If you’re focused on surviving overstimulation, you cannot thrive as a mom.
What can nature teach overwhelmed moms about healthy sensory balance so that we can avoid a life of chronic overwhelm & dysregulation? A lot, actually.
I love growing plants from seeds and transplanting them as soon as the conditions are right. What about you? The glow of plant lights can be seen in the corner of my living room as early as February.
Transitioning those seedlings to the outdoor world can be really hard, though. The first time I did that and I put them in a lovely, sunny spot on a breezy day, & do you know what happened?
Their stems couldn’t handle the breeze. The leaves blistered and withered. I lost half of my precious plants! What had I neglected? In their perfectly curated environment, I had not stimulated the plants appropriately to develop the resilience and flexibility they needed. What would normally bless mature plants blistered and broke my baby plants.
They were understimulated.
Understimulated moms are overwhelmed moms
Your world may seem too loud, too bright, too chaotic because crucial senses that help you feel grounded & balanced are actually understimulated. No wonder you’re overwhelmed.
In addition to your usually 5 senses, you also have these 3 lesser known very important senses:
—Vestibular: Sense of movement (in various ways, according to your inner ear)
—Proprioception: Sense of muscle and joint movement
—Interoception: Sense of internal body state, (and certain types of touch like itching)– Read more on the last blog here
If you’d like to read more about these senses, check out this resource at the STAR institute.
Notice that most of these senses are specific to YOU and YOUR experience of your internal world, unlike the usual 5 Senses that typically alert us to our ENVIRONMENT.
Guess what senses demand most of your attention as a mom: your ENVIRONMENTAL alerts! Especially touch, vision, and hearing. The ones that get overstimulated so easily, right?
Why that’s a problem for overwhelmed moms
So you’re not feeding the senses that tell your brain, “I’m right HERE! I have a BODY, not just feelings and thoughts. I can DO things!”
Proprioceptive input has powerful lasting effects and is very grounding and calming. It involves using your muscles with resistance, like pushing, pulling, lifting, squeezing. There’s a common saying amongst occupational therapists: “When in doubt, prop (proprioception) it out!” Whether you’re on high alert and feeling antsy or feeling slow and groggy… start here.
It’s lasting and powerful! Generally speaking, the effects of 15-20 minutes of strong proprioceptive input can last about 2 hours.
Vestibular input has even more potent effects on our nervous system, with effects lasting as long as 8 hours after as little as 15 minutes of strong input. Different types of movement may have different effects, with back and forth swinging usually being more calming and centering, and spinning movements being more alerting. Speed, rhythm, and intensity also affect the impacts of movement. Of course, this is a bit of an oversimplification. You can read more about this sense here .
Interoception, our sense and awareness of our internal state, is pivotal in understanding our body state and emotion. How does the information from our other 7 senses make us feel? Do we sense our rising stress before it knocks us down? Do we even realize we feel groggy and are getting snappy so that we CAN do something about it? Adults are particularly good at ignoring our body cues, and motherhood seems to demand ignoring ourselves, but there is a high price to pay for this. You must connect with yourself to connect with others.
What can you do?
If you’re an overwhelmed mom, check out my FREE resource: 25+ Ways to Get Started on my website. It’s loaded with activities to start feeding these senses. It truly doesn’t have to be complicated or an entire exercise routine!
It can be as simple as:
- Choosing to do your read-aloud while rocking in a recliner or bouncing on an exercise ball
- Wearing ankle weights on your walk with the kids or when you go to check the mail
- Practicing a mindful moment with your senses while you’re washing the dishes, as Amy Bodkin and I discuss here in her podcast about interoception.
Try doing an hourly time-audit to keep track of how alert, engaged and connected or overwhelmed you feel throughout the day. Use symbols or numbers to jot down how you’re feeling every hours or so for a couple of weekdays and a weekend daty. If you notice there are certain down or difficult spots, you know to time your sensory input before you get to that time of day.
Learning to proactively “dose” this type of sensory input throughout your day is key to moving from surviving your overstimulation to thriving as a mom… who just gets overstimulated sometimes.
Ready to make the shift? There are individual variations in ALL of these systems, and you can sort through that in coaching using special tools and practicing purposeful observation. I’d love to hear from you and meet you in a FREE consult.
Know any overwhelmed moms? Please share my blog and get the word out about these practical strategies!