A therapist’s perspective on managing anxiety and overwhelm during global crises. This post explores how to support your nervous system when headlines feel relentless, and practical ways to find ground when everything feels unstable.
If your nervous system has been running on caffeine and existential dread lately, you’re responding appropriately to current events.
If you’ve been doomscrolling until your brain feels fried, quietly carrying this simmering sense of anxiety every time you glance at the news, or just feeling the urge to stay in bed and hide from it all, that’s normal. It’s a lot. And whatever the headlines are saying today, tomorrow, and the day after, it’s landing hard.
Lately, so many of my therapy sessions carry the same themes: ”I can’t focus. I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do.”
I get it. I’ve been there too. For the past six years, the global world has navigated pandemic, financial struggles, wars and genocide, racial violence, climate change, and we’re all experiencing it through our phones on a daily basis. It’s relentless.
And things still feel hard. The headlines haven’t gotten easier. It’s conflict after crisis after climate disaster, and it’s impossible for all of that not to take its toll.
If you feel like your nervous system has been living on high alert for years, you’re not broken. You’re responding like a human in an inhuman situation.
Your Brain Wasn’t Built for This
Here’s what’s really happening: our brains evolved to handle short bursts of danger. A predator appears, we respond, the threat passes, we recover.
We are not equipped to handle an endless stream of global crises all at once. Add in our phones delivering bad news 24/7, our never-ending to-do lists, financial stress, and it’s no wonder we’re exhausted and on edge.
Psychologists call this allostatic load. It’s the cumulative wear and tear on your body when you’re exposed to chronic stress. And right now, most of us are carrying more than our systems were designed to handle.
There’s another concept from psychology called the Yerkes-Dodson curve. It’s a bell curve that shows the relationship between stress and performance.
When you have too little activation, you don’t perform well. You’re unmotivated, unfocused, low energy.
A little bit of stress or anxiety? That’s actually helpful. It sharpens your focus. It gives you the edge you need to show up and do good work. You’re at your peak.
But when stress gets too high, when anxiety becomes overwhelming, your performance crashes. And it’s not because you’re not trying hard enough. It’s because your brain literally can’t access the parts that handle critical thinking, problem-solving, or creativity.
Your prefrontal cortex goes offline. You’re stuck in survival mode. Fight, flight, or freeze.
This is why you can’t just push through extreme overwhelm. This is why ”just focus” or ”just do the thing” doesn’t work when your nervous system is maxed out. Your brain is doing exactly what it’s designed to do when it perceives threat: shut down everything except survival.
So when you can’t work, can’t think clearly, can’t do the things you normally do with ease, you’re not failing. You’re on the wrong part of the curve. And the solution isn’t to try harder. It’s to bring your activation level down first.
As a therapist, I’m not watching this from the sidelines. I’m in it with my clients. I sit with people in their overwhelm, their grief, their anger, their numbness, their fear. I help them make sense of the chaos while also trying to stay grounded enough myself to keep showing up.
And after hundreds of these conversations, I can tell you this: your nervous system isn’t malfunctioning. It’s responding exactly as it should to the reality you’re living in.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need support.
So if you’re feeling terrible, helpless, and uncertain of what to do next, here’s what actually helps.
Give Your Worry a Container
If your brain is playing out catastrophic ”what if” scenarios on repeat, you’re not broken. That’s your mind trying to protect you by preparing for every possible danger.
But the constant scanning, obsessing, and re-checking doesn’t bring peace. It just adds more fuel to the fire.
Instead of trying to suppress the worry or letting it take over your entire day, give it a place to go. Choose a specific time, maybe 15 minutes after lunch, and let yourself worry completely during that window. Set a timer. Write down every fear. Google the things you’re afraid of. Spiral if you need to.
And when the timer goes off, gently tell your brain: ”That’s enough for now. We’ll come back to this tomorrow.”
You’re not ignoring the fear. You’re placing a container around it so it doesn’t hijack your whole day.
This works because containment is more effective than suppression. It helps your brain learn that not every anxious thought is an emergency. That not every emotion needs to take over everything. That you’re in charge, and that’s the safety your nervous system is looking for.
Most people feel better after just a few days of this practice.
Ask Yourself: What’s the Bare Minimum?
When you’re in your lowest state, when everything feels impossible, there’s one question that helps more than any other:
What is the actual bare minimum I can do right now?
Not your ideal. Not what you planned. Not what you think you should be capable of. The bare minimum.
Maybe it’s getting out of bed and washing your face. Maybe it’s putting on clean sweatpants. Maybe it’s drinking a glass of water.
Do that one thing. Then ask again: what’s the bare minimum now?
This isn’t giving up. This isn’t lowering your standards or letting yourself off the hook. This is attuning to yourself with radical honesty.
When your nervous system is overwhelmed, your capacity is genuinely lower. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help. Pushing yourself to function at your normal level when you’re maxed out just makes everything worse.
But doing the bare minimum? That creates momentum. It gives you one small win. And sometimes that’s enough to take the next small step.
Wash the dishes. Make your bed. Tidy one surface. Text someone you trust. Make a snack and actually sit down to eat it. Light a candle. Play music you love. Check one small thing off your list.
These aren’t distractions. They’re anchors. Small concrete actions that signal to your body: ”I have some things I have power over. I’m not completely helpless.”
That feeling, even a tiny bit of it, helps reactivate a sense of capability. And that’s the first step out of freeze mode.
This is how you move through the hardest days. Not by forcing yourself to be fine. But by meeting yourself exactly where you are and working with what you actually have, not what you wish you had.
Move the Feelings Through Your Body
If your jaw is constantly tight or your shoulders are trying to touch your ears, your body is asking for attention.
Stress doesn’t just sit in your thoughts. It builds up in your muscles, your breath, your stomach. And if you don’t give it somewhere to go, it gets stuck.
Movement helps complete the stress cycle. Biologically speaking, your body is wired for fight or flight responses. But without an actual threat to run from, that adrenaline has nowhere to go. Moving helps discharge that energy so it doesn’t stay lodged in your system.
This doesn’t have to be intense. Even five minutes helps.
Take a walk around the block. Do a few stretches. Dance to a song you love. Shake out your limbs like an animal after stress. Do jumping jacks. March in place. Practice progressive muscle relaxation where you tense and release different muscle groups.
Or just let yourself cry, yawn, laugh, or sigh deeply. All of these are forms of release.
If you’re feeling resistant, ask yourself what feels doable. You don’t have to run a marathon. You just have to move the energy a little bit.
What to Do With the Anger
If you’re angry about what’s happening in the world, that’s not irrational. That’s appropriate.
Anger tells you something matters. It points to injustice, to harm, to things that shouldn’t be this way. And that information is valuable.
But anger can’t be the only voice making decisions in your life.
Think of all your emotions sitting in a boardroom together. Anger belongs at that table. It has important things to say. But it’s not the CEO. It doesn’t get to drive the car.
When anger is in charge of everything, you burn out. You make reactive decisions. You lose the capacity for strategic thinking. You exhaust yourself and everyone around you.
But when anger is a consultant, when you listen to what it’s telling you and then let your other parts weigh in too, it becomes useful. It informs your choices without controlling them.
So validate the anger. Name it. Let it tell you what it sees. And then ask: what else is true? What do I actually have capacity for right now? What action would be strategic, not just reactive?
Your anger belongs in the room. Just not at the head of the table.
Let Rest Actually Be Rest
When was the last time you truly rested? Not collapsed in front of a screen or doomscrolled yourself into a trance, but actually felt your breath deepen, your shoulders drop, your brain stop spinning?
Real rest is harder than it sounds. And it’s desperately needed right now.
This doesn’t mean forcing yourself to relax. It means creating conditions where your nervous system can actually settle.
Lie down and do nothing while listening to soft music. Wrap up in a blanket and sit somewhere quiet, just breathing. Put your legs up the wall and close your eyes. Read a few pages of a book with no phone nearby. Drink something warm while watching the trees or clouds. Take a short nap with no alarms.
You might feel twitchy at first. Unproductive. Like you should be doing something. That’s normal. Your system is so used to being on high alert that stillness feels strange.
But here’s something most people don’t realize: the internal dialogue you have with yourself while you’re resting costs you energy.
When you’re lying on the couch and your brain is running through everything you should be doing instead, you’re not actually resting. You’re spending your limited energy on guilt and self-criticism.
”I should be working out.” ”I should be more productive.” ”I should be handling this better.” ”I should be able to function like a normal person.”
That dialogue is emotionally expensive. It drains you. And it gives you absolutely nothing in return.
If you’re going to rest, actually rest. Let yourself lie down without the mental commentary about what you should be doing instead. Because beating yourself up while you’re down doesn’t make you recover faster. It just makes you more exhausted.
You can’t shame yourself into healing. You can’t guilt yourself into having more capacity. All you can do is meet yourself where you are and stop making it worse with the ”should” spiral.
Start with five or ten minutes of real rest. Let that be enough.
Send Your System Signals of Safety
Your nervous system is constantly scanning for danger. And when you get stuck in fight, flight, or freeze mode, it needs help noticing that right now, in this moment, you’re okay.
So offer it tiny signals of safety throughout the day.
Slow your breathing. Inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for six. Repeat five to ten times. This directly regulates your heart rate and tells your nervous system to calm down.
Use deep pressure. Weighted blankets or firm hugs activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and recovery.
Try bilateral stimulation. Tapping each side of your body or walking helps integrate both hemispheres of your brain and calms trauma responses.
Hum or make vocal tones. This stimulates the vagus nerve, which promotes relaxation.
Wrap yourself in warmth. A heated blanket or a warm drink sends comfort signals to your brain.
Hold something textured. A smooth stone, a soft fabric, something cool. Describe it to yourself in detail. This grounds you in the present moment.
Touch yourself gently. Rub your arms, your neck, your scalp. Simple, comforting contact tells your system you’re safe.
Use scent. Lavender, bergamot, or frankincense can reduce cortisol levels.
Create predictable routines. Even small rituals like lighting a candle each night help your brain settle into a rhythm.
Practice grounding self-talk. Say out loud: ”I’m safe right now. I’m okay in this moment.” Repeating this anchors you in what’s actually true right now, not what might happen later.
The key is practicing these regularly, not just when you’re in panic mode. Your body learns a new baseline for calm through repetition.
When Professional Support Matters
Sometimes the overwhelm is too much to carry alone. And that’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.
If you’re noticing that nothing helps, that you can’t focus on anything, that you’re having intrusive thoughts or panic attacks, or that you’re using substances to numb out more than you want to, please reach out for support.
Therapy can help you process what you’re carrying. It can give you tools specific to your nervous system and your history. It can be the container you need when the weight feels unbearable.
You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through this.
You’re Not Supposed to Be Fine
I want to be clear about something: the goal isn’t to feel fine when things aren’t fine.
The goal isn’t to positive-think your way out of legitimate grief and fear and anger about what’s happening in the world.
The goal is to support your nervous system enough that you can stay present. That you can feel what you feel without being consumed by it. That you can rest when you need to and engage when you’re able to.
You’re allowed to be affected by what’s happening. You’re allowed to feel heavy. You’re allowed to need more support than usual.
And you’re also allowed to find moments of peace. To laugh with a friend. To enjoy your coffee. To take a break from the news. To focus on what’s right in front of you instead of what’s spiraling in the distance.
And here’s something else I want you to know: your joy matters too.
Leaning into moments of joy in the middle of suffering is not pretending the harm isn’t happening. It’s not bypassing the pain or turning away from what’s real.
It’s refusing to let whoever or whatever is causing harm steal your humanity too.
When you laugh with a friend, when you enjoy your coffee, when you take pleasure in something small and beautiful, you’re not being selfish or ignorant. You’re resisting the complete erosion of your spirit.
Your joy is resistance. Your rest is resistance. Your refusal to let the weight of the world crush every good thing is an act of defiance.
You can hold both. The grief and the joy. The anger and the peace. The awareness of suffering and the capacity to still feel alive.
Both things can be true at once.
The world is hard right now. And you’re doing the best you can. And that’s enough.
Common Questions
Is it normal to feel this overwhelmed by world events?
Yes. Your nervous system is responding appropriately to chronic, relentless stress. You’re not overreacting. The world is genuinely overwhelming right now, and your body is doing exactly what it’s designed to do in response to threat.
How do I know if I need professional help versus just self-care?
If you’re unable to function in daily life, having panic attacks, using substances to cope more than you want to, or having thoughts of self-harm, reach out for professional support. Self-care tools are helpful, but they’re not a substitute for therapy when you’re truly struggling.
Isn’t it selfish to focus on my own peace when so much is wrong in the world?
No. You can’t show up for anything or anyone, including the causes you care about, if your nervous system is completely depleted. Taking care of yourself isn’t turning away from the world. It’s building the capacity to stay engaged with it.
If the weight of the world is affecting your ability to function, therapy can help. You don’t have to carry this alone, and you don’t have to have it all figured out to reach out for support.