Feeling Overwhelmed? Your Nervous System Might Be Trying to Tell You Something

Claudia Luck-Rodriguez
Jul 10
3 min read

Updated: Jul 17

(Part 1 of 2) And it's speaking in a language you may not fully understand yet.

Maybe it's through those 3 or 4am wake-ups when your brain decides it's a great time to rehearse your entire life, all tabs open, or the way your heart races when your phone buzzes. Maybe it's how you feel drained around certain people or the overwhelm you feel in crowded places.

Perhaps you've tried meditation, journaling, learning what your attachment style is and even what your moon sign is. But the tension and underlying anxiety is still there. Your shoulders and jaw are tight from holding it all together.

Resting feels 'wrong' because there's so much to do, and it wouldn’t be right to not keep yourself busy like everyone else. Isn’t it a badge of honour these days?

If you're someone who is juggling deadlines, work, family, the emotional load, but is feeling stretched, wired, or genuinely one WhatsApp group notification away from imploding... you’re not the only one. It happens to the best of us. Been there, done that.

Ever been called 'too sensitive' or told that ‘you should just relax’? This is for you.

Before we dive in: a personal note on nervous system overwhelm...

I wrote this (in 2 parts) to help you understand something we all live with, but don’t always know how to explain: our nervous system and why we feel overwhelmed.

More specifically, what it does when you’ve been in go-mode for too long, and why even simple things can start to feel really hard.

I’ll release a few articles to dive deeper on the subject of the nervous system and share what I’ve found to be the most effective tools for my professional holistic practice and myself – a recovering workaholic, burnt-out and highly sensitive woman in my 40’s, turned holistic practitioner specialising in nervous system regulation. Hi, thanks for being here!

So this isn’t a textbook explanation. It’s my professional understanding combined with real-life application - in my own life and in the lives of my clients - backed by current neuroscience research.

Your nervous system isn’t broken. It's just been trying to protect you

Your nervous system is smart. But it’s tired.

It is like your personal bodyguard / PA / watchdog / overprotective aunt.

It’s just doing what it learned to do for a very long time. Following patterns it learned to keep you safe.

The nervous system is constantly scanning our environment and asking: “Am I safe?”. And we’re not even aware it’s doing it.

This happens automagically, thanks to neuroception (a concept from the Polyvagal Theory developed by Dr. Stephen Porges).

It basically means that your body listens before your brain does: that tone of voice, body language, the energy in the room (like those 'weird vibes' you feel sometimes, that's your nervous system's telling you something’s up) and it also checks your own internal state. It’s highly evolved and we don’t (consciously) give it enough credit.

We don’t listen to it because we don’t know how to. So we get overwhelmed.

And those patterns (or protective programming) can be softened and updated over time.

In Part 2, we’ll dive into how your nervous system responds to stress, the survival states of fight, flight and freeze, and the powerful modalities I use with clients (and myself) to support long-term nervous system health. Because we don't have to keep living on high alert.

Read Part 2 here.