Danielle RalstonFounder, How Capacity Works · Founder of ND Hive | Building the productivity hub where work actually gets done | Execution spaces, body doubling & community accountability

Overstimulation: What Causes It and How to Calm Down

7 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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Overstimulation happens when your nervous system gets hit with too much at once: loud noises, bright lights, strong smells, work stress. Hormonal shifts before your period can make everything feel unbearable. When you can't calm yourself down, leaning on someone else to help regulate your nervous system actually works.

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So what causes overstimulation, I think, is when there's just way too many external stimuli going on at once, whether it be too many noises, you know, too many demands from a job, you know, too many sights, the smells, a lot of emotions. For women, hormonally, you know, right before our period, overstimulation really, really peaks to the point where if somebody breathes wrong, It just feels like it overstimulates you. Like, it just becomes too much. And, you know, our nervous system cannot regulate at that point. And that's when co-regulation comes into play, support systems come into play, talking about things come into play to help bring that overstimulation down.