Have you ever felt like your brain is overactive but not in a good way? Brain overload has become such a fact of today’s fast-paced lives, yet we can often feel like the only ones not handling it. In this series on the overloaded brain I delve into a few key elements for understanding and managing our often-unwieldy brains.

What is the Exploding Brain?

One fine day you’re humming along functioning seemingly well when boom- all of a sudden- something or someone sets you off and your brain forgets its operating instructions. Your brain:

shuts down and freezes; or
can’t think straight or form a coherent sentence; or
feels out of control and overwhelmed; or
is blinded by anger.

I call this moment a brain explosion. This can be very frustrating and sometimes make us feel like we are going crazy. It can be a helpless feeling because the brain that normally is able to get us out of a jam can’t now because, well, it’s exploding- offline- kaput.

Where Did My Brain Go?

It’s important to keep in mind that this is a common human occurrence and not usually the sign of something going severely wrong. Our brains can take a great deal of annoyance. But there is a degree to which we can all become so triggered that the emotional brain takes over and floods our thinking brain, hijacking its ability to fully function, like a computer that’s had coffee spilled over its motherboard. Take heart- you’re likely not going crazy, your brain is just (temporarily) exploding.

Noticing an exploding brain and bringing in compassion to what is happening is the first step in managing brain overload. I’ll be sharing in my next post some tips on how to calm your exploding brain in just a few minutes.

Let me know- have you ever experienced a brain explosion that you couldn’t think your way out of? What did you do that helped?