How I reset when I'm overstimulated

Simple reset buttons for finding calm in the chaos of life with little kids.

You probably know the feeling: your kitchen counter is a mess, your kids have forgotten their indoor voices, and the baby won’t let you put him down for a nanosecond before he starts crying. You desperately need to run a brush through your hair and the concept of peace and quiet feels like an increasingly distant memory.

If you’re in a season where this feels familiar, you’re not alone. I keep a running list of what I call “reset buttons” in the notes app on my phone for when everything starts to feel a little too overwhelming. It’s a way of reminding myself to control what I can actually control and to carve out a little moment to myself before I lose my patience in a way I know I’ll regret. Here’s my list in case it inspires you to start or add to your own, and I’d love to hear ways you hit the reset button in the comments!

1. Take a nap — especially in seasons of interrupted sleep. I have a tendency to breeze right past the obvious (get enough sleep, drink enough water) but the older I get, the more I really do understand the importance of a good night’s sleep, which is always notoriously difficult to come by the closer you get to the end of a pregnancy or with a new baby at home. If there’s any way you can carve out a nap while your little one naps or while your husband brings your other child(ren) to the trampoline park, I’m always pleasantly surprised how much better I feel when I’ve gotten adequate rest.

2. Take an everything shower. They say babies reset when they’re placed in water, whether that’s a sink bath or a kiddie pool, and I think the same can be true for moms. It’s hard to take your time in the shower when you’re counting down the minutes your baby or toddler is napping, but a good everything shower at least once a week (the kind where you use this scalp scrub shampoo, let this hair mask sit for four minutes, exfoliate, and shave your legs) does wonders.

3. Get a massage. I don’t know any mom who would turn down a proper spa day, but for the purposes of a quick and immediate reset, I’m talking about walking into your go-to nail salon and getting a chair massage for as little as 10 or 15 minutes. It’s incredible how much lighter I feel every time I make this happen.

4. Schedule a blowout. We have four boys 6 and under who constantly need something — a snack, a diaper change, a refill of their water bottle, a bandaid, more snacks, etc. Sometimes a nice way to balance out the feeling that you’re constantly doing things for other people is to book an appointment where someone else is doing something for you — and all the better if you can needlepoint or listen to an audiobook while they do it.

5. Go for walk. I walk our oldest to and from kindergarten every day and although I gripe about the cold, I can’t argue that taking a break to get some fresh air is often the ultimate reset button. This is also the year I finally got serious about getting 10,000 steps a day, and while many of them are indoors on my beloved walking pad, it makes a huge difference in my mental health that a good chunk of my day is now spent in a state of slow and steady movement. Stroller walks with a baby absolutely count here — I wish I’d done a lot more of these when I was home alone with our first baby and didn’t realize how important it was to flex the muscle of getting out of the house together more often.

6. Go to the beach (or whatever your happy place looks like for you!). We’re lucky to live in a town with a great playground on a beautiful public beach, and I’m infinitely happier pushing four kids on the swingset with a view of the water than I am in our own backyard. This could be a light family walk in the woods or just making a point to sip your morning coffee on your back porch while your kids run around outside, but a little change of scenery always helps me breathe a little easier.

7. Control what you can control. There are moments I feel so overstimulated in our kitchen or playroom that I want to take a giant black trash bag to everything we own. (Anyone else?) Since my husband rarely shares my enthusiasm for a good old-fashioned purge, I try to start by clearing off one or two surfaces that have outsized impact: a tidy kitchen counter is more calming than a perfectly organized hall closet, and getting the boys to help me pick up magnetic blocks off the playroom floor is a quick all-hands-on-deck moment that instantly makes me feel a little more in control.

8. Deep breaths / stretch / foam roll. I’ve yet to stick with a meditation practice for a meaningful period of time, but I’ve realized I reliably reset most nights after the boys go to bed (an Olympic decathlon with far too many hurdles, but that’s a topic for another day) with a quick stretch or foam roll in our bedroom. I like this mat for stretching (it folds up into a neat stack so it’s not in the way the rest of the time) and probably own more foam rollers than a non-athlete should, but I swear this, this, and this all serve different purposes in my life. :) Whether it’s a stretching video on Youtube or an actual meditation, a quiet moment after kids’ bedtime before you immediately jump into cleaning the kitchen is a reset button worth taking a few minutes for.

9. If you read all these and you’re like, “great, but it’s freezing and I’m stuck inside with a baby or a zillion kids and the last place I want to be is at the beach,” I’ve definitely been there too. Those are the times I either light a candle (this and this are year-round favorites for me) or turn on a little Taylor Swift so my brain remembers there are in fact other songs besides the Paw Patrol theme song.

Would love to hear about your reset buttons in the comments!