Overwhelm is a capacity threshold issue where an individual feels unable to manage the accumulation of stresses, leading to a shutdown of focus and prioritizing.

“Overwhelm is what happens when that stress that you're feeling, that pressure, that go go go is building and building and building and building and all of a sudden you've had too many days or too many weeks, too many months, too many years in a row, and now you can't go. You've hit this threshold.”

Overwhelm occurs when the ratio of passive challenges that are out of one's control to active challenges that one chooses becomes skewed.

“It is based on the ratio of passive challenges to active challenges.”

Psychological flooding happens when chronic stress shifts brain governance from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala, impairing high-level executive functions.

“When you feel that sense of overwhelm, what's happening to you scientifically, we call it psychological flooding. When you are flooded with these big negative emotions and that feeling of being flooded or overwhelmed is powered by your stress response”