It's all getting a bit too much, and what do you do then? Even more!

I regularly see even the most sensible people around me lose it. They talk at a hundred kilometers per hour, do a thousand things at once, and seem to have lost track. My head also regularly turns into a coop with flapping chickens. In fact, I am now a week on Vlieland to write, but I notice that it's not working at all. I realize that I am quite overstimulated. The bizarre thing is that when you are, you actually start to push harder. Here are the symptoms:

1. I want to do even more all the time.

I went to Vlieland to be able to write quietly without distractions. But then I want to invite people all the time to come here too. Because it's so nice here. Then we can catch up. And drink wine. Whoa, stop! Why were you here again? Oh yes, rest.

2. I constantly check social media

I proudly wrote a story for the last paper edition of Amayzine about how I had stopped with social media and how great that was. However, for the launch of my book, I went back to my accounts because, yes, promotion. I thought I had it under control, but I am now completely addicted again. Instead of reading a book and staring at the empty beach, I am endlessly looking at nonsense. Really too bad.

3. I want to look everything up ONLINE at once

I read something about a resort in a magazine. I look it up. I wonder what the weather is like in Thailand. I look it up. My jawline looks a bit saggy. I look it up. My brain is constantly looking for an excuse to grab that phone. Anything to get another stimulus.

4. I am in MUST mode

I keep thinking in terms of ‘must’. Not just what I must do today, but also in a week and in a year. I am planning my whole life. I wake up and immediately think: I must, I must, I must. Doing nothing is not an option, just imagine.

5. My energy is high and frantic

I notice it as soon as I wake up. Such an unpleasant stressy feeling in my butt. My heart rate is just a bit too fast, I can't feel my feet properly. It feels like a kind of panic, but I wouldn't know for what. I try to meditate, but in the meantime, I check my phone three times to see what the weather will be like tomorrow. I could do a little yoga class via YouTube, but I don't have time for that, I think (because I have to do everything). My head seems to be lifting off, and I have lost track of my body.

‘My grandma always said: you need rest to come to rest,’ says stress expert Suzan Kuijsten, to whom I present this problem. ‘The fact that you keep racing when you're overstimulated is both a hardware and a software problem. To begin with, you are neurohormonally out of balance. The stress hormones are raging through you. You are fully pressing the gas pedal, and at the same time, your brake is broken. As a result, you are continuously using energy that you actually don't have, causing everything to start to falter, including your rational thinking.

So it is true that stimuli create a craving for more stimuli. When I talk about software, I mean your beliefs. A carpenter sees when a cabinet is put together and then stops working. Our (brain) work is actually never finished, which is why we give ourselves very little signal that we can rest. Moreover, we think it can't hurt to just write that email or look for a new house online. Meanwhile, we are glued to our phones. We text while standing in line at the bakery, check Instagram instead of taking a nap. So the problem is not actually stress, but the lack of recovery.’

Aha! I know what I need to do. Cold turkey quitting my phone. I radically turn off all electronics and go horseback riding in the woods. I force myself to read a book, even though I can hardly concentrate. I walk with my little dog to the village and eat cranberry cheesecake while looking out the window. Slowly, it becomes a bit quieter in my head...

Want to know more? Read Gek op stress by Suzan Kuijsten.