How do you reduce mental (executive) overload?

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Hello, Friends,

I regularly feel overwhelmed by mental tasks such as reading, writing, scheduling my activities, and rehearsing for social interactions. I refer to this feeling as mental overload. When mentally overloaded, I want to cry out, “I never wanted to do all these things [mental tasks]!”; then, I seek to escape the mental tasks by “running away” on a solitary hike in nature.

Relative to neurotypicals, I seem to become mentally overloaded more easily: for example, simply keeping up with the emails and phone calls for my caregiving job can cause me to shut down. To illustrate further, when I was completing my bachelor’s degree online, I could only handle one class at a time; in contrast, neurotypical students would typically take 3 or more classes.

I believe my susceptibility to mental overload results from my autism. Autistic author and blogger Cynthia Kim explains that autistic people have less executive function, a broad cognitive ability that “helps us to regulate, control, and manage our thoughts and actions” (2015, p. 163). Based on this definition, whenever I write emails, rehearse what I will say to a friend, or plan my day, I am using up my limited autistic executive function.

So, I have two questions for readers:
1.) Do you experience mental overload in your everyday activities?
2.) How do you prevent or manage your mental overload?

Thank you!

Reference
Kim, Cynthia. (2015). Nerdy, shy, and socially inappropriate: A user guide to an Asperger life.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Why don't you make these calls and emails at a couple of appointed times each day and then have a couple of actual, written out scripts for them? Most social things go about the same way, don't they?

[Greeting]
Version One: I got your [email/voicemail] about [issue]
Version Two: Hey could we go over [issue] when you get a chance?
[Suggestion from you one]
[Or suggestion from you two]
You can reach me back at [whatever]
[end salutation]

I mean, really...if you break it down, social interactions can be kind of mechanical. There isn't as much variation as it seems.

And maybe just don't ever answer the phone when it rings. You do the calling and you decide when to email back.

It's fine to take control of this aspect that is hard for you and chop it up into easier pieces.

I found it useful to engage in an activity which would totally engage my thinking. In school that was playing chess. Every Tuesday evening in college I'd play chess, even though I wasn't good enough to win many games.lk

Now I play golf.