When did my brain get so loud? On having an overstimulated mind

A few years ago, if someone had told me that their brain never switched off, I don't think I would have fully understood what they meant. I would have empathized, of course, but I couldn't relate to the feeling of having a hundred thoughts competing for attention at the same time. I liked my quiet moments. I liked having time to myself. I could sit with a cup of coffee, listen to music, go for a walk or simply spend an evening doing nothing, and my mind would stay with me.

I don't think I realised how much I valued that until it slowly disappeared.

Over the last six or seven months, life got busier. Work picked up, my personal life became fuller, and there was always something that needed my attention. At first, it felt exciting. I was building things, working towards goals and keeping myself occupied. I have always been someone who likes structure, so making checklists and planning my days came naturally to me. Every night, I'd write down what needed to be done the next day, and there was something satisfying about ticking things off.

The problem was that eventually, the checklist stopped living on paper.

It somehow found a place in my head.

There was always an email I had to send, a message I needed to reply to, a conversation I had forgotten to have, a task that needed revising, something that wasn't done well enough or something I was worried I had missed altogether. It felt like my brain had become one of those internet browsers with too many tabs open, except I couldn't close any of them.

Initially, I found it funny. I remember thinking, so this is what everyone was talking about.

Then I realised the tabs never closed.

The strangest part wasn't that I had become busier. It was that I had stopped being present. I could be eating my favourite meal and thinking about work. I could be scrolling through Instagram while mentally planning the next day. I could be listening to music and somehow not hearing a single lyric because another part of my brain was making a to-do list.

Even now, before I open my eyes in the morning, there are thoughts waiting for me.

You need to do this.

Don't forget that.

Reply to that person.

Finish this work.

Fix that problem.

Sometimes I wonder when exactly that started happening, because I don't remember consciously choosing it.

I also noticed that the pace inside my head had started showing up in the rest of my life. I was talking faster, walking faster, rushing through things for no particular reason. I started forgetting details people had just told me, even important ones. Conversations became something I was trying to keep up with instead of something I was actually a part of.

And somewhere in all of this, I realised that I wasn't just busy.

I was absent.

The things I enjoyed were still there. I still went for walks. I still listened to music. I still spent time with people I loved. But my brain rarely joined me. Part of it was always somewhere else, trying to stay one step ahead of whatever came next.

I think that's what bothered me the most.

Life slowly stopped feeling like something I was living and started feeling like something I was performing.

There was always something waiting. Something I should be doing, fixing, completing. And what made it harder was that this didn't feel unusual. Almost everyone around me seemed to be living the same way. We talked about being busy as though it was a personality trait. We compared schedules, deadlines, responsibilities.

Somewhere along the way, I started believing that this was simply what adulthood looked like.

If you wanted to do well, you had to stay busy. If you wanted to be successful, you had to stay productive. If you had time to rest, maybe you weren't working hard enough.

I don't know where that belief came from. But I know I wasn't the only one carrying it.

I started noticing this showing up emotionally too. There were things I would have once sat with, thought about, talked through, but now they felt like another task I didn't have the capacity for. Difficult emotions became something to postpone because there were already too many things demanding my attention.

I'll deal with it later.

I'll think about it tomorrow.

I don't have the energy for this right now.

As someone who works in mental health, that was an interesting thing to notice about myself. I spend a lot of time encouraging people to make space for their emotions instead of pushing them away, and yet I was doing exactly that. I brought it up in therapy because it felt strange. I wasn't avoiding my feelings because I didn't want to deal with them. I was avoiding them because my mind was already so full.

There simply didn't seem to be enough room.

The guilt didn't help either.

If I hadn't finished everything on my checklist, I'd blame myself. If I took an evening off, I'd think about what I wasn't getting done. Even when I wanted to rest, I found myself trying to justify it.

I worked hard today, so maybe I deserve an hour.

I've had a long week, so maybe I can take a break.

I'll relax after I finish this one thing.

The funny thing about that one thing is that there was always another one waiting behind it.

I remember discussing rest during supervision. We'd remind ourselves that we need breaks, boundaries, time to recharge. I would agree with everything being said, and then go home and continue working.

Knowing something and living it are two very different things. Sometimes we know exactly what we need. We just struggle to give ourselves permission to have it.

Then my birthday came around.

My parents had planned a four-day trip, and I decided not to take my laptop. I wish I could tell you I switched off immediately and didn't think about work for four days, but that wouldn't be true. There was guilt. There were moments when I wondered what I was missing or whether I should quickly check something.

But the days were full in a different way.

Long drives and conversations. Good food and new places. Life happening around me, leaving very little room for the checklist in my head.

When I came back, I noticed something I hadn't expected.

I felt rested. Not just physically, but mentally.

I had more energy for work than I'd had in months. I could focus better, think more clearly, actually enjoy what I was doing again.

I still felt guilty for taking those days off. A part of me still thought about the work that had piled up while I was away. I don't think four days magically changed my relationship with rest or with my own mind.

I think what they did was remind me of a version of myself I had almost forgotten. The one who could simply exist for a little while without trying to optimise every moment.

I'm still working on this.

I'm still bringing it into therapy.

I'm still noticing how quickly my brain jumps to the next task and how easily I convince myself that I should be doing something more productive.

Some nights I read for a few minutes before bed. Some days I pick up my doodling book. Sometimes I listen to music without multitasking. Sometimes I manage it, and sometimes I don't.

I don't have a conclusion to this story because I'm still in the middle of it.

I still wake up with a checklist in my head. I still have days where my brain feels louder than I'd like it to. I still catch myself treating rest like something I have to earn.

But I think about the version of me who couldn't understand what people meant when they said their minds never stopped, and I smile a little, because I finally get it.

I understand the feeling of carrying invisible tabs around all day. I understand what it's like to be physically present but mentally somewhere else. I understand how easy it is to lose yourself in the constant rush of trying to keep up.

And maybe that's all this piece really is.

Not advice. Not a guide to fixing an overstimulated mind.

Just a small reminder, to myself as much as to anyone reading this, that behind the schedules, the deadlines, the checklists and the productivity, there are a lot of us quietly wondering the same thing.

When did my brain get so loud?

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Written by Deshna Shah

Deshna is a psychotherapist and co-founder at Therapea, working relationally with people navigating relationships, anxiety, and self-discovery. Work with Deshna →