 The question is, what do you do when it's all too much? Have you ever felt that way? Ever, I hate your life, you know, where everything can feel overwhelmed or do you know, are people that feel that they get overwhelmed easily or maybe they don't get overwhelmed easily, but they're in that stage in their life in which they're thinking it is all too much. It is all too much information. It is all too much on the news. It is too much social media. It is too much screen. We're hooked up all the time, but it might be that it is too much work that you have, too many chores, too many responsibilities. Are you feeling that way? Or are you worried about somebody else that is doing too much? Maybe your husband or your partner or your daughter or your son or your grandmother or your grandfather, whoever it is, your colleague at work, maybe they're taking on too many projects. What about their safety? Are you worried about people's safety? Is it all too difficult and too pointless? Do you ever sit down and wonder, what is this all about? What am I doing all this for? So, yes, it is a little bit serious, but we're gonna try to infuse some humor and some breathers into what we do. But I like to ask the question, is it, have you ever felt like that or do you know someone that has? So just let us know in the comments. And by the way, we get it. We're human beings as well. We have felt overwhelmed. I've felt overwhelmed many times in my life. So we know what we're talking about, Emmy as well. We do know what it is like sometimes to have more work than ours in the day. And sometimes that happens more often than we'd like to. So yes, we're here. We've got the psychological tools that you can use. And we will be revealing, not just the problems, but also some tips, some useful insights and tips that will deconstruct the problem of overwhelm this idea that we may be having too much information, what to do about it. And some really useful psychological tips that are going to help you ease up your workload, ease up that feeling of overwhelmed. And I have to say at the extreme end of mental health, which this can get to in some times, there can be situations where people can get so overwhelmed that they get to the point where they consider what's the point of being here or perhaps even ending life. So it's likely that you may know someone who's gotten to that point or even yourself. It's not that uncommon. In fact, when we deliver training to organizations around the globe now, we ask for show of hands. How many people know someone who's either taken their life or attempted? You'll have about 75% of the room who say, yes, they know someone. So unfortunately, it is more common than we think. And it can be a sensitive topic if we do know people in those scenarios particularly. So just wanna encourage you to do what you need to do to look after yourself, make sure that you're feeling safe and well. And if this conversation is a bit too raw for you right at the moment, then perhaps save it for another time. I also want to encourage people to ask questions and participate, but I also wanna be just make it really clear and from the outset that obviously we can't provide personalized individual counseling or therapy in a live environment like this. So if that is something that you're looking for, then absolutely we strongly recommend you to reach out directly to some of the services that are available. And we will share some of the details on whose you can access at the end of today's live. So let's jump into this idea. Peter, did you wanna add something? Yeah, I just wanna celebrate for a second, for a microceptor. Just wanna celebrate all of our achievements, all of my achievements, your achievement and your achievements, the viewer. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed and we forget how much we have achieved. So I just wanna bring an honor, a dignity, a celebration of wherever you are in life. You have accomplished so much just by being here. So I just wanted to recognize that because sometimes we forget. We forget to do a little party for the simple things. Just being alive, just being, just be coping each, it's an achievement. So I just wanted to be- Sometimes just getting through is an achievement, yeah. Sometimes just waking up and getting out of bed can be an achievement, yeah. So Peter, I wanna ask you this idea of all too much. We're seeing this trend with, I think it comes from technology, really. We get access to so much information day by day, minute by minute. We're dealing with so much input. So come, two questions. One, can we as humans actually cope with so much? And secondly, do we also kind of enjoy it? Because you see that we almost have this addiction to getting new information. When I think about it, it used to be that you'd wait by the letterbox for mail to come in once a day and that was sort of exciting to see what new information you would get. But now that comes in, you get a ping every instance if you want. Whenever there's something happening in the world, you can get a ping on your phone. So is it too, can we cope with it or do we enjoy it? How does all this work? Look, I like to look at nature to answer things like that. What can human beings do? And human beings have got different DNA, different makeup, different genes, different personality, different wants, different needs. So to this idea of can we cope with a lot? It all depends. Some of us are turtles in a sense. Some of us are hummingbirds always need to be busy. Is the hummingbird distressed or upset or mentally ill? No, it's just a hummingbird. To the turtle, it may look like he's mentally ill, but it's not, it's just a hummingbird. So why am I talking about this? Because we need to find out our personality. Some of us wanna be busy. That's our personal, it's in our genes, it's how our mind works, we like busyness. Some of us, we want to do things, but in a slower manner. We wanna enjoy the ride a little bit more. So we need to work that out. Now technology is a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing because it puts us in connection with other parts of the world. We can do things that we never thought possible. I can be in China facetiming someone on the other side of the planet at the same time. And they can see me and I can see them. That's brilliant. Now with work having come home, we've got Zoom. That's brilliant. So we get the emails on a little computer that has got more power than the first NASA, spaceship that went up to the moon. That's how powerful it is. So that's brilliant. Now the problem is that we may be connected all the time, like you say, to the point that it's become an addiction to some of us. And rightly so, because we need to understand that this technology is built in such a way, it has got algorithms behind it. So it's built in such a way that if you happen to like read, it will show you read more often. If you happen to like bread, it will show you bread more often. If you happen to like dresses or shopping, it will show you shopping more often. So the robots in the internet are learning who I am and what I like and keeps showing me more of that stuff. And guess what happens from a psychological perspective? That is how addictions are formed. If I don't know when I'm gonna get a good thing and I get a few not good things in the middle, when I get the good thing, I get a little high and then I go, ooh, maybe if I try again, I'll get more. So this is a little bit like gambling. So we do get addicted. It's built for addiction. Is that evil? No, that's how, you know, I mean, why would you build a product that people don't like? So they're building a product that we like, except they're doing it too good, too well, but we need to take responsibility. So that's an issue. And then also because the world is compacted more, they're also, we're also being demanded sometimes to do more with less people. So that's also another cause for overwhelm. So those are things that we need to understand. And the third aspect of that is that if you are out of purpose with your DNA, if you're out of purpose, if you don't have clarity about what you're about, then it is more likely that you're gonna feel overwhelmed, even if you're a hummingbird, right? Because it's not about the amount of work or the amount of chores, it's about the relevance of those chores and those tasks with who you are, with what you want to achieve here in the world, which it can be a little bit more tricky. Well, you just make me think of if you go to an amusement park, for example, and there's overwhelm and there's lights and there's rides and there's music and there's excitement, generally we love that, you know? We do. Because it's something that we've chosen, something that we enjoy. Yes, yeah. And, you know, sometimes it can be too much, but generally speaking, it's, yeah, do I enjoy this? Have I chosen this? Do I enjoy this versus the volume necessarily? Cause that was one of my questions. Do we, you know, in workplaces, we're expected to do more with less. We're expected to respond faster than ever before. So is that a problem or is that just the reality of life in modern times? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's interesting, you know? I mean, you see the same people that are sluggish that can barely cope. All of a sudden they go maybe into a bowling alley and they become alive, they become full of life. That bowling alley is heavy, but no one is complaining about the heaviness of it or the fact that they have to roll it, they have to move. If they enjoy bowling, if you don't enjoy bowling, there could be anything worse. So sometimes what happens in workplaces and very, very often it happens is that people fall into a job instead of choosing the job. So they put in an application, they get upset, they get very happy, but there's no real match between their desires in life with their job. And then that creates a sense of boringness. I'm having to fight every single day because what I'm doing is not connected to my purpose in life. Yeah. And that's very interesting when we think about when, you know, what happens psychologically when it does all become too much for people because one of the things that we've spoken about is that, you know, humans, we like to solve problems with problem solvers. And that's generally a good thing, but sometimes there are problems that arise in the world and work and in life that are outside of our control. So, you know, one of the, when a person feels like there's nothing that they can do to control it, they can go into a space of retreat or escape. And, you know, one of the things we see in mental health is there's a general tendency, and I think it's amongst all of us to want to numb those thoughts and feelings with anything. So with alcohol, with drugs, with food, or addictions, like social media, yeah. And the information can be the addiction, the way we numb those feelings, reading the next article and the next article and the next article, yeah. Yeah. So we can throw ourselves into something. It can be a distraction. And you even see people throw themselves into work as a distraction from other things. So that may not be quite as destructive as other addictions, but it still has its unhelpful consequences as a result. But even depression itself can be a way of escaping everything, you know? So I've just decided at some level, and I don't think most people would do this consciously. It's more an unconscious decision somewhere that the psyche just goes, I've had enough. It's all too much. I'm just staying in bed today. And what's the point? I'm just going to check out and see what happens. And so that can get quite extreme to the point when people get to, well, what's the point of existing? And I think those two big warning signs that people need to look out for are hopelessness and helplessness when they feel that they don't have hope for the future, that anything will change or improve, but also helplessness is nothing I can do about it. I can't change this. I don't have a purpose for this. Experience. Obviously, there's many other warning signs that people need to look out for as well, but we've got them available in other places as long lists. I'm not going to go through all of those. But if there's anything to take away in terms of signs and symptoms to look out for in yourself, but in others particularly, is anything that indicates that sort of hopelessness or helplessness? They're the big two ones. And that kind of means, if we think about it, that when a person gets to that point, it's not necessarily that they want to end life. They just don't want to continue as it is. And that problem-solving process becomes difficult. It's not that there are no solutions, but sometimes we get so caught up in that overwhelm that we can't see them, right? Yeah, yeah. And that's what happens with people, you know. If you're, look, sometimes it's just as simple as you may have taken on too much. That's plain and simple. And you may need to go and take action around that. You may need to cut back a little bit, plain and simple. Other times when it's a lack of purpose or an idea of feel helpless or hopeless, then you need to look at your DNA and you need to look at your purpose in life through two aspects. One is your biology, because your biology drives a lot, our biology drives a lot of what we do. For example, you know, have you noticed that sometimes through the day, you get hungry? You know, sometimes you get hungry because you see somebody else eating. So that would be a social construct, but sometimes you don't see anybody else and your body just tells you, I'm hungry and that's your biology. So some things are social construct and some things are biology. So the same thing with your psychological DNA, some things we have taken them on. I like to do this, but you're copying somebody else and other things is just our biology. So we have this situation where a lot of people are running out of steam and sometimes it's their biology. For example, in men, if we have up to 80% of suicides, a man, this is huge. What is going on there is, well, a man, you know, and of course, we're generalizing as genders. Yeah, I just wanna make that clear. Within each gender, there are people that are completely different. So I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the generalities. What do we see in men? Well, they're more mission-driven. They're more likely to stand in the autism spectrum. So we can focus on one thing and we're so focused on that one thing that we cannot even see or hear anything else. Women are different. Women seem to be able to switch attention and keep attention everywhere. Is everybody happy? Is Jenny okay with this? Oh, Sally over there just did a dirty look. And they seem to be capable of this stuff that goes on. Now, is one better than the other? Not really. When it comes to mission-driven, if a man doesn't have a strong mission in life, suicide can start looking like an option. For women, if they're too much in contact with what is everybody else doing and I need to adapt myself to that, that can become overwhelming. That can be a force for negativity. So it's about knowing our biology a little bit. And respecting them, all of that. There's nothing wrong with being a man or a woman. So you see that actually neurologically with the way even the connections in the brain that women have more connections between different parts of the brain that sort of mirrors that way of thinking. So you've got sort of neurological differences and then patterns of thinking can be different as well. So it's evolutionary. We assume that it comes from our evolutionary sort of makeup as to why there are those sort of differences. And that brings me to an interesting point regarding social media and relationships actually, because something that people don't realize is because women can be so socially aware and so nurturing, they're gonna be more interested in relationship stuff. But not necessarily their own relationship. All relationships. Sometimes to the point where all relationships can become more interesting than they're on. That's a problem with social media. Now, social media didn't exist before, but now social media has come into the bedroom. And women can be on social media in bed. And that social media can become more interesting than their partner. That's something that we've got to watch out for. Because men won't complain about it. They'll just shut up, they'll just close up. You know what I'm talking about, ladies? You know, they go into their cave, we go into our cave, right? And sometimes they don't even know what's going on really. Men, most of the time they just have feelings that they don't understand and they can't work out. But then just letting you know that if you bring screens into the bedroom, men as well, if we bring screens into the bedroom, if we are too obsessed as men and achieving something and we work too long, these things can take attention from our relationships. And not only can, they will take attention unless you make a concerted effort for it not to happen and to give time to your partners, the relationship will suffer, right? And this is something about being aware. And I sometimes say to people, have you thought about not having the iPhone or the phone or whatever you do in the bedroom? Don't have a TV, don't have a screen. Let your partner be the screen. They are much more fun. Once you discover them, they're much more fun than any screens. Yeah, really. That's why people have had so many kids before. Because of time, they give you a lot of fun. We're seeing mental health is an issue that seems to be becoming increasingly more difficult in past years. And I think one of those reasons is that we're seeing families and relationships under a lot of pressure. There's two people working and there's pressure within the workplace. There's all this stuff going on in the world that we're paying attention to. And we both mean that connection, both men and women need connection and love and support and good, strong relationships, not necessarily just romantic relationships either, relationships with friends and family. And we do see that sort of breaking down that has a huge impact on mental health and wellbeing for both genders. On top of that though, what we do see though is when couples separate, oftentimes there's not equality when it comes to childcare and access to children for men following separation. And I think that's having a huge impact on mental health of men generally. But what's the solution to all of this? Because you've spoken about men going to their cave and don't talk about things. Is it true that men don't talk or should we be encouraging men to open up and talk more? It seems to me like it's a very sort of female way of handling things. So the typical example being the story of a male, female couple where the woman's upset about something and she shares it in the more masculine way of trying to deal with that is to solve it. And the woman says, no, no, I don't need you to fix it. I just want you to listen because that helps in and of itself. So women want to listen and talk and that's good enough and that makes it all feel better. Whereas for men, it's like, we still haven't addressed the problem. We're still need to solve the problem. So there's this kind of disconnect here. Why are we even talking about it? And let's just get it sorted. Why are we talking about it? If we don't want to solve it, why are we talking about it? And again, talking generalities, it's not every... Look, we always say men have got trouble communicating or but women can talk. Women can talk, but in my experience, women can talk a lot and sometimes they are not communicating at all. So are we after talking or communicating? If it's about communicating, your male friend or your male colleague or your male partner is communicating all the time. But they may be doing that in a very subtle way. That's where you need to be a better observer and adjust your expectations. The same thing, men, be more patient. Not everything is a problem to be solved. I know how hard that is, frustrating. But you can ask the question to your partner. Is this, are you telling me this because you want a solution? Are you looking for a solution? Or is this one of those listening only times? You can ask that question. And she says, listening only, then I don't know, find a spoon, a bite on it and just listen, breathe and listen, yeah? That might be the only thing that you need to do. So what do we need to do? I mean, I know we're touching a little bit lightly on everything today because it's so rich in information. So how do we cope with this change world in which we're having so much information constantly coming our way? We have long to-do lists and maybe our DNA is not about that. Maybe we are feeling a little bit of overwhelm. First of all, we wanna create some hope. How do we do that? Look at your DNA. What's your biology? What are you not listening to about your own body or how it likes to do things? You may need to take a little bit of time off. Maybe have a mental health day, not because you're ill. In that day, your job will be to find out, maybe go and talk to a psychologist, go and talk to a coach, find out, start finding out what you don't like, what you don't like and you gotta be brutally honest. Before you find out what you like, you need to say what you don't like. So that creating meaning and purpose because that is a protective factor, yeah? So also review your systems. It could be that you just have too much. How about if you don't look at the emails for two or three hours and then look at them for half an hour and then again another two or three hours, don't look at them and then half an hour? Would that work for you? Find out something simple that could work. Don't take your phone everywhere. Don't take your phone into the bedroom. Give your people around your attention. Your colleagues, ask them how they are. It's interesting. We are at work. If we work in an office, we are with computers all the time, then we go home and we take over with screens. It doesn't seem to be making us happier. Now, if we are manual workers, maybe we don't depend on screen so much. But I have seen now a tendency of even manual workers, the moment that they get a moment to sit down, they take out their phone and they're looking at their phone. Yesterday we were having dinner close to a table of four people and at one point there was silence. And I look over and the four of them were on their phones. So I'm guilty of that too. So I'm not saying that they were bad people. It's just easy to fall into that. Why? Because of the addiction issue. So sometimes simple things. And if you find yourself in a moment of crisis, remember one thing, a crisis is not a time when you should make big decisions, ever. Go and sleep on it. The next day you will have a different situation. Never make decisions in a crisis. Never. Never do that. That should be your decision, pre-crisis. I will never make a big decision in a crisis. I will go and take some time out. Take some time out. So this is super, super important. I want to share what we do if we're worried about someone else. So very quickly, number one, spot the signs, be aware. I think most of us are these days, but there's still this kind of tendency that it'll never happen to anyone that I know. Be aware of those around you and how they're going and how they're coping with things. If you are concerned, start a conversation. Just as you normally would, you don't have to do anything fancy or special or use any particular language. Just ask people what's going on for them. And if you're really concerned that there's a safety risk here, then express it. Start with your gut. Listen to your gut because you know that people around you best. So put it on the table and ask them how serious it really is. Sometimes people are worried that they might put ideas into the other person's head. I guarantee you if someone's struggling, they've already thought about it. So it's a relief when someone connects with them and someone shows that they've been paying attention, that they do care and that they're happy to have an in-depth conversation. So open up a conversation and either way, regardless of what the person says, it's always a good idea to offer them some sort of avenues where they can get further support if they need to. And you can say, look, you may not need it right now, but just if you do need it in the future, these are some options on where you can get support. So and stay connected with them. Keep in touch. Of course, if there's an immediate risk to safety, then you don't wanna leave anyone alone. So go with them to get some sort of professional help. And as I said, we'll have those numbers available for you. It's not perfect. We can't be with people 24-7. We can't camp outside people's houses or we've gotta live our lives and so do other people. So we need to remind ourselves that we're human too and we do the best we can to watch out for those around us that that's as much as we can do. Great, okay. We're trying to keep this briefer than other times because we're aware that people maybe wanna have dinner or they have wanna go to bed or something. But any final questions that would be, this would be the time to type it in and send them to us and we can handle them. While you type those questions, Emmy, do you wanna have a little recap? So quick recap, too much information, the world of overwhelm and too much information. What happens when it's all too much? We looked at psychologically what's going on for the person. Remember those two warning signs, hopelessness and helplessness, what you can do and particularly the importance of finding meaning and purpose. Because one of the things we struggle with is what's the point? Well, then we need to answer the question. We need to find something. You don't get your purpose in life delivered in your mailbox. You need to create it. You need to, I don't wanna say discover but you need to create your purpose. Find something that brings you alive and that you enjoy and keep trying new things until you do. And then what to do if you're worried for someone else? Yeah, I remember, respect your biology, honor it. Respect your psychological DNA, also your physical DNA. Respect what you don't like. That's an important thing if you don't like something. Is it because you are not familiar with it or you need more practice or is it something that is completely and a theme up to yourself? So those are important questions. And then make sure that you are not actually overwork. Maybe you have too much in your plate. Can somebody else help? Or are there things that don't need to happen? That's what I find with people that go into overwhelm about 30 to 40% of the things that they are really busy on don't really need to happen but they're doing them because psychologically they've become attached to them and they need to drop that. So anyway, I think that this was a really interesting conversation. It can really be a life changer. Once you start respecting your DNA, you find your purpose and you bring hopefulness and helpfulness into your life. The opposite, it really is a game changer. All right. I hope that's given some food for thought. Next week, we're going to talk about dealing with difficult people. So this is one of the questions that came out from our audience. How do we deal with? That's gonna be an interesting one. Difficult customers or clients, also colleagues. We had some examples where people, other people don't take accountability. How do you manage people who might have interesting personalities? So there's a lot of focus on narcissistic personality at the moment. We're gonna talk about all those interesting things. So you can join us next week, same time, same place. We'd love to see you there. All right, see you then. Have a great day and mentally healthy day. Bye-bye now. Take care, bye. Hi, I'm Emmy Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. We hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. We have more and more videos being released each week. 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