You Know You're Okay, But You Still FEEL Stressed and Overwhelmed

Most people have had the experience of thinking to themselves, "I know I'm okay, but I... Well, I don't feel okay. I feel completely overwhelmed. I know it's silly but I just can't stop feeling this way."

This sentiment is super common.

It happens when your mind knows something that your body essentially doesn't believe. In this state, you can tell yourself that "everything's fine," that you can "handle this," and yet your thoughts won't do anything to shift how you feel.

When stress becomes physical

When your nervous system perceives a threat, your body prepares to respond. Your heart rate increases, your muscles contract, your breathing changes, and your focus becomes narrowed on whatever might need to be dealt with.

This response is incredibly useful when there's a physical danger in front of you. The problem is that your nervous system doesn’t only respond to physical threats. Emotional stress activates the same protective response, even when there’s nothing you need to physically run from.

A difficult conversation, uncertainty about the future, relationship tension, work that never seems to end, fear of disappointing someone, or the feeling that you’re falling behind can all be enough to put your body into a state of heightened alertness.

And if you spend enough time in that state, it can start to feel normal. Many people don't register how much stress they’re carrying until they have a moment to slow down. For instance, you may have had the experience of spending the entire day getting things done, answering emails, working, exercising, taking care of everyone else, and then getting into bed and suddenly feeling you've been hit by a truck, exhausted.

Your tension is trying to protect you

An important point I share with my coaching clients: Physical tension is not something your body is doing to you. Your body isn’t trying to make you uncomfortable. It’s responding to what it perceives it needs: protection.

When you’re stressed, bracing makes sense. Tightening your muscles prepares you to act. Becoming more alert helps you anticipate what might happen next. Staying mentally occupied can give you the feeling that you’re doing something to prevent a problem.

The issue is that these responses don’t always switch off simply because the original stressor has passed.

You can know that you’re safe and still feel braced. You can have nothing urgent to do and still feel as though you should be doing something. You can finally have a free evening and discover that relaxing feels surprisingly uncomfortable.

That doesn’t mean you’re "bad at relaxing." It just means you haven't had a lot of practice with doing so.

So how do you actually release the tension?

This is where somatic practices can be useful.

If your body is in a state of activation, telling yourself to calm down can sometimes become another task to accomplish. You’re lying there thinking, Why am I not relaxed yet? Am I breathing properly? Is my nervous system calming down?

Which, obviously, doesn’t exactly create the conditions for relaxation.

Instead, it can be more helpful to work with the body directly through movement, breath, sensation and your environment.

Start by looking around you

When you’re stressed, your attention tends to become narrow. Try allowing your gaze to soften and taking in the room around you. Let your eyes move slowly around the space rather than staying fixed on one thing.

Try a slower exhale

Place one hand over your chest and one over your belly. Breathe in comfortably, then allow your exhale to be a little longer than your inhale.

Move instead of trying to “release” the tension

If your shoulders are tight, move them. Roll them slowly, stretch your arms overhead, turn your head gently from side to side, or take a walk around the room. As you move, pay attention to what you actually feel. Does your breathing shift? Do you feel yourself softening anywhere?

Give yourself somewhere to land

Lie down. Wrap yourself in a blanket. Place a hand over your belly. Not trying to change your breath. Not trying to release. Just be for a little while.

If you’re already someone who has perfected the morning routine, the evening routine, the workout, the meditation and the supplements, you don't need another thing to do. You need more space to simply be where you are.

You don’t have to get rid of all your stress

The goal isn’t to become someone who never feels stressed or physically tense. Stress is part of being alive, particularly when you care deeply about your work, your relationships, your life and the things you’re creating.

What matters is whether your body knows how to come back down after the stress has passed.

If you’re constantly living in a state of bracing, it can be easy to assume that the answer is to find the perfect technique that will finally make you feel calm. But often, the more important work is learning to notice what happens in your body when you’re under pressure, understanding why it responds the way it does, and gradually giving yourself experiences of safety, rest and support.

Your physical tension isn’t something you need to fight; it’s information. And when you start listening to it rather than immediately trying to get rid of it, you can begin to understand what your body has been trying to communicate to you.

For support in this process, please reach out here and tell me about yourself and what you're specifically struggling with. I'll share with you how this work may support you in particular.