How do you feel about minimalism?

Maybe a little bit of a love/hate relationship if you’re an overstimulated mom, especially if visual overload is a pain point. Can I just tell you how relieved I felt when last January, even Marie Kondo herself said that kids change priorities for women!

Here’s what she said: “Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times. I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.” You can read more about her personal evolution here.

Do you have a hard time giving up tidiness to enjoy spending time with your kids– like Marie?

Do you find yourself struggling for the “perfect housekeeping” system only to come up short?

Cure for Visual Overload?

Minimalism is often hailed as the ultimate solution for stress and overwhelm for overstimulated moms. Declutter your home, clear your mind, and you’ll be free from chaos…right?

But is “curing” visual overstimulation that simple? 

As a mom juggling homeschooling, housework, and a million other responsibilities, minimalism can seem like the perfect escape from sensory overload.

Many overstimulated moms quickly find that while minimalism can help, it isn’t a cure-all. In fact even minimalism, has its limits. But first, let’s acknowledge the reality of visual clutter, and why it causes overwhelm in the first place.

Motherhood: The Perfect Storm for Visual Overwhelm

Motherhood Changes Things

Maybe you have always been easily overstimulated by visual input, but you’ve never really noticed or you’ve been able to easily compensate. But motherhood can break you because you no longer have a sanctuary of home as a reprieve from an overstimulating world.

Perhaps you’ve never experienced this visual overwhelm until you became a mom. Even in a perfectly tidy home, motherhood is the perfect setting for visual overwhelm. We live with kids! So during waking hours, there’s constant motion in our visual field. 

Now let’s add the mess, the sheer inventory of STUFF, the lack of predictability. Yet somehow, you must carry on through your day, focusing your eyes and attention on the right thing at the right time, picking out what you need amidst a busy backdrop. Depending on the lighting in your home and whether you have sensitivities, you can add in a whole other layer of potential difficulty. Have a headache yet?

If stuff seems to be the problem, then is minimalism the answer or is it a mask? Both.

Minimalism Won’t Cure Visual Overwhelm

What is Minimalism?
Will minimalism help? Maybe. Less inventory, less opportunity for mess, fewer decisions… There are lots of positive things to say about minimalism. First, let’s define minimalism. It was an artistic concept before the word was applied to home organization and decor.

According to Being Minimal:

“Minimalism is a lifestyle and design philosophy that prioritizes simplicity, functionality, and the intentional reduction of unnecessary elements, encouraging a focus on what is essential and meaningful.”

If stuff seems to be a problem, then why doesn’t cutting the extras solve visual overwhelm for overstimulated moms?

Minimalism Has Its Shortcomings for Overstimulated Moms

Your tendency to trash, donate, and give away  A LOT might be a clue that you get overstimulated easily by visual clutter. Cheers to you for actively searching for a way to self-regulate (read more about self-regulation here)!

But relying on this dopamine hit as a primary tool to self-regulate will NOT always help you find a sense of calm and safety.

1. Minimalism Can Feel Like Pressure to be Perfect

In fact, for some of us, the minimalism pressure can be more dysregulating than regulating.

For some moms, the journey towards minimalism feels like another layer of perfectionism. The drive to reduce everything—clutter, toys, even commitments—can lead to feelings of guilt or failure when life refuses to fit into that tidy, minimalist box. Sometimes, even the pressure of keeping things “minimal” adds to your stress.

Try this instead: Instead of rigidly adhering to minimalism, it may be more helpful to adopt a flexible approach. Ask yourself: “What do I truly need to make my life run more smoothly?” It may not always look like the Instagram-perfect version of minimalism, and that’s okay. Consider finding a “sanity spot” in the house that is tidy and less stimulating to start and end your day and to find peace in moments of overwhelm.

2. Sensory Overload Isn’t Just About Stuff

For overstimulated moms, clutter isn’t just about physical items—it’s about mental and emotional clutter, too. While a clean, minimal space can help reduce sensory overload, it doesn’t address the mental load of homeschooling, managing a household, or caring for children.

A spotless home won’t magically reduce the overstimulation caused by constant noise, decision-making, and multitasking. Minimalism can only take you so far in calming your nervous system.

Try this instead: Actively invest in your own self regulation with healthy nervous system strategies that might keep you from hitting that “DONE” button quite so easily and a little less often. You can find some of those strategies in the free resource 25+ Strategies to Get Started.

3. Kids and Minimalism Don’t Always Mix

Let’s be honest—kids and minimalism don’t always get along. Whether it’s toys scattered around or projects that take over your living room, life with kids is messy by nature. Expecting to achieve and maintain a minimal aesthetic might feel unrealistic and add frustration rather than peace.

Speaking of kids, if you have a large family and manage an inventory of books, school materials, clothing, and shoes, you can only cut back so much. Even if you have one outfit per day per week, with multiple kids, that adds up quickly. Not to mention the storage of off-season clothes in the attic. Donating what we might not need and purchasing it later if we were wrong… that’s simply not always an option.

Try this instead: It’s okay to embrace a bit of controlled chaos. Prioritize minimizing in the areas that matter most to your well-being—whether that’s decluttering a playroom, simplifying your schedule, or cutting down on household tasks. Or try setting a timer with some upbeat music, and make yourself stop when it’s done.

4. Relationships Can’t Be “Minimalized”s Mix

Minimalism encourages us to cut out anything that doesn’t serve us, but relationships—especially with children—don’t fit neatly into this category. Parenting, homeschooling, and caring for loved ones are time- and energy-consuming. 

The truth is… you share a house with other people! While we can work on habit-training with our kids, nagging never helps anyone. If we’re living with neurodiverse kiddos, we simply have to choose our priorities in our relationship, and that may not include a perfectly tidy bedroom at bedtime each night.

And our spouses have their own nervous systems, too. My husband simply doesn’t notice the visual clutter like I do, and while we can meet in the middle at times, it certainly helps our relationship when I realize that he isn’t intentionally “ignoring” a mess or shirking his responsibilities.

Try this instead: Have calm, straightforward conversations about reasonable tidiness standards in your home… preferably when you’re not overstimulated.

5. Minimalism Doesn’t Solve Deeper Self-Regulation Issues

Minimalism doesn’t address the root causes of sensory overload. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or overstimulated, it’s important to look at the bigger picture. Minimalism might make your environment more manageable, but deeper issues—like burnout, lack of self-care, or unmet emotional needs—require more than just decluttering.
Try this instead: Don’t rely solely on minimalism or escaping; consider other strategies like setting boundaries, asking for help, adopting a sensory savvy lifestyle, and creating self-care routines that nourish you. These may provide more lasting relief than simply clearing out your living space. You can read more about meeting your basic needs and why it matters here.

Final Thoughts: Minimalism is a Tool, Not a Solution for Overstimulated Moms

In Summary, minimalism won’t solve your problem, but if binge-cleaning or rage-donating is a frequent thing for you, then first things first: 

–observe your behavior in a curious, nonjudgmental manner

–ask yourself what it’s trying to tell you

–think back: has this solved the problem for you in a long-lasting, meaningful way?

While minimalism can be a helpful tool in reducing stress and sensory overload, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. As an overstimulated mom, it’s important to recognize the limits of minimalism and adapt it in ways that genuinely support your well-being, rather than becoming another source of stress.

Don’t be afraid to find a balance that works for you—where minimalism helps without constraining your life. In the end, peace comes from feeling aligned with your values, your family’s needs, and your own capacity to thrive.

Join in the conversation! You’re invited to the Sensational Moms Community on Facebook.

Bonus! Listen to Sensational Moms Podcast Episode 4 releasing soon for 1 bonus message that your attempted minimalism might be trying to tell you as an overstimulated mom.

Hormones can deeply influence overwhelm.

Maybe as a mom you know this already, but there are actually some surprising impacts on sensory overload.

Do you identify with any of these situations?

-You’ve been busy all day managing the kids and your own overwhelm when dad gets home, walks straight to the couch, and sits… seemingly deaf the kids’ yelling.

-You notice sounds now that you never paid attention to before you had kids, and it drives you crazy sometimes.

-Your kids’ chaos is WAY more annoying at certain times of the month, and you wonder if you’re just a crabby, moody mom.

What do all of these scenarios have in common?

You guessed it: hormones.

But exactly how do hormones affect YOUR sensory overload? And what can you do about it?

In my conversations with moms seeking help with sensory overload, there seem to be two camps:

1. Moms who say they rarely or never needed help with sensory overload before they had kids, but now it’s different.

2. Moms who say they were always sensitive but it became much more noticeable after having kids.

It’s not all in your head. In this article, we’ll dive into how hormones affect your sensory overwhelm. Hang on until the end for tips and implications for your situation as an overwhelmed mom.

What are hormones?

We talk about hormones often as women, but have you really stopped to define what they are?

Gear up for some very interesting, useful science-ese in the next sections, but we’ll keep it simple here. According to M-W it is: a hormone is:

“a product of living cells that circulates in body fluids (such as blood) or sap and produces a specific often stimulatory effect on the activity of cells usually remote from its point of origin.”

They are substances secreted in the body that carry messages to a different part of the body.

What’s the difference?

Hormones are part of your body’s endocrine system, and they are generally slower messengers compared to neurotransmitters (think serotonin, dopamine, etc.), but they are absolutely related.

Hormones are secreted by glands into the bloodstream and have a target destination. On the other hand, neurotransmitters work within the nervous system specifically, bridging the synaptic gap between neurons. It’s important to note that hormones have intricate, interconnected functions and don’t work in isolation.

This article will focus primarily on estrogen its effects on sensory overload. You’ll see that sex hormones have effects reaching far beyond just the reproductive system.

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Estrogen & Sensory Overload

Sex hormones like estrogen are shown to affect functions that we had not previously considered, with hearing being one of those.

Estrogen also affects the regeneration of taste buds and smell receptors:

Less estrogen = lower sense of smell and taste.
More estrogen=stronger sense of taste and smell. Pregnancy food aversions, anyone?

Estrogen generally has a positive effect on learning, memory, and mood.

• Too low – lower libido, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, reproductive issues, breast tenderness, hot flashes, and irregular or absent periods.
• Too high – altered sleep patterns, weight gain, hair loss, headaches, memory problems, and changes in appetite (slowed metabolism).

There are actually estrogen receptors throughout the body. Based on research about estrogen and hearing, we can infer that estrogen generally makes hearing more sensitive. Most human studies about hormonal effects on hearing have been in relation to hearing loss and show that estrogen has a protective effect on hearing. Maybe you’re not surprised by that because you always heard the baby crying before dad did, or maybe the noise just bothers you more in general.

These studies have compared hearing in aging women and men and compared the effects of hormone replacement therapy.

It doesn’t just stop there, though. Estrogen is involved in the processing of auditory input itself.

There are estrogen receptors throughout the auditory system in various species, not just in the brain. As a result, there are differences in the ear structures and nerves themselves, when comparing males and females.

For more information, see sex differences in hearing and this article from science daily.

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Monthly Cycles & Sensory Overload

Don’t be surprised if you see cyclical variations in your sensitivity to sound. That would be… normal. And it’s not just because you might be more moody.

As a woman, your middle ear structure actually has functional changes throughout the menstrual cycle, based on hormones. Your brainstem auditory neural pathways actually fluctuate with monthly estrogen changes as well.

The amount of sound it takes you to actually notice sound (threshold) is higher when progesterone levels are more dominant, especially during the last half of the menstrual cycle;

this means that in the last half of the menstrual cycle, women should be less sensitive to sound. Conversely, thresholds are lower in the first half of the cycle (more sensitive) and increase as estrogen peaks around ovulation. 

This may seem surprising, because many women report being more sensory overloaded in the days leading up to their menstrual period. Perhaps this is more likely explained by the lower mood effects caused by relatively lower levels of progesterone and estrogen. Feeling sad, anxious, and frustrated just go hand in hand with lower estrogen levels, but hormonal imbalances can definitely make this worse.

You can read more about hormonal effects of hearing throughout the menstrual cycle in this article.

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Pregnancy, Postpartum & Sensory Overload

You’ve probably heard that a pregnant woman’s brain shrinks during pregnancy, and it’s true. Changes in gray matter volume occur during pregnancy and last for at least 2 years postpartum. 

But that’s not the whole story. Other parts of the brain actually increase in volume!

By four months postpartum, fMRI’s show growth in the parietal lobe, parts of the prefrontal cortex, and the midbrain. Many of these changes are in areas of the brain responsible for social cues and empathy.

Especially notable, the parietal lobe grows, which is responsible for processing sensory input related to the body, like touch, pressure, pain, etc.

Even more amazing, the inferior parietal lobe showed growth, and this part of the brain connects to the auditory and visual cortex too!

How long do these changes last?

The short answer is we don’t really know.

Research so far shows at least 4 months to 2 years postpartum, and some of these changes may actually occur after birth.

My personal experience and the anecdotal experience of many moms tell me that it lasts a long time! But it won’t last forever. We also know that hearing thresholds gradually increase as women age and estrogen decreases. In other words, it takes more volume for the sound to be heard during menopause and thereafter, as estrogen decreases.

What about the time in between?

We can make inferences, but the research isn’t there yet. As we know, women’s health research often isn’t very well funded, especially if it is in an area like this, which isn’t particularly lucrative for the healthcare industry. Most of this research has been done in the last 10-15 years, so we certainly hope for more research to help us understand and validate the experience of moms.

To read more about how hormones impact mom’s brain during and after prengancy, read these articles here and here.

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Implications & Help for Sensory Overload

Your hormone health has wide reaching impacts in all areas of your life, including your sensory overload. It goes beyond trying to conceive or easing into perimenopause. It’s worth considering even in the in-between years of your motherhood.

What are practical ways to do that?

–pay attention to imbalances, whether or not you’re trying to conceive. These imbalances likely affect your tolerance of sensory input.

-understand healthy female cycles, relationship to nutrition, thryoid health and more with fertility friday ‘s resources.

–don’t pathologize the normal female experience. Talk about it with others and lets normalize the overwhelm so many of us feel.

–do what you can to support hormone health. Consider working with a holistic health provider to get to the root of any imbalances. Often with smaller imbalances, traditional western medicine will not intervene or may band-aid the issue with birth control.

–see self-care and basic needs post… sleep, nourishment, movement, stress reduction. Read the article about basic needs for homeschool moms here.

–chart your cycle and look for patterns of overload. Then you can practice self-compassion and model that for your kids while you communicate your needs more effectively.

Meaningful relationships profoundly impact the nervous system and bring us to a connected, regulated state in moments of sensory overload and help us hit those overwhelmed moments a little less often and intensely. Let’s dive into a basic understanding of the vagus nerve so you can understand how this works and delve into some practical ways you can practice this understanding .

Welcome back for the third post in our series Planning 101 for overstimulated homeschool moms. Last time, the topic was focusing on basic needs to decrease sensory overload, specifically sleep, movement, personal hygeine, nutrition, & order. If you missed it, you can find that article here. 

Love, Belonging & the Vagus Nerve

Meaningful relationships that allow for true connection are one of the strongest antidotes for the stress that comes with sensory overload. Relationships are so important and the need is so deep that we will often endure personally unsafe and less than optimal conditions in order to give and receive love. Humans are highly social beings, yet our modern society & lifestyles can lead us to isolation almost by default. 

Relationships: Sensory Overload Antidote

There are innumerable benefits to investing in our own genuine relationships as moms. Below our conscious awareness, our nervous system is scanning our environment and those people in it to assess safety. This is part of what Porges calls “neuroception.” We “feed off” each other without even realizing it. When we bring awareness to it, we can use this connection to co-regulate. It helps us feel connected and comfortable, even in otherwise dysregulated moments of sensory overload. You can even make yourself less likely to hit that state of sensory overload (or stay there shorter!) if we have a strong sense of social safety and connectedness.

We have to be especially intentional about building our network of caring relationships if we’re going to be serious about overcoming overstimulation. To understand how sensory overload and relationships are related, let’s start with a little bit of basic neurology with your vagus nerve.

What is the vagus nerve?

Vagus nerve & social connection

According to Porges’ polyvagal theory, the vagus nerve has two pathways: ventral and dorsal. The ventral pathway responds to cues of safety, and it supports feeling socially connected and safely engaged. In contrast, the dorsal pathway responds to danger cues by making us feel numb or “checked out” as a protective state. This “awareness” of safety or danger occurs without our conscious control, called a sense of neuroception. When we feel connected to those around us, it sends signals of safety and shifts us into a connected (ventral) state. If you’d like to understand more about polyvagal theory, you can find a good starting point here. 

Sensory overload and vagus nerve

Sensory overload can often lead to a numb, checked-out, frozen or dorsal vagal state. On the other hand, meaningful social engagement pulls us into a grounded, calmer ventral vagal state. 

The more personal the communication– involving faces, voices, touch–the more impactful it is for our nervous system. So balancing the daily overstimulation of motherhood with meaningful relationships is very powerful in our plan to proactively address sensory overload.

Try these things

Engaging in meaningful relationships sounds nice, but the reality is difficult for homeschool moms. Relationships take time, effort, and energy, which is a limited commodity for us. It’s 100% worth your effort for many reasons, not the least of which is getting out of a cycle of sensory overwhelm.

Yes, in person contact is truly best for that ventral vagal connection, but there are other helpful options, too. 

• Schedule in person meetings when you are able to
• Use video calls and facetime when it’s an option
• Opt for phone calls when you can
• Use voice message apps like Voxer or Marco Polo, etc.

Swap stories about your own sensory overload, and call it what it is! Talk about it outside of stressful moments. Then develop a phrase or word you can text to your trusted friend or family member when you feel overstimulated. Text it in the moment & know that someone else is praying for you or thinking about you in those moments.

Be honest with your spouse about the reality of sensory overload and how it affects your motherhood.

If you find this difficult or don’t know what to say you’re invited to book a free consultation to work through this scenario. You must understand it well yourself before you can describe it to someone else!

Check back next week, for the final post about Planning 101, with the last 3 basic needs. 

Happy planning, connected mamas!

Just think…those canaries alerted miners to life threatening circumstances! But if you stop there instead of responding to what the little whistle of that bird (sensory overload)  is trying to tell you, you’ll stop short of thriving in your role as a mom and homeschooler.

That little whistle of sensory overload may be trying to tell you this:

You are not being intentional about your basic needs.

What are basic needs?

What are YOUR basic needs when you’ve got a tendency for sensory overwhelm? May be you’ve used the word “selfcare,” and that has its place, but basic needs really drives home the fact that they are requirements. Let’s define this nebulous concept of selfcare, beyond the occasional mommy-night-out and pedicure.

This list is largely adapted from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, combined with a few concepts from philosophy of Charlotte Mason and polyvagal theory. Experts in psychology and other areas will expound on these areas differently, but I’ll highlight a few that I’ve found to be especially important for overwhelmed moms to get started.

Regardless of the experts, it’s vital that YOU define for yourself what basic needs truly are. In this article, we’ll focuse on the first 5. Come back for the next post to learn about the next 4!

• Sleep
• Nutrition
• Movement
• Personal Hygiene
• Order
• Mastery
• Love & Belonging
• Spirituality 
• Beauty

Sleep

Lack of quality sleep is closely correlated with sensory overload, anxiety, and chronic stress. Chronic stress has a myriad of negative effects on your entire body and brain. 

Poor sleep quality is a vicious cycle: 

–poor quality sleep leads to anxiety,

-anxiety leads to poor quality sleep…

Sensory overstimulation is the same vicious cycle.

-poor quality sleep leads to sensory overstimulation

-sensory overwhelm leads to poor quality sleep

This merry-go-round effect comes from cortisol problems that arise from sleep difficulties: Too much cortisol because of poor quality sleep leads to peaking cortisol levels later in the day, which leads to worse sleep quality… you get the picture.

Cognitive Effects

Here’s Why

In relation to sensory overwhelm, chronic stress that results from sleep deprivation can increase the neuronal connections in the amygdala, which is a brain structure responsible for fear and your fight/flight response that is involved in the overstimulation response. As you can imagine, that’s not a good thing.

 On the other hand, poor sleep weakens activity in the hippocampus (memory) and actually shrinks the prefrontal cortex. So it negatively impacts your ability to respond well and “manage” that stress.

Want to know more about other practical application of this neuroscience? Check out more information in this informative Ted Ed Talk.

Hormones & Sleep

Hormones complicate things, right?

Pregnancy drastically affects sleep, not only from a physical comfort standpoint, but also on a neurochemical level. Same with monthly cycles, especially if you have hormone imbalances, as well as perimenopause and menopause. For example, increased estrogen levels can cause neck edema & sinus swelling, which affect breathing and sleep quality.

What can I control then?

Sleep difficulty could include difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or not enough complete sleep cycles. Sometimes, quality sleep is beyond our control (cue the kids!), but don’t use that as an excuse to ignore what you CAN control.

• Stop the bedtime scrolling at least an hour before bedtime (I know…).
• Use a night setting on your screens after dinner.
• Develop a short but consistent bedtime routine for yourself.
• Prioritize morning sun exposure (even on cloudy days) before 10AM. You can use approved sun lamps to help seasonally as well. Don’t waste your money on knock-offs.
• Don’t consume caffeine after lunch. It takes at least 5-7 hours for half of that caffeine to leave your body.
• Set a consistent wake time, whether or not you’re a morning person, and make adjustments in 15 minute increments if you want to change your routine.
• Keep a fairly regular meal schedule.
• Try regular and diverse types of exercise.
• Don’t lay in bed awake for more than 30 minutes.
• Keep naps less than 30 minutes, and not within 6 hours of bedtime.

Admittedly, a lot of “shoulds” and guilt come along with talking about sleep with moms. Pick 1 thing and start there! Sleep deserves its own blog post, but this will get you started. This is a big part of my personal story of sensory overload in motherhood; you can read more about that here in my first post.

The SPIRAL foundation has a fantastic resource for sleep and sensory overwhelm that you can find here. While the language is geared towards children, the same information & tips are easily applied with adults.

Nutrition

Try choosing to eat 1 meal a day sitting down, paying attention to the actual act of eating and the sensations involved.

How does your food taste?

Feel in your hand? Your mouth?

What colors do you see? 

You can even pick one meal a week that you know you enjoy, regardless of your kids’ opinions. Eating for enjoyment is a lost experience for many of us.

You may also be surprised to realize how often you’re snacking because that oral input helps you self-regulate. Crunchy, chewy, strong flavors can help us feel awake and alert. Once you realize that may be why you’re snacking, you can intentionally choose nourishing alternatives.

You may also be surprised to realize how often you’re snacking because that oral input helps you self-regulate.

Movement

Motherhood is a highly demanding job, but as our seasons of motherhood change, we may not realize our exhaustion at the end of the day isn’t actually because of physical exertion. Do you move your body in a way that you enjoy? Do you treat it like a means to an end, with a tinge of guilt to shed those mommy pounds?

Intentional movement doesn’t have to look like a HIIT routine or 5K training. It may mean a 10 minute stretching routine while you’re getting that morning sun or walking up and down the driveway a few extra times when you check the mail. Whatever it is, do it. As adults, our senses that are fed by movement are our most starved senses, but they’re also the most important for feeling grounded and connected. You can read more about that here. 

Understimulated Moms are Overwhelmed Moms

Personal Hygeine

Order

Some of us thrive with a sense of novelty, while others crave predictability and routine. Mostly, our preferences are on a continuum and can change over time and according to circumstances. Overall though, for a sense of safety and security, some degree of order & control is needed: financial, societal, etc. Cohabitating is tricky, though, isn’t it? So many different nervous systems and preferences living under the same roof. As a family, establish what this order should look like in your home, and consider how it changes through the years. 

Maybe you need an organized school area because you crave physical and visual order. Maybe you don’t have a school room, but you can work to find a shelf or corner over which you have dominion. Respect this need of yours and consider it valid! As you set the standards & communicate them, consider your own needs because if mama ain’t happy… you know. 

Coming up

Take 10 minutes and reflect on what your own basic needs are; indeed, they’ll be a little different for each of us.

As you set your expectations for a new school term, how will considering these basic needs impact your connection with yourself and your kids?
If you’re having a hard time choosing where to start, you’re invited to chat with me in a free consultation to determine where a good starting point might be. Join us in conversation in our free facebook group here.

Come back for the next article where we’ll look at the other 4 basic needs for overstimulated homeschool moms!

If you’ve been overwhelmed, you might be tempted to think a new curriculum or planner might solve your problems, and sometimes it might help for a little while. But when:

• your kid spills juice on the floor for the second time this morning while
• your pre-teen cries during math lesson
• and your dog keeps barking at squirrels through the front door

…your dysregulation will still be there, new color-coded planner or not.

You need lasting changes if you’ve been struggling with the burnout and overwhelm that can come from constantly feeling overstimulated with your life at home.

If you’re ready to jump off that merry-go-round of guilt and frustration that comes from reacting to the chaos of motherhood, your planning MUST change to consider this often overlooked factor:

YOU.

Now, if you had a dollar for everytime you heard “you can’t pour from an empty cup,” you’d probably have enough money for Starbucks coffee, even factoring in inflation. So what does this actually look like for overstimulated, overwhelmed moms?

It’s called a sensory smart lifestyle. 

As you start to envision your fresh start in fall, start here.

Step 1: Overstimulated Moms Need to Name What You Want

Grab a pencil and paper, and think through these questions.

• What worked well last year for you, and what didn’t? 
• Did you end (most) weeks feeling a meaningful connection with yourself and your kids? 
• What does that look like for you?
• Would you describe yourself as a pingpong ball, reacting to your kids and your environment?
• When you end your school year, how do you want your kids to describe it? 
• What does a good day look like for you?
• How did you handle routine or schedule disruptions? 

If your goal is to connect with your kids in meaningful ways and to be able to embrace the freedom that comes from homeschooling, then DON’T do these things.

1. Start with your wishlist to-do list
2. Leave no margin
3. Overbook your own schedule

Overstimulated Moms Should Try these 8 Things Instead

Whether planning is on your mind or not, you can do these 8 things to make your next term a more effective and fulfilling homeschool experience.

1. Be Intentional About Daily Needs

2. Be Realistic: Audit your time

Cramming idealism into reality is a recipe for stress and dysregulation. How much time do you ACTUALLY have to do school work? Print a blank 24-hour grid broken down by 15 minutes and write down what you actually do for a week day and weekend day (no shame!). I know this sounds like a lot, but it’s just two days! For the sake of smoother, more satisfying days, I know you can do it! I did this exercise for myself with my homeschool life coach and plan to do it again soon.

3. Observe your own arousal levels throughout the day

4. Make space for meaningful activities for yourself

What hobbies, activities, or routines are special for you? You may have to think back quite a while for this, because it can be hard to maintain these interests with the demands of motherhood & homeschooling. Maybe you want to try something new altogether. 

Think of small, bite-sized activities, and things that are easy to pick up and put down according to interruptions. If it’s a hobby with a physical tool, like a violin or a cross-stitching project, put it somewhere that’s easily seen and in-the-way for a little bit of engagement as you are able. I like to embroider, but I choose projects with simple stitches for this reason. If this sort of interrupted activity is dysregulating for you, then carve out a small bit of time during the day or week to engage with it.

6. Sprinkle movement throughout your day

Our sensory systems fed by movement (especially proprioception and vestibular) are some of the most starved sensory systems! This is especially problematic because they help us feel grounded and connected in powerful ways. You don’t have to go to the gym everyday (or ever) to get these powerful effects! Think pushing, pulling, carrying, and stretching! Even 15-20 minutes can have hours of positive effects. Check out my blog post about how these understimulated systems lead to overstimulation here: 

Overstimulated Moms are Understimulated

8. Consider your “sensory buckets” throughout the day

It’s easy to just focus on your overstimulated senses because they’re basically screaming at you. But what about tapping into your stronger sensory systems? And what about all 8 senses? That’s right, there are 8 not 5.
-Vision
-Hearing
-Smell
-Taste
-Touch
-Vestibular
-Proprioception
-Vestibular
-Interoception
You can check out more information about the lesser known senses here.

Feeding all of your senses is important to feel grounded and connected throughout your day. You could imagine that everyone has differently sized buckets for these sensory systems, though. Maybe it takes more or less sensory stimulation for your brain to ‘notice’ it. Then because your bucket is smaller, you may respond by seeking more of that sensation or avoiding more of it… or maybe not! Everyone is different. 

You can learn about your unique sensory systems and how to support yourself holistically by understanding your own “sensory buckets” and how to best fill them throughout your day. The demands of momlife and homeschooling can be so loud that we don’t pay attention to these buckets until they’re overflowing.

Do these points seem like A LOT?

Over the next month, you can read regular articles doing a deep dive into some of the most important, less familiar points. You’re also invited to join us in the private facebook group where we’ll be discussing these points and planning real-life applicationfor a fresh start for our homeschools!

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:

1. Choosing to do your read-aloud while rocking in a recliner or bouncing on an exercise ball
2. Wearing ankle weights on your walk with the kids or when you go to check the mail
3. 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!

Overwhelmed Moms: Meet Interoception

Interoception is your body’s sense of what’s going on inside of you, including some specialized touch sensors. You first notice the sensation, label it (emotion), then respond to it.

That gut feeling? Interoception.

Feeling butterflies? Interoception.

Gotta go right now? Interoception.

Those eureka, intuitive decisions? You guessed it.

But it’s so much more! And it’s also a really exciting area of neuroscience research that’s revolutionizing how we understand our emotions and self-regulation. If you want to know more, check out resources from Kelly Mahler and any research by Bud Craig, like this article or book .

Your sense of interoception is largely perceived in your brain’s insula. You have a left and right insula, and it’s an amazing region toward the center of your brain that receives and interprets internal signals from your body. 

It’s also involved in your sense of proprioception (your sense of body position). If you’ve talked with me before, you’ve heard about using your muscles to push/pull/carry to feed this sense, and how centering it can be when you’re overwhelmed. See why now?

Foundation of Self-Regulation

See, for a while we’ve had things backwards. We’ve labeled emotions for our kids and ourselves and then gone from there but really… you only have emotions because your body interprets the internal feelings first.

Going to emotions first is like building a mansion when you’ve never made a starter home, and you don’t even know what it’s like to hold a saw. Ineffective, disappointing and REALLY FRUSTRATING.

So interoception is key to handling your big emotions as moms and riding the waves of overstimulation.

Gateway to Intuitive Decisions

Decision fatigue & overwhelm is REAL as moms and as homeschoolers. Using our logic-centered decision process for everything is exhausting on many levels. Intuitive decision making is based on patterns largely influenced by the insula and patterns of experience.

If you could use a stronger intuition and are tired of over-thinking… build your interoceptive awareness!

Interoception Example

Remember the notice, label, respond accordingly from earlier? There can be problems with any of those steps. But I’ll describe the most common breakdown that I’ve seen with moms: noticing.

Let’s think about a stop sign. Imagine driving down the road and you come to a stop sign. To do the most functional thing at a stop sign (STOP), you need to:

1. Notice the red hexagon thing beside the road.
2. Label it as a stop sign
3. STOP

But you don’t. Your kids are arguing, you look at the clock, and  you run it.

And a police officer was parked and watching.

You get pulled over, and the police officer asks if you saw the stop sign, and you respond with a polite “No.”  You get a ticket, and you’re angry because you didn’t even notice the sign even though you drive this road ALL THE TIME! 

Interoception in Overwhelm

Now let’s think about it in terms of overwhelm because your kid won’t stop yelling your name while you’re trying to teach a new math concept (your fave, I’m sure), and your toddler is tapping your shoulder to get your attention:

1. You don’t notice your short breathing & clenched jaw
2. So you can’t even label it as  frustration & overstimulation so that…
3. You can respond with strategies to bring you to a place of stability
   

How Would Interoceptive Awareness Change Things for Overwhelmed Moms?

Now think of the same situation, but this time you do actually:

1. Notice the tension in your jaw and your breathing getting shallower 
2. Label that as increasing frustration
3. Respond with alternate nostril breathing, pause the lesson, and step outside.

Can I Build Interoceptive Awareness?

Yes! MRI’s show fascinating changes in the insula of the brain– positive and negative. It’s different from birth for some people, just like anything else. Experience also plays a role, as those who’ve lived through trauma show less dense and smaller insula.

The opposite is true of those who practice intentional body mindfulness. Here’s the good news: Neuroplasticity is amazing, and it can affect the insula as well!

How Can I Get Started?

Look, mama…this doesn’t have to be anything intense, like becoming a professional yogi or something. You can start with these 3:

-Stop ignoring the body signals you do get.

Basic body needs should be tended to, mamas. Stop ignoring bathroom trips, bedtime, and urges to move. Cultures sometimes glorify the martyrdom of motherhood, and I get it. Sometimes we do have to ignore our needs for others, but chances are that you’re doing it way more than you realize.

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-Practice non-judgmental curiosity about your own body signals.

“I feel my heart beating faster than usual. Wonder why?”

“My shoulders have been tense for our whole math lesson. What could this mean?”

Sometimes it’s easier to start with our external senses in the moment. Want to know what that looks like? Check out some of Kelly Mahler’s resources linked above.

You can use this same language for the kids as you grow alongside eachother.

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-Question how often you multitask

Sensory overwhelm, life stress, doing a lot at once… honestly, sometimes there’s a lot we can’t control. BUT, buying into the lie that doing as much as we can at once really drowns out our own inner senses. 

Your turn now

Put one of these into practice this week. Tip: Practice when you’re not overwhelmed first! And let me know your thoughts on Instagram! Tag me @sensationalmoms or shoot me an email.

I’d be honored to support you along the way and see how interoceptive awareness can fuel your connection with your loved ones by connecting with yourself first. Schedule a free consultation today.