When Everything Is Too Loud
For the point in a day when the noise, the light and the people are more than you can take. It cuts one input at a time, gets the ears and the lights down, asks the room for ten minutes, and returns you to one job rather than the list.
Overstimulation · Grounding · Stress · 8 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Cut one input before you fix anything — the radio off is faster than tidying the room.
- Put something over your ears for ten minutes — earplugs, or headphones with nothing playing.
- Turn the overhead light down to one lamp — bright light carries more than people notice.
- Get the tag, the waistband or the shoes off — the body cannot hear you over an itch.
- Go to the smallest room in the house — less space often means less coming at you.
- Say out loud that you need ten minutes — nobody can read this from the outside.
- Put one hand on something cool — a sink, a wall, a glass; one steady signal helps.
- Come back to one thing, not the list — the room can stay noisy while you do one job.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.