For the purposes of this post I will keep to Autism and ADHD as a primary focus for Neurodiversity. I know it’s so much broader than this and future posts may touch on the more unseen corners of the world of diverse brains. 

Neurodiversity poses specific challenges when it comes to awareness of our physical bodies. Sensory overwhelm is a significant factor in autistic and ADHD burnout and can be a particular problem for people who are undiagnosed or sub-clinical.

If you don’t know why you are overwhelmed the how can you take steps to reduce it?

Sensory stimuli come thick and fast for the neurodivergent brain.

Imagine for a moment you are driving, the traffic is heavy and building in the evening rush hour, it’s raining hard, the light is fading as the sun begins to set. Because of the light conditions some people have headlights on, some don’t, they are all at different levels of brightness. Then something shocking comes on the radio, then the children start to fight in the back of the car. It’s a scene I’m sure that is familiar to many people.

At some point in that scenario the amount of information we need to process will outstrip our capacity. That is true for all of us. Even more so if we are sleep deprived, stressed about something or haven’t eaten.

For some people with neurodivergence this is not a one off difficult day. It is how it always is. A constant stream of information which is overwhelming and impossible to process all at once.

It’s exhausting.

And it’s really important we take steps to reduce the overwhelm and to do this we need to know ourselves, to know what impacts us and to know how we can support ourselves and what help we need to ask for.

Sensory overwhelm is a significant factor in autistic and ADHD burnout (Neff, 2025). If we don’t do something to support ourselves to reduce the amount of incoming sensory information, our defence mechanisms kick in and we cut off from the experience.

Emotionally and mentally we go somewhere else. The body is experiencing the overload as threat which we cannot escape from and checking out.

Leaving a secondary problem in its wake. Now we are out of touch with our bodies and are more likely to not notice we are overwhelmed until it is beyond critical that we act. It also means we are less likely to have eaten or slept well, vastly reducing the available capacity. It is the beginning of the cycle of burnout.

We can add to this already challenging pot of circumstance several other factors. Many neurodiverse people are particularly sensitive to one form of stimulus (eg sound or light, or texture), many struggle with sleep, anxiety, depression, and executive function.

All these factors can multiply on top of one another and mean that we walk blindly into burnout and wonder how we have landed here. To add to the complexity everybody is different, can tolerate different levels of stimulation and different at different times in their lives, hormones being a significant factor for women.

It can be frightening when we don’t understand how the cycle works or what we need to do to get back to OK.

Sensory overload can manifest differently for each person, and being attuned to our specific signs of sensory overload is key to understanding how to intervene to get back to OK. (Neff, 2025).

If you are diagnosed with Autism or ADHD, you love someone who is, or you suspect you may have traits which would not qualify for a diagnosis, there are things you can do to support yourself with issues of sensory overload. These are taken from Megan Ann Neff’s excellent website and blog Neurodivergent Insights. If you’ve not come across her yet there is lots to explore.

Know the signs, your signs specifically, you may need the help of the people around you or a professional to figure this out.

Learn what you need to live in harmony with the reality if this is your life, don’t try to move the mountain, find ways to live with it in your back yard.

Acknowledge your limits and how you feel about that. If we don’t work through how we feel about it we will ignore it once again.

Explore gently reconnecting with your body to get the information you need and break the burnout cycle. You might need some support with this. We shut down for a very good reason.

Identify what triggers the overwhelm and what soothes it.

Then build a life and environment that supports you to stay OK. Including down time, helpful technology and support at work/school. These look different for everyone.

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