Overstimulation & The Holidays: Why You Feel This Way + How to Protect Your Energy

If you have been feeling overwhelmed, snappy, exhausted, or like you are carrying ten different layers of energy under your skin… you’re not alone.

The holidays are full of beauty, connection, and celebration, but they can also hit you with sensory overload, emotional triggers, disrupted routines, and pressure. For sensitive people, parents, empaths, intuitives, or anyone already stretched thin… it can be a lot.

I felt this myself recently when I went to a Christmas market, children in tow…very bravely, and also very unprepared. In my mind it sounded magical; in reality, the crowds hit me faster than I expected. I walked in energized and walked out ready for bed. When I got home, I took a two-hour nap that honestly made more sense than anything else I did that day. That moment reminded me, in no uncertain terms, how quickly overstimulation can take over and how much our bodies need space to recover.

Let’s explore what’s happening when our nervous systems get overloaded and how to protect yourself so you can move through this season with more ease.

Why the Holidays Trigger Overstimulation

Your system is navigating far more than you realize:

Sensory Overload

Lights, music, crowds, travel, events, kids out of routine… constant input.

Emotional Overload

Family dynamics, memories, grief, pressure to “be on,” old patterns resurfacing.

Schedule Overload

Cooking, hosting, errands, school functions, rushing, endless tasks.

Energetic Overload

You are absorbing the stress, expectations, and emotional charge of everyone around you. Sensitive nervous systems pick up on what others are projecting, even when it’s unspoken.

How Overstimulation Shows Up

You might notice:

• irritability

• emotional eating

• brain fog

• tired-but-wired energy

• wanting to withdraw

• overstimulation from noise

• trouble sleeping

• difficulty making simple decisions

None of this is a sign that something is “wrong” with you, simply your system saying: “Slow down, I’m full.”

What’s Happening in Your Body

Holiday pace = sympathetic activation (fight/flight). Your cortisol rises, your buffer decreases, and your intuition gets quieter. Your body asking for more space to regulate, soften, and land.

The Practice: A Grounding Ritual Before Any Holiday Event

This is the practice I personally use before family gatherings or overstimulating environments. It is simple, takes under a minute per word, and shifts your entire energetic field.

1. Stand still with your feet planted on the ground.

   
   

   Feel the support beneath you.

2. Place your hands below your belly button.

   
   

   This anchors you into your center.

3. Choose a word or emotion you want to embody.

   
   

   Examples: peace, grounding, joy, fun, laughter, steadiness, centeredness. Pick one, or several.

4. Close your eyes. Inhale the energy of that word through the top of your head.

   
   

   Imagine you are breathing that frequency in from above.

5. Exhale and send it down your body, anchoring it below your feet.

6. Do this six times per word.

   
   

   Six inhales, six exhales, six rounds of anchoring.

This is not just visualization, it is energetic calibration. You are setting the tone for how you move through the space, instead of absorbing the tone of everyone else.

Don’t be surprised if someone around you literally says the word you anchored. It happens often.

Additional Ways to Protect Your Energy This Season

Simplify Sensory Input

• dim lights

• turn off background noise

• step outside for 2 minutes when overwhelmed

Create Micro-Moments of Solitude

Even 3 minutes in the car or bathroom helps regulate your system.

Loosen Expectations

Not every tradition needs to be kept and not every invitation needs a yes...your peace matters.

Offer Your Nervous System Comfort

Warm foods, hydration, magnesium at night, consistent bedtimes when possible.

Give Your Kids (and Yourself) Permission to Have Limits

Overstimulated kids lead to overstimulated households. Honor their (and your) capacity.

For Sensitive, Intuitive, or Empathic People

You are not imagining this season feeling heavier, you simply feel more: emotionally, energetically, somatically. And your system receives more data than most people’s.

Grounding is not optional for you, it is your protection, your clarity, and your way of staying connected to yourself. 

Reclaim the Holidays

You don’t have to push through and perform and you also don’t have to absorb everyone else’s energy. You get to choose how you navigate, and choose presence over pressure or grounding over chaos.

If you’re overstimulated, it’s not a flaw, it’s your body speaking.

Honor it.

Next Up: Boundaries

Boundaries deserve their own space, and I’ll be writing about that separately soon, because overstimulation and boundaries are deeply connected.

If you want deeper support in regulating your energy, staying grounded, and navigating this season with more ease, I would love to have you inside The New Paradigm Collective.

It is where I teach the practices that keep you steady, intuitive, and connected to yourself, no matter what’s happening around you.

🌟 Join us here and step into a calmer, more aligned way of living