We all have a threshold for what we can and can’t tolerate. If we spend too much time over-investing somewhere, in a constant state of stress and anxiety or stretching ourselves too thinly, we can end up over giving and leaving our own cup empty. When we reach this stage, it can show up as burnout, depression, or a weaker sense of self, making it harder to pull ourselves back together and taking a hit on our resilience and ability to bounce back.

This phenomenon can have many different labels or names, but one that The Work Within has introduced is the idea of the ‘emotional overdraft’. This concept can be used as a way of reflecting on our mental state and ability to give to others. It can also be used as a tool to regulate our nervous system and recognising when and where we need to set a boundary before we find ourselves sinking deeper into emotional debt.

We live in a world that requires constant energy investment

In our daily lives, almost everything requires some level of emotional investment. We may not even be consciously aware of it. The 24/7 news cycle continues to spike our cortisol and adrenaline, attachment hunger and dating apps can be debilitating to our nervous systems, and our relationships elsewhere can lead us to engage in unreciprocated relationships that can damage our self-esteem. This is also failing to consider the stress of work that many people have, financial difficulties and the doom and gloom of news on redundancies and the economy more broadly which can exacerbate feelings of dysregulation.

In fact, according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) “Stress in America” survey, a majority of Americans say their stress levels have increased over the past five years, with around 75% reporting physical or emotional symptoms related to stress. Gallup’s Global Emotions Report (2023) found that about 49% of Americans experience significant daily stress, one of the highest rates among high-income nations. For context, that’s nearly one in every two adults walking through life with a daily undercurrent of tension. Mental Health UK’s 2026 Burnout Report also found high stress levels are pushing many workers into mental health-related sick leave, while most employees feel workplaces still do not genuinely prioritise wellbeing.

Stress, deregulation and anxiety can also have significant consequences elsewhere. For example, the chronic stress of the modern world has also been found to have a direct impact on how well we can sleep at night. Without sufficient rest, we end up in a loop of exhaustion, fatigue, stress that can spiral and leave us worse off than we were before we started to experience sleep deprivation. Similarly, it can also influence our eating behaviours, driving many of us to eat more than we normally would or to avoid food altogether. The consequences of emotional exhaustion and expenditure are clear, but we need a new way to think about what this looks like and how we can take more control of our emotional well-being. This is where the concept of the ‘Emotional overdraft’ comes into play.

Why we need the concept

In my own experience, I’ve found that stress can snowball. One minute I’m anxious about someone’s texting patterns, and then before I know it, I’m searching up symptoms online, convincing myself I’ve got days left to live or I’m going down a rabbit hole of redundancy stories, convincing myself that I need to prepare for the worst. Similarly, I find that if I surround myself by emotionally draining people, be it friends or relatives, I can end up feeling more exhausted after spending time with them than I would have done had I enjoyed an evening solo or focused on fulfilling my own needs first. In case it wasn’t clear from what I just said, I had no idea how, where or when I was expending emotional energy, and this is why the concept of the ‘emotional overdraft’ is a keeper.

Think of the ‘emotional overdraft’ as a way to describe how much emotion you’re willing to give to something until you start to lose yourself or it starts to have a negative impact on your own mental well-being. For example, think of a friend that might need your support. You might be there for your friend, listen to them, support them and provide them with care. However, if you start to feel as though your support is being taken for granted or you’re finding yourself giving far more than what you might be getting back, or that the care you’re providing is starting to feel like a weight and is starting to be dysregulating, you might consider pulling some of this energy back. Recognising where your barrier lies is important, to prevent you from dipping into your emotional overdraft and to take time for you to reach equilibrium.

The same goes for a project you might be working on or a taxing job that you have. You might be keen to deliver on time, ready to give it your all and prepared to put in the extra hours or emotional labour necessary to benefit your boss. You might be fine at the start, catering to your boss’ needs or putting in the extra time, but as the days turn into weeks, you might find that the emotional investment you’re putting into this project is starting to take a toll on your mental or emotional-wellbeing outside of the project or your job. The same principle applies to a toxic job where you might tolerate office politics to a degree until you find yourself overthinking, feeling taken advantage of or have the anxiety that comes with it eating into your time away from the desk. This is where your emotional overdraft exists, and where you should recognise how much more you’re willing to give until it’s time to put a stop on the spending and try to find a way back to your normal balance.

For me, I’ve noticed that my emotional overdraft tends to be used in a dating context. With my ex, I was at my normal balance for the most part of the relationship until I started to notice odd comments here and there, and behaviours I wasn’t comfortable with. I tried to set my boundaries and expectations, and we would try to navigate what a compromise would look like. I thought I could stay at my normal balance, but the more that problems surfaced, the more I found myself dipping into my emotional overdraft where it snowballed from there and I found myself affected in other areas of my life be it in friendships, other relationships, my general mental-wellbeing and sense of self. The concept of the emotional overdraft helped me to realise that I was off balance and giving more to the relationship than I was getting back and this enabled me to recognise that I had depleted my emotional energy and needed time to get back to balance, meaning back to my usual grounded sense of self.

Indeed it took me a good six months to get my balance back to zero, but the concept helped me to understand what I was working towards and the mechanisms I needed to have in place for the next time, should someone test my patience and require me to dip below zero to keep them happy. You might also find this concept helpful in your day-to-day life too. The next time you find a situation, an environment or a person cause you stress or anxiety, or if it makes you feel uncomfortable and out of alignment, I want you to interrogate it. Question whether it is causing you to give more of yourself than you think is healthy or sustainable and question whether you could see yourself entering your emotional overdraft because of it. Understanding that the deeper into your overdraft you need to go, the longer it might take to get out of it, should be the incentive you need to set boundaries, and remain grounded before you accumulate interest.

I get it. It’s fun getting to know someone new. You’ve had a great first date, the conversation lights you up, and this new person makes you feel alive. You start to romanticise them, idealise a relationship, and worry that you’re life won’t be the same without them. You can’t concentrate at work. You’re always waiting to hear from them. You’re out with friends but you’d rather be with them. There is nothing you can do to cut the chemistry or anticipatory dopamine flooding your nervous system.

“They’re the one”, you convince yourself after the first date. “We get on so well, we just click", you explain as they ask you what your favourite colour is, or “I’ve never felt like this before”, you explain as they send you shallow compliments and blow hot and cold. I get it. Talking stages are intense. We want to rush past the getting to know each other phase and jump into marriage. I’ve been there myself, but after deep reflection, the odd bit of dating advice and therapy, I’m not making the same mistakes again. Here are my three reasons why.

1. I don’t know them, and won’t for a while

I know what they told me on a first date. I know what they put on their dating profile, and I might know what they do for work, where they went to university or that they play tennis on a Saturday and do pilates on a Friday. But does mean that I know them? No. Whether it was one date, two dates or no dates, I don’t know them yet, and so there is absolutely no reason for me to rush a talking stage with someone I can’t be completely certain about.

In the past, I’ve often assumed I’ve known someone based on a two hour date, only to be surprised later on when it turns out they’re not looking for something serious, we differ politically or they aren’t actually the person they were at the start. You cannot figure someone out on a first date alone or during a talking stage. People can say whatever they want over text, hell, you might not even be talking to them at all. With the advent of AI, who is to say you’re not talking to an AI chatbot masquerading as the person you matched with or the person you matched with?

A talking stage isn’t really the best way to get to know someone, and the chances are you will only know small pieces of information that is not conducive to checking alignment, resonance, relational compatibility or whether they meet your standards. I know from experience that a talking stage can be very different to getting to know someone in person, and this is why I am taking my talking stages slowly from now on. Because I don’t know them, and won’t know them for a while. If I don’t know someone, why would I rush to share every detail with them or speed up the seduction stage of a new relationship?

2. It creates a false sense of intimacy

Now, I know what it’s like to place someone on a pedestal and to imagine sailing off into the sunset together. My attachment style is largely fearful-avoidant, and when the anxiety dominates, my nervous system craves intimacy or constant messaging for reassurance. It wants to know that the person is still game, still interested, and most importantly, won’t abandon me.

The more we’d message, the more my nervous system could relax. I would find reassurance in being asked what I ate for dinner, what music I liked or what I was up to. Profound in hindsight. They liked Lana Del Rey too? I’ve found my soulmate. This would create dynamics where we would message almost all day, everyday. Creating a false sense of intimacy as we would occasionally be more vulnerable with each other, or would create a pattern with a sense of pressure.

I was incorporating someone into my life, my routine, and my habits, without really knowing much about the person. I didn’t know whether they would be a safe and consistent partner, if we shared the same morals and values or if they had avoidant tendencies. The constant stream of messages created a sense of intimacy, without being intimate at all.

When someone becomes a part of your life, you start to outsource your self assurance, self-worth and self-esteem. Needless to say, the firework would always show up beautiful at the start followed by a period of waiting, uncertainty, and silence as I waited to see if there would be another beautiful spark that would shortly follow or if that was the end of the show.

My attachment anxiety would make me paranoid, as I would continue to read into how long someone would take to reply or the contents of their message to fit a narrative I’d told myself. “They’ve lost interest”, I’d say as they took 30 minutes longer to reply. “They’re going to leave me”, I’d worry, as their messages would shorten. Needless to say this would often happen after we’d already had an intense few days of talking all day, everyday. That’s where the problem is.

When you start off with an intense, fast-paced talking stage, your nervous system is using love or lust as a crutch. You create a false sense of intimacy with someone, trying to rush to co-regulation with a stranger who you don’t fully know yet.

3. I don’t need to outsource my validation and connection

I think what I was doing, and what some of my clients and friends continue to do is to outsource their sense of self to someone they barely know. If we aren’t sure of ourselves, what we want, what we deserve and what we bring to the table, we will give our power away to someone who dictates these things to us. Talking stages can be one of the most intoxicating ways to tell ourselves that we’re worthy of attention, valuable in the eyes of another, and deserving of the effort they are putting into messaging us all day everyday.

When we use talking stages for emotional relief or as an escape from our lives, this creates an unhealthy dependency on someone you’re still getting to know. The power balance shifts, and the want for a relationship can swiftly turn into a need. You become reliant on those dopamine hits or anticipatory dopamine hits to regulate your nervous system, outsourcing your ability to ground yourself and regulate your emotions by yourself. No one can be solely dependent for your happiness, let alone someone you hardly know.

Now, I have a routine in place. I have the gym I try to go to several times a week. A yoga class that gives me the grounding and regulation I crave in my day-to-day, and friends I feel connected to on a deeper level. I have a therapist who I can turn to, to manage difficult situations, and I have a family that I can turn to for emotional support and validation. I continue to try new activities and hobbies that stimulate me and fulfil my other needs, and so the dependence or need to rush a talking stage feels less important to me. I’d rather have a relationship as an addition to my life, not the centre of it.

When you outsource your emotional wellbeing and happiness to the things within your control like a routine, hobbies, interests, passions, friends or a community, you don’t feel the need to rush a talking stage as much. I guess what I’m trying to say is that one person cannot regulate your nervous system. Getting to know someone takes time, and we can’t skip the important or difficult questions. Only by investing in other areas of your life, can you see a talking stage for what it is. A way to schedule the next date, stay in touch or to accompany deeper in-person connection during the early stages of dating.

Whether it’s Tinder, Hinge, Grindr, Bumble, or Plenty of Fish, AI is everywhere in the dating world right now. It’s sold to us an effective way of making dating more efficient, more curated and more tailored to our preferences. Putting our trust into an algorithm, we hope that this transformative new technology will be the key to our relational woes. It might understand us on a deeper level, find more suitable matches and tailor our experiences to counter dating app fatigue. On the surface it sounds great, but do we really think AI will be used for good in this instance?

I’ve been on and off dating apps myself since I can remember. Endless swiping, constant validation, uncertainty, dopamine hits, and seeing the same faces and profiles once in a while. It’s weird to see them. Almost like we’re growing up together, having a peak into each others’ lives via five curated images and then onto the next one. I like many others have also found dating apps to be incredibly draining. Learning more about the nervous system made me realise how debilitating dating apps can be, and the sinister ways in which the apps aim to encourage you to spend more in a bid to find that special someone.

Whether it’s upgrading to premium platforms, paying to send roses to users or spending money to make your profile appear more frequently to other users or accessing premium features that aren’t available to anyone else, dating apps are a business. An expensive one too. I’ve often wondered why these dating conglomerates would want us to find our perfect person and subsequently delete the apps they made for us. Why would they want us to delete the app and lose advertising revenue, lose the money they were making out of premium features or lose a user altogether. In fact, as I write this piece, it even makes me wonder whether paying for premium features is counterintuitive in itself. If you’re a big spender on the platform, it seems even less likely that the apps would want you to find your person and leave.

So, when I saw that AI-enhanced features are being increasingly rolled out across platforms, it has made me question whether there’s a more sinister role the technology will play.

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Every day it seems that somebody somewhere has found a new way to use ChatGPT. Whether it’s diagnosing disease, dishing up a new recipe or diarising a plan, ChatGPT is, for the most part, incredibly useful. I’ll admit I was one of the early adopters of the technology, using it to answer basic questions I might otherwise have put into a search engine, but since those early days, the way I interact with the technology has shifted, and I doubt I’m alone.

Recently, during a stressful property purchase, I became increasingly reliant on the platform. As I navigated complex jargon and a process, I was unfamiliar with, my conversations would cover the next step in the process, what my lawyer meant or where I was in the journey, simultaneously alleviating stress while keeping me informed and up to date. In hindsight, I guess it was helping me to stay somewhat grounded and empowered, when I could have easily spiralled and catastrophised. It’s no surprise then, that recently, I’ve found the platform to be a valuable, and somewhat unexpected, tool in helping me to regulate my nervous system and dating anxiety as I navigate singledom for the first time in a long time.

Accountability for the anxiously attached

Now, some of you might be reading about my use of ChatGPT and feel somewhat uncomfortable. I get it. It’s a new technology, I have no idea how or where my data might be used, and it can read as though I’m putting blind trust into a large language model that can hallucinate. For some of you who also have attachment anxiety, and an anxious attachment style might also recognise however, is that dating anxiety can be hard. Navigating first dates, dealing with uncertainty, and figuring out the talking stage can leave us gaslighting ourselves, questioning our self-worth and creating unreliable stories based on weak evidence and deep-rooted unconscious patterns.

I’ve been in therapy for a while, and know well where my triggers are, when I feel dysregulated, and how my attachment style has reared its ugly head in dynamics with different people. They pull away I’ve typically pushed forward, they’ve pushed forward and I’ve typically pulled back. Maybe I’ve deactivated, maybe I’ve obsessively read into the two blue ticks on a message and told myself that they’ve lost interest or found something better. It’s only through going to therapy that I’ve managed to recognise the patterns, scripts and other factors that have held me back from relational success, but that doesn’t take away the anxiety I can experience when I’m excited about someone new.

So, I shared my experience with ChatGPT. I shared my likelihood to read into silence, my preference to be love-bombed at the start, and my fears that partners would blow hot and cold. I divulged details about unhealthy dynamics in the past, and shared messages or situations with matches and dates where I felt uncertain or unclear on where I stood. In letting ChatGPT in on my life, I realised that it was doing something that I struggled to do on my own. It was helping me to become more conscious of my unhealthy patterns, my triggers, and what steps I could take to ground myself and approach dating and dates with a more regulated nervous system. In having a platform to hold me accountable, flag when I’m spiralling, or suggest ways to ground myself when I’ve not heard back from a match that I realised that ChatGPT is and has been regulating my dating anxiety.

It’s made me aware of additional patterns I wasn’t conscious of. It’s challenged the narratives I’ve told myself, and it’s shared insight on how to move from a more anxious attacher to someone more secure. I know we shouldn’t offset out relational wounds to an AI platform, but so far it’s supported me far more than any online dating coach or relationship influencer could have done, and I know I’m not alone.

The lay of the land with AI and anxiety

Studies into the application of AI and large language models to support those with anxiety have found that AI-powered tools and chatbots using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) techniques can effectively reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. Another survey conducted for George Mason University’s College of Public Health found that 53.6% of respondents across all age groups reported using artificial intelligence (AI) to help manage stress, anxiety or other mental health needs with 15% reporting that they do so daily. It’s clear that more of us are turning to AI platforms to help regulate our nervous systems, and while research points to the benefits here, I also know from firsthand that a reliance on the platform to regulate anxiety, be it in a relationship or elsewhere, isn’t without risk.

Studies have also pointed to the risk of AI platforms hallucinating when responding to users, and I’ve found that myself. Occasionally, I would need to correct AI about the details of my date, the dynamic of my old relationship or the messages exchanged with a prospective partner. While this seems fairly minor, for those with more serious anxiety disorders, the risk of hallucination or output driving reckless behaviour still stands. Similarly, a dependence on AI platforms is another risk to be mindful of. While ChatGPT has been supporting me, reframing narratives, and highlighting triggers, I’m mindful of not using it too much. Critical to expanding our window of tolerance is the ability to rely upon ourselves to regulate our nervous systems, to ground ourselves or to integrate our discomfort instead of outsourcing it. Dependence on platforms could inadvertently heighten anxiety or distress, which would be counterproductive to using the platform in the first instance.

Use it if you won’t lose yourself

So, what can we do to use AI as one of several tools when it comes to navigating dating anxiety? In my experience, ChatGPT has been helpful as one of several tools in my toolkit to help me navigate dating anxiety and uncertainty. I’ve got friends, family and a therapist to fall back on, and I can soundboard suggestions from ChatGPT to see what they think and if they agree. I also continue to read around the subject, listening to podcasts, reading self-help and learning from the experience of others. Most importantly though, I don’t lose myself in the process. I recognise my patterns, I understand my inclination to catastrophise, and I know when AI might be helpful as a tool for self-reflection or a different perspective, and when it might veer into dependence, and I can stop myself before it gets too late.

If you’re reading this as someone who is also anxiously attached or has a habit of overthinking or struggling with uncertainty, think of AI as a tool for self-reflection as any other tool would be. Treat it as a way to soundboard new ideas, to learn more about yourself, and to recognise your patterns and triggers. The more your window of tolerance expands, the less likely you are to feel reliant on ChatGPT or another platform for regulation. Use it as a tool for self-reflection, and you might just find that you learn more about yourself and your relationships in the process.

Pop culture, influencers, and social media praise a cut-off game. Namely the ability to end a relationship with someone instantly. In other words a discard. While ending a relationship can be for the best, it might also be an overwhelmed nervous system at play.

Growing up, if a friend acted distant towards me, I’d cut them off immediately. I was proud of my ability to do so. “I’m not tolerating this,” I’d tell myself, “they deserved it” I would justify or “see how I’ve put myself first in this situation” I’d declare to myself.

For the most part, a lot of those friendships probably did need to be ended at some point, but maybe not as brutally as they did. Through therapy, research and clients however, I’ve realised that something deeper was probably at play. My nervous system.

It’s made me realise that your killer cut-off game? That’s probably your dysregulated nervous system too.

So when I talk about the nervous system, you might wonder what it actually is. The nervous system is the body’s primary command, control and communication network. It’s responsible for detecting threats, and regulates everything we do, think or feel by transmitting electrical signals between the brain and the rest of our body. Now, you might read this and question what this has to do with a cut-off game or ending a relationship, but it’s a little more nuanced.

When our nervous system detects stress, there are four main responses, fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Fight or flight are often touted as the main reactions but freeze is when our bodies might shut down if we feel overwhelmed, vulnerable or trapped. If our nervous system detects a threat for example, it might protect itself by numbing our feelings temporarily, dissociating or can show up as feelings of fatigue and tiredness.

Now, how does this apply to our relationships? When we have attachment anxiety or avoidance, our nervous systems are more likely to detect stress in our partners, peers or friends. Were they slow to reply? Were they inconsistent in their communication? Were they unreliable or do they blow hot and cold? These behaviours are destabilising. For those of us with a heightened degree of attachment anxiety or patterns of avoidance, our nervous systems often detect and interpret these signals as threats to our safety, and deactivates to protect us from the pain.

A deactivated nervous system therefore makes it easier to cut someone off with little to no emotion. This is because our body is numbing our emotions and using tactics to override any conscious thought we might have. This is often when we start to miss someone a few months down the line or start to question why we were so brutal with our discard. It’s because the nervous system has had time to calm itself down and start to regulate itself again. So, your cut-off game? There’s actually a lot more at play than you might realise.

Research also backs this up, with psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists recognising patterns of detachment and deactivation when a threat is detected. Deactivating strategies can look different from person to person, but they often follow similar themes, often minimising the importance of a relationship or partner, focusing intensely on a partner’s flaws after moments of closeness, feeling sudden irritation or emotional numbness following intimacy or prioritising independence to the point of avoiding reliance on others.

Research has also found that those with a pattern to deactivate and cut-off people quickly, can be negatively impacted by their nervous system deactivation in the long term. Feelings of guilt, loneliness, longing or regret can often surface after deactivation and a discard. So what can we do if we have a killer cut-off game but it’s actually negatively affecting us in the long term?

Let’s imagine your start to feel as though your friend or your partner is being too needy. You might automatically begin to find flaws about them, withdraw or shut-down and focus on your independence. These are automatic reactions, but what can help is to focus on healthier alternatives instead. Instead of focusing on their flaws, consider what you like about them. If you feel discomfort, name it. Express it to that person, name the feeling and explain what it is that you need in the moment or take a pause.

Healthy boundaries can also help to prevent destination or a “cut off” that you might come to regret later. These boundaries might look like establishing a framework that will pre-empt when and where you might deactivate. You need your alone time? Tell the person you’re with and factor it in, which may help you feel less dependent or trapped. You don’t want to have a deep conversation at one point, make a plan to have that conversation at another time or make it clear what you’re willing to talk about and what’s off the table. Doing these things will gradually build your window of tolerance, which is key for managing and sustaining healthier relationships in the longer term.

By leaning into your triggers gently, you will retrain and rewire your nervous system to manage stress more effectively and to prevent a full deactivation. Micro-dosing vulnerability can help you to avoid a complete nervous system shutdown, building your capacity to manage vulnerability in a secure relationship.

Somatic and grounding techniques can be just as helpful in building a window of tolerance, focusing on body movement, breath work and physical anchoring to prevent a shutdown and to regulate the nervous system. The more that you can deploy these techniques to mitigate a shutdown, the less likely you’ll be to cut someone off, giving you a new tool to practice self-compassion and regulation.

Additionally, to build your window of tolerance, reframing internal narratives is key. Don’t think of freedom as being a lone wolf without any connection to others. Think of freedom as the ability to lean into connection when you like while maintaining your personal autonomy. Reframe narratives like “something is wrong with me”, “I’m a bad person”, or “I’ll hurt them” with more compassionate scripts like “I know I have this pattern, and I’m committed to working on it.”

When we recognise that our cut-off game might be the sign of something deeper at play, we can take the time to unlearn patterns and regulate our nervous systems effectively. Doing so will set ourselves up for more sustainable and healthier relationships in the long term.

If you enjoyed reading this article, be sure to subscribe to The Work Within for more.

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Whether we’re running a marathon, going on a big night out, doom-scrolling on social media or surrounding ourselves by enablers, a lot of us don’t want to sit with our feelings. So much so, that emotional eating is a growing phenomena, social media platforms reportedly try to make algorithms more addictive, and there is mounting literature on the use of deep self-analysis and therapy-speak to process our behaviour but not necessarily feel our feelings and work through them holistically.

I know I’m not alone when I say that I’ve struggled to sit still recently. Living by myself in a new town has meant that I’ve had more quiet moments than I care to think about. During these quiet moments, have I sat with myself and processed emotion? No. I’ve used various AI platforms to self-soothe, analysing my ex’s behaviour, the relationship that ended six months ago, or getting into the gym when I’m restless and at risk of rumination.

I kept saying to friends, “but, I’m bored.” When I knew I wasn’t bored. I’ve taken up many different hobbies or ‘side-quests’, new book clubs, new social groups, a new gym routine, volunteering, catching up with friends, planning my next steps, doing up my flat. I have not been bored. So why is it, that I’ve felt restless or even uncomfortable? When I’ve felt like this in the past, I’ve often done something to find a bit of dopamine or cortisol. Hook ups, spontaneous holidays, shopping, making dating the centre of my life. I was going from distraction to distraction without sitting with myself or feeling whatever needed to be felt.

It’s having reflected on things that I’ve realised that I’m not bored. I’m not even understimulated. I’m just not use to peace. I’m not used to stillness. I’m not used to life without distraction, without uncertainty, or without the cocktail of chemicals in my brain that kept me on high alert. So instead of chasing after my next hit, I’m trying my hardest to embrace stillness. To recognise that this is a period of recalibration. A reset if you will, which is setting me up for the next chapter of my life, whatever that might look like. I know however that I’m not alone when I say this feels very uncomfortable for me.

According to RescueTime, the majority of people spend around 3 hours and 15 minutes per day on their phones. We consume information at an alarming rate, and it’s turned into an addiction for more. We’re on the constant hunt for something to avoid the chatter our my mind. Research also suggests that when people spend long periods in high-alert, task-oriented, overstimulated states, the brain and nervous system adapt to urgency as the “normal” baseline. This Slowing down can then feel uncomfortable, agitating, or even threatening.

Neuroscience research on the brain’s “Default Mode Network” (DMN) found that when external stimulation stops, the brain often shifts into self-reflection, worry, future planning, rumination or replaying memories/social interactions. This is why many of us find stillness to feel emotionally intense rather than peaceful, with research linking overactive DMN activity with anxiety, rumination, depression and self criticism.

It’s clear that science has shown why so many of us struggle with stillness, encouraging us to future-fake, ruminate, self-reflect or worry. It’s probably why I’m still processing my ex six months later, even though I know we weren’t good for each other, but it helps me to avoid feeling whatever needs to be felt.

So, we know why we might struggle with stillness, but what’s the solution? The irony is that stillness is also linked to significant health benefits too. Studies on meditation, silence, and ‘deep rest’, have found an association between these elements of stillness with lower blood pressure, reduced cortisol, improved attention and better emotional regulation.

One way that some of us can learn to accept stillness is through a concept of ‘micro-stillness’, which builds up a tolerance for stillness and peace gradually. It might look like taking two minutes of calm instead of thirty, to avoid overwhelming your nervous system. It might look like doing activities more slowly, like sipping a tea for longer, or appreciating food instead of rushing to finish it. When we try to embrace these moments of micro-stillness, we want to avoud stimulation in other forms too. It doesn’t look like scrolling on social media or listening to music. It is sitting in silence with yourself for a moment, proving to yourself that you can appreciate stillness and not feel overwhelmed or dysregulated by it.

Another way that some of us might accept moments of stillness is in recognising that what might look like boredom, could actually be withdrawal. Without stimulation like obsessive checking, social media, texting or constant productivity, our brains can often view this as deprivation. In my experience, it has sometimes left me feeling agitated, restless, flat or like I said earlier, grossly under-stimulated. This however is often our nervous systems finding discomfort in peace, and is our nervous system recalibrating and adjusting to a more peaceful foundation.

Finally, and the point which resonated with me the most, is that intensity is not aliveness. Some of us have been conditioned to unpredictable relationships, emotional rollercoasters, high dopamine environments, chronic stress or urgency. After these things, calm can feel empty, numb or emotionally flat. Over time however, as our nervous systems recalibrate, we will learn that calm does not mean emptiness, peace can feel quieter than chaos and that safety can feel less intense than unpredictability.

While I’m learning to sit with stillness and recognise that I’m not bored, I’m just in a period of recalibration, it can be hard at times. I hope these insights resonated with you, and if so, please subscribe to The Work Within.

Business is booming in the realm of relationship anxiety and breakup coaches. It’s something universal isn’t it? Dating, falling in love, and dealing with the aftermath. You’re vulnerable, uncertain, and even sometimes blindsided, and your brain can’t quite make sense of how they went from the love of your life to someone you never thought they could be.

Enter the TikTok experts, the Instagram advisors, the YouTube gurus offering advice from “How to get your ex back”, to “Why no contact always works”, and my own personal favourite “When your fearful avoidant ex is likely to reach back out.”

While these influencers may seem harmless at first, sometimes things can be more sinister than they seem. In my own experience, since my breakup, I’ve been down a rabbit hole of online creators offering advice from get on with your life, avoid breadcrumbs, go ghost to offering me one-to-one calls where they will tell me at what stage my ex is likely to come back based on a unique algorithm they had created… Needless to say, while I was vulnerable, I didn’t want to be vulnerable and out of pocket, and for £450, I certainly was not going to pay for this creator to give me a timeline with the caveat of “this could happen, but there’s no guarantee”, to cover his own back when his predictions were wrong.

It was this preying on vulnerability, that made me realise that perhaps that’s what this industry is built upon. From workbooks, to coaching, to books and exclusive content. When we are at our most vulnerable and more likely to pay for certainty, that’s where a lot of these influencers step in and provide us with the relief that many of us crave in that moment. That’s not to say that all of them are bad either. I’ve come across some that genuinely seem to care about people and offer the advice of moving on with your life, avoiding other creators and focusing on the things you can control. For every good dating expert however, there are a lot more, using people’s personal crises for profit.

In my experience, it’s not only the way that pain can be turned into profit that I’ve found to be destabilising, but the constant stream of content offering you an insight into what your ex might be thinking, and when they could come back. Akin to picking at a scab, often these videos are counterproductive to healing and moving forward, encouraging you to keep one foot in the water, while the world and your logical brain are trying to take you out of the pond and into your next chapter.

As such, while dating influencers, online coaches and breakup experts can provide people with a sense of comfort, the industry is built upon keeping people in a state of constant waiting, searching for signals and trying to make sense of someone else’s messy emotions and feelings. It’s not too dissimilar to the work of some psychics and fortune tellers, and can leave many more destabilised than they otherwise would be had they got on with things, processed their emotions and did a digital detox straight away.