respiratory rates compared to meditation.
Try taking two quick inhales, followed by one long sigh to exhale. “If you do it for a couple of minutes, then your heart rate will drop [and] you'll feel calmer. It's really the quickest way to de-escalate that feeling of panic,” says Landowski. Doing breathwork exercises on the daily can also serve as a preventive measure for stress, per the study.
3. Cut the caffeine.
Caffeine is a psychostimulant and can cause elevated feelings of anxiety, per a 2021 review of articles about caffeine’s effect on the nervous system in Cureus Journal of Medical Science. That bolt of adrenaline you get from a coffee can feel necessary on an early morning, but be wary of the lure of the latte on a day when you’re already in an overstimulating environment. “Caffeine is just like adding gasoline to a fire if you're already overstimulated because it amplifies absolutely everything,” says Dr. Hamdani. So, if you’re in an environment that you know is overstimulating for you, consider swapping that emotional support espresso for a decaf.
4. Make time for an afternoon chill session.
In the Scientific Reports study, researchers followed 139 healthy adults over the course of a week and found that the highest instances of overstimulation occurred in the afternoon to early evening, peaking between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. By this time of day, people have reached the latter part of the workday and can feel pretty sapped; the study also found that feelings of fatigue led to higher reports of overstimulation.
So, try to build some me-time into your afternoon to reset. Mood-boosting activities like nature walks and listening to relaxing music can help highly sensitive persons when they’re overstimulated, according to the study.
5. Touch grass.
“If you're in a green space for about 20 minutes, it's going to reduce your cortisol levels by about 20 percent: that's a huge amount,” says Landowski. She’s referring to an eight-week study in Frontiers in Psychology that had 36 city-dwellers in Ann Arbor, Michigan spend time in nature at least three times a week for 10 minutes or more.
It’s normal to feel anxiety when you’re overstimulated because your brain is releasing heaps of cortisol (also called the stress hormone) to try and protect you from a perceived risk. So, decreasing those levels will help you calm down and figure out your next steps.
6. Stop scrolling.
If getting fresh air is like a massage for your brain, scrolling on social media—especially when it comes to short-form video content—is like successive punches to the gut. Because short-form videos are random and surprising, your brain has to work extra hard to connect the dots between each video, and process that excessive amount of sensory input. The quick transitions, changes in sound and sight, and unpredictable elements of scrolling make it harder for your brain’s sensory filter to do its job, says Landowski.
If you know you’re already in a potentially overstimulating environment—like an airport, bustling mall, or backstage at a kindergarten recorder concert—it might be worth staying off social media to limit that excessive input. Sometimes that scroll is all it takes to push your senses over the edge, says Landowski.
7. Ask a friend for a hug—or give yourself one.
When you’re overstimulated, sometimes socializing is the last thing you want to do—but studies show that connecting with trusted people can majorly decrease anxiety levels. A 2021 study in Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology had 159 healthy participants ages 18 to 35 undergo a social stress test, then either perform a self-soothing touch or receive a hug. They recorded their stress with salivary cortisol samples and an electrocardiogram to track their heart rate, and self-reported their subjective emotional state. It found that all forms of touch lowered their cortisol levels.
“When you're hanging out with someone that you trust, you release neurochemicals like oxytocin [and it] reduces the level of stress. Holding the hand of someone that you trust is going to help de-escalate that situation pretty quickly,” says Landowski. Alternatively, self-soothing touch—like placing a hand over your heart or stroking your upper arms—can also work quickly to reduce stress.
Though it might take some trial and error, figuring out which strategies work for you—whether it’s connecting with loved ones, tuning into nature, or coming back to your own body—is key in managing overstimulation, and effectively resetting the traffic jam in your brain.
