What Every Stressed Out Person Needs to Hear | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Under stress, people tend to overfunction or underfunction

  Mel draws on psychologist Harriet Lerner, who coined the terms. Overfunctioners jump into first-responder mode: helping, directing and taking over. Underfunctioners slow down, go quiet and gather information, or at worst freeze and wait to be told what to do. Mel overfunctions and her husband Chris underfunctions. Neither is good or bad, and the goal is to notice which one is your default.

• 02

  Overfunctioning is a superpower with a cost

  Mel says it lets her think 20 to 25 steps ahead. But her internal 'five-alarm fire drill' makes her lose rational thinking, trample other people's ability to handle things, burn herself out and stress everyone around her.

• 03

  The same event can set off very different alarms

  On a zero-to-ten scale, their son's breakdown was an eight for Mel and a three or four for Chris. That gap is the start of the friction: each feels the other's response doesn't fit the situation.

• 04

  Resentment builds on both sides

  Lerner's research, as Mel describes it, finds that overfunctioners resent slower partners because they feel they're carrying the alarm alone and read slowness as not caring. Chris adds that being bulldozed leaves him feeling bullied and mistrusted, as if he isn't problem-solving when he is, just quietly. Over time he started assuming Mel would handle everything anyway.

• 05

  Underfunctioning isn't doing nothing

  Chris says he's always thinking about solutions. He just gathers information before deciding, and under real stress his focus narrows and he goes a bit numb. Mel ends by apologising that his hard thinking and worry never get credit.

• 06

  Underfunctioners need to learn to step up

  Mel says that if your default is to freeze, feel helpless and second-guess yourself, the work is learning to advocate for yourself and problem-solve while the alarm is going off. Sawyer, she says, learned from her ER day about underfunctioning, pushing people away, and the value of asking for help.

• 07

  Functioning under stress comes down to three abilities

  Per the research Mel cites, how well you function under stress depends on your ability to make decisions, act on them and handle emotion. An overfunctioner's anxiety pushes them to act before deciding well. An underfunctioner may decide well but act or speak too slowly for the people around them.

• 08

  Lerner's advice: 'hang in'

  Hanging in means stopping yourself from doing what you normally do. Overfunctioners should hold their tongue and say about 50% less, or as Mel puts it, 75% less. Underfunctioners shouldn't disappear into silence: say out loud that you're processing, because silence can feel like abandonment to an overfunctioning partner.

• 09

  Ask the overfunctioner, 'What are you scared of right now?'

  Mel says that question would reach the emotion behind the barking orders and help her see when a fear doesn't fit the facts. In this case it was a kid whose car broke down four blocks from school, with adults already helping. Chris says it might also help him meet the fear and not just the logistics.

• 10

  Give the underfunctioner a short script

  Mel asks Chris to say something like 'I need a sec, I'm processing, I'll handle it,' preferably without swearing at her. Chris suggests Mel can keep talking, just in a more organised, less tornado-like way, so they work as a team.