When your mind won’t slow down: Understanding anxiety

This piece was inspired by two recent conversations: one with a client without children, and one with a close friend who is a new mum, both describing the same experience: a mind that simply wouldn’t slow down.

It’s something I support a lot of clients with, and something I’ve been through myself. I want to tell you something I wish more people realised. Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your alarm system is too loud.

What anxiety really is

A helpful way to understand anxiety is to imagine a smoke alarm that goes off every time you make toast. There’s no fire, the house isn’t unsafe, but the alarm is overly sensitive. Anxiety works in a similar way. Your nervous system has learned to shout “danger!” very quickly, even when you’re actually safe.

Often this develops because, at some point in your life, being alert really mattered. Perhaps things felt unpredictable, emotions weren’t well contained, or there wasn’t much room for mistakes. Nothing is wrong with you – your system simply learned to protect you in the best way it knew how.

This is where anxiety is often misunderstood. Anxiety is about anticipating danger, while resilience is about trusting yourself to cope.

Why anxiety makes your thoughts race

When anxiety is present, it can feel as though you’re constantly waiting for something to go wrong. You might notice yourself overthinking, overplanning, avoiding certain situations, trying to control what’s around you, endlessly scrolling, googling, or searching for reassurance, and being very hard on yourself when things don’t go to plan.

When your brain won’t slow down, it’s usually because anxiety has pulled you into the future. Anxiety is, at its core, worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet. When all of that stays trapped in your head, it can feel overwhelming and impossible to make sense of.

Why certain stages of life intensify anxiety

For many people, motherhood intensifies this. Sleep deprivation, responsibility for another human, and the constant sense of uncertainty can all turn the volume up. Your nervous system is already tired, and the stakes suddenly feel much higher.

But this experience isn’t limited to parents. Anxiety and racing thoughts often increase during any period of change, pressure, responsibility, uncertainty, or emotional load.

This might be:

• starting a new job
• becoming responsible for others
• navigating relationship changes
• dealing with health worries
• managing financial stress
• caring for family members
• or simply carrying too much without enough support

When life feels heavier, your nervous system works harder to protect you. It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your system is responding to increased demand.

Practical ways to calm an overactive mind

There are simple, practical ways to support yourself when this happens. Not to eliminate anxiety completely, but to help your nervous system settle.

One of the most effective places to start is writing down how you’re feeling. Getting thoughts out of your head and onto paper often changes them. Worries tend to sound different once they’re written down – clearer, less frightening, and more manageable. This is one of the reasons counselling can be so helpful: you’re no longer holding everything on your own.

A gentle prompt to try is: What am I actually worried about right now?

You might notice, for example, that you’re worried about sleep. Writing it down can help you explore whether that worry is grounded in reality, or whether your mind has jumped to a worst-case scenario.

Supporting your nervous system

It can also help to create a small toolkit to calm your nervous system. This doesn’t need to be complicated. One of my favourites is simply reminding myself, “I am safe.”

When you’re exhausted or overwhelmed, your nervous system can respond as though you’re in real danger – the same way it would if a lion were chasing you. Reassuring your body of safety can help bring the intensity down.

Writing a short gratitude list can also be grounding. It gently brings your attention back into the present moment, rather than keeping you stuck in imagined futures. Presence is calming; anxiety thrives on “what ifs”.

Finally, it’s important to remember that anxiety isn’t just something that lives in the mind. It’s energy in the body too. If that energy stays stuck, the mind often stays stuck alongside it. Movement helps complete the stress cycle and release some of that built-up tension. This might look like walking, stretching, shaking it out, dancing, going for a massage, or more intentional exercise if that feels supportive for you. There’s no right way – the aim is simply to help your body let go of stress.

When it might help to seek support

You don’t need to stop anxiety altogether. You need ways to support yourself when it shows up.

A helpful question or journal prompt is to ask yourself what you would say to a friend or a child who was worrying in this way – and then, as gently as you can, to try offering that same response to yourself.

If anxiety has been part of your life for a long time, or if it’s starting to impact your sleep, relationships, confidence, or ability to enjoy everyday life, it can really help to talk to someone. Counselling offers a space where your thoughts don’t have to stay trapped inside your head, and where your nervous system can begin to feel safer and more understood.

Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your nervous system learned to stay alert. With the right support, that alarm can soften, and you can begin to trust yourself more in the moments that once felt overwhelming.