Coaching Through the Noise: Finding Calm When Clients Feel Overstimulated
The holiday season can feel like a lot. There are bright lights, full calendars, crowded stores, group text threads, family dynamics, and constant activity. Even the things we enjoy can stretch our nervous systems. Many clients arrive to sessions in December feeling tired, scattered, overstimulated, or like they are just trying to keep up. They may say things like:
“I feel like everything is too much.”
“My brain will not slow down.”
“I cannot get myself grounded.”
As trauma informed coaches, this is a moment where the work really matters. We are not trying to eliminate stress from life. Instead, we help people find steady ground inside it.
The Nervous System and Overstimulation
When a client is overstimulated, it is not simply being busy. Their nervous system is processing constant input and trying to decide what is safe and what is stressful. For clients who are already managing chronic stress, trauma history, burnout, parenting demands, or holiday financial pressure, this threshold is lower.
Signs can include fast talking, shallow breathing, trouble focusing, jumpy movements, numbness, or feeling “checked out.” When this happens, planning and logic do not come first. Their body needs to feel safe enough to access those skills.
Our role is to recognize the state they are in, meet them there, and help them gently shift toward safety.
Slowing Down Helps the Body Settle
When a client comes in wired or overwhelmed, it can be tempting to jump into action mode. But before anything else, the body needs cues of safety. Slowing down your voice, pausing, and taking a breath before speaking creates a calm tone for the session.
A simple start might sound like: “Before we get into anything, how is your body feeling right now?” or “Let us take a moment to settle into the space together.”
These pauses are not filler. They are regulation tools. When the coach slows down, it gives the client's nervous system permission to slow down too.
Listening Beyond the Story
During times of overload, clients often talk about circumstances rather than inner experience. They may focus on to do lists, events, and responsibilities. It can help to gently guide them toward awareness of how they are experiencing all of that.
A few supportive questions:
“What sensations are you noticing as you talk about this?”
“If one small thing today could feel easier, what would it be?”
“What would feeling supported look like right now?”
We are not trying to remove the stress of life. We are helping clients notice themselves inside it and reconnect to what they need.
Simple Tools Clients Can Use When Life Feels Loud
Clients do not need big routines or elaborate plans. Little steps can create big change. Here are approachable suggestions you can offer:
Create micro resets. Invite clients to take brief pauses throughout their day, even ten seconds before a meeting or after parking their car.
Use grounding through the senses. Touch something warm, place feet firmly on the ground, hold something textured, or turn on soft instrumental music.
Protect energy in small ways. Encourage small boundaries: stepping outside for a minute during gatherings, saying “I need a moment,” or leaving an event a bit earlier.
Name nervous system care as essential. Reframe rest as maintenance, not luxury. A regulated body makes better choices.
Normalize needing quiet or space. With overstimulation, pausing and retreating is often the body trying to protect itself.
Coaches Need Regulation Too
You are holding space for people during a very full season. That means you will benefit from the same practices you are teaching. Give yourself permission to slow down, set boundaries, rest, and simplify where you can. Coaching from regulation is much more effective than coaching from exhaustion.
Caring for your nervous system is not optional. It is part of the work.
Supporting clients through overstimulation is not about making life quiet. It is about helping them find steadiness inside the noise. When you bring calm energy, gentle pacing, curiosity, and presence into your sessions, you give clients a living example of nervous system safety.
You do not have to fix everything for them. You simply help them find their way back to center, one breath and one moment at a time.