Overthinking, Overwhelm, and Burnout Leading to Overbreathing? Part 2
08/14/2024
Give Your Brain a Break With a Breathing Necklace
If you find yourself feeling swamped and overbreathing frequently, it’s time to pump those breaks and give your body what it’s desperately asking for: more moments of calm and relaxation. By utilizing coping strategies and tools like a breathing necklace, you can give your mental and physical health a boost and avoid being weighed down and negatively impacted by stressful mental mindsets like overthinking, overwhelm, and burnout.
The more you can do to give your brain the break it’s asking for, the healthier and happier you will feel!
Beating Overbreathing With a Breathing Necklace
A breathing necklace is a phenomenal tool to help you catch your breath, whether you find yourself overthinking, overwhelmed, or burnt out. The magic behind this mindfulness tool is that it helps you to get the most out of your breathwork.
That’s right! Simply getting your breathing under control can make a huge difference in helping mitigate any stressful thought patterns you find yourself in. It can’t get easier than that!
Your goal will be to breathe slowly. Specifically, exhaling slowly. Slowing your exhale stimulates the vagus nerve, which triggers the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system, often referred to as the "rest and digest" system, helps counterbalance the body's stress response by slowing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and facilitating a state of calm. Using a breathing necklace can support this by guiding you to engage in slower, more deliberate breathing, stimulating this natural process.
When you’re stuck in fight or flight, guiding your body out of those high-stress situations is key to helping pump the brakes on overthinking, overwhelm, and burnout. It’s basically telling your body, “Hey! You’re safe. It’s okay to calm down and relax.”
Using a breathing necklace is also a great resource for kicking any bad habits you may have picked up while battling these mental states, like digital addictions, vaping, cravings, or Zyn pouches. While they might have made you feel better in the moment, many of these coping mechanisms can actually cause you to feel more anxious in the long-term and negatively impact your health.
Bonuses of Using a Breathing Necklace to Control Overbreathing
The portability of a breathing necklace is another advantage. It’s a compact, wearable tool that you can carry with you throughout the day. Whenever you start to overthink, feel overwhelmed, or experience those telltale signs of burnout, you can use the necklace to prompt a quick breathing exercise, helping you to regain a sense of calm and control.
Stopping the anxiety loop before it starts is a huge part of the battle!
Finally, regular use of a breathing necklace can help establish a routine of mindful breathing. Incorporating this practice into your daily life can gradually reduce your overall stress levels and improve your ability to handle challenging situations. By making deep breathing a habit, you can manage overbreathing more effectively and enhance your overall well-being. You may even find yourself automatically reaching for your necklace and breathing correctly without consciously thinking about it!
What’s the Best Breathing Necklace?
The Shift! Our breathing necklace is crafted from medical-grade 316 stainless steel, which undergoes a unique process to embed precious metals throughout the piece, ensuring that it resists scratches and fading. The chamber is carefully engineered to extend your exhale to over 8 seconds, maximizing the benefits of each breath.
To help you get the most out of your Shift necklace, we provide complimentary access to TKM: The Komuso Method. This course offers a daily routine designed to integrate effective breathing practices into your life, helping to alleviate anxiety and enhance mental well-being. By combining breathwork with emotional awareness and cognitive techniques, our method helps you build a habit of calm and control.
Whether you’re dealing with work burnout, flight anxiety, parenting challenges, or other life pressures, our anxiety breathing necklace is a valuable tool for managing emotional intensity and promoting a sense of peace.
Combine Your Breathing Necklace With These Strategies to Combat Burnout, Overthinking, and Overwhelm
In essence, your brain is addicted to the current thought patterns it has established and stuck in a rut. To break out of this toxic cycle, you’ve got to develop a multi-pronged strategy. The more you do to plan and set yourself up to avoid triggers and handle any negative thoughts that come your way, the better success you’ll have! Check out Part 1 of this blog duet for signs to look out for that indicate you might be in an overthinking, overwhelm, or burnout cycle.
Using a breathing necklace is a phenomenal tool that can be used in combination with some of these tips. Whether you’re in a loop of overthinking, submerged in overwhelm, or battling burnout, these can help you break the cycle.
Strategies for Conquering Overthinking
Overthinking is exhausting! You can spend hours pondering the “what ifs” and “if onlys.” Here are some things you can begin implementing into your daily routine to help transition out of that brain brooding.
1. Focus on What You Can Control
Direct your attention to aspects of your life that you can control. This shift in focus can help you feel more empowered and less overwhelmed (the next phase of the cycle).
2. Recognize When You're Overthinking
Awareness is the first step. Notice when you start to spiral and take steps to address it. Mindfulness practices can help you become more aware of your thought patterns. Your anxiety breathing necklace is a perfect mindful tool to use!
3. Distract Yourself
Engage in activities that keep your mind occupied until you’re ready to tackle the problem. Hobbies and interests can serve as healthy distractions.Just make sure that they’re healthy distractions, and not something harmful like picking up nicotine!
4. Experiment with Reframing
Shift your perspective on negative thoughts. Challenge underlying beliefs and consider positive outcomes instead of worst-case scenarios. Cognitive-behavioral techniques can be particularly effective in reframing negative thoughts and stopping overthinking.
5. Limit Information Intake
Sometimes, overthinking is fueled by too much information. Set boundaries on information consumption, especially from news and social media.
6. Use Positive Coping Strategies
Meditation, reading, or writing down your worries can help manage overthinking. Mindfulness meditation can significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. Keeping a journal can also help you process your thoughts and see them more objectively. And you can use your breathing necklace while you’re doing it!
7. Ensure Adequate Social Support
Having a supportive network can provide a buffer against overthinking and negative thoughts. Strong social connections are linked to better mental health outcomes.
8. Engage in Healthy Habits
A well-balanced diet and regular exercise can improve overall mental health. Ensure you’re getting enough sleep, eating nutritious foods, and staying physically active.
Strategies to Manage Overwhelm
These are a list of things you can try to alleviate that crushing sense of overwhelm. Also, some of the steps for overthinking can be integrated as well, including positive coping strategies and health habits!
1. Prioritize and Organize
Start by prioritizing your tasks and responsibilities. Create a list of what needs to be done and organize them by urgency and importance. Everything doesn't have to be knocked out right now!
2. Change Your Perspective
Take a step back from your thought processes and recognize and accept how you are feeling. Stop the vicious cycle of feeling overwhelmed by gaining perspective on the situation. Try taking a break, going for a walk, changing your environment, speaking to a friend, or taking a few deep breaths.
3. Challenge Your Assumptions
When overwhelmed, we often let irrational thoughts and fears guide us. It can be helpful to identify these illogical assumptions and articulate them so you can examine them more logically. Writing them down in a journal or voicing them out loud to someone you trust can help.
4. Break Tasks Into Smaller Steps
Large tasks can feel overwhelming, but breaking them into smaller, more manageable steps can make them easier to tackle. Focus on completing one step at a time to build momentum and reduce stress.
5. Develop Effective Time Management
Using tools like calendars, planners, or apps can help improve your time management skills. Scheduling specific times for tasks and setting reminders can help you stay organized and reduce feelings of being overwhelmed.
6. Delegate Tasks
Don't hesitate to ask for help or delegate tasks when possible. Sharing responsibilities can lighten the load and reduce feelings of being overwhelmed.
Strategies to Overcome Burnout
There are tons of things you can do to kick burnout to the curb! Here are a few great ideas to get you started. Also, don’t forget that the strategies for overthinking and overwhelm can be helpful to navigating out of that negative brain space as well!
1. Prioritize Self-Care
Recovering from burnout begins with self-care. Engage in activities that help you relax and recharge. For example, a new mother might schedule regular short breaks for herself, such as a walk outside or a quiet cup of tea. These moments of respite are essential for maintaining mental and physical health.
2. Set Boundaries
Establishing clear boundaries is crucial in preventing burnout. It’s important to set limits on how much you take on from family, friends, and work. For instance, a new mother can establish boundaries to ensure she has enough time for herself and her baby, preventing overload and stress.
3. Seek Support
Reaching out for support is vital. Talking to friends, family, or professionals about your experiences can provide relief and new perspectives. Joining a support group, such as a parenting group, can offer valuable advice and emotional support, helping you navigate challenges more effectively.
4. Develop Effective Time Management
Improving time management skills can significantly reduce stress. Create a schedule that balances responsibilities with personal time.
5. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness techniques, like meditation or deep breathing exercises, can help calm the mind and manage stress. Regular mindfulness practice can improve resilience and help you cope with daily challenges. A few minutes of deep breathing each day can provide a much-needed moment of calm amidst the chaos.
6. Focus on What You Can Control
Redirect your focus to aspects of your life that you can manage. This helps reduce feelings of being burned out by trying to manage uncontrollable factors.
7. Take Extended Breaks or Time Off
If possible, take an extended break or vacation to fully disconnect from work and other stressors. A change of scenery and a break from routine can be rejuvenating.
By integrating these strategies into your daily routine, you can effectively manage burnout, overwhelm, and overthinking, leading to a healthier, more balanced life!
One Last Thing
Rome wasn’t built in a day! Similarly, overcoming overthinking, overwhelm, and burnout won’t happen overnight. It takes a concentrated effort and repetition. Again, think of it like beating an addiction. The more you practice mindfulness, use your breathing necklace, reframe your thoughts, focus on what you can control, and the other tips mentioned above, the faster you’ll find yourself breaking out of those thought patterns. You may even find yourself subconsciously stopping those negative thoughts and feelings before they start!
The key is to visualize your happier and more relaxed future and remember that you absolutely can overcome overthinking, overwhelm, and burnout. Working on a framework for successfully navigating the overstimulating world we live in is something we all can benefit from. Whether you’re currently in the middle of one of these cycles or just want to create a foundation for navigating them should they pop up in the future, these tools will help you triumph.
And remember, if you have some setbacks, that is okay. Give yourself grace and try again! You’ve got this.
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