JOANNA JOUSTRA
Notice before reaction takes over.
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Practical skills to help you calm your system when overthinking, overwhelm or tension builds—so you can think clearly, respond with care and stay connected.
Knowing what helps isn’t always enough.
You may know that you overthink, that uncertainty keeps your mind working long after there is anything useful left to solve, or that pressure can leave you overwhelmed, defensive, sharp or withdrawn. You may have spent years making sense of your patterns and still find that, when the moment is heated, understanding does not arrive quickly enough to change what happens next.
Predictive processing offers us another way to approach this. It explores how past experience, expectations and bodily state help shape what we notice, feel and do—before we consciously recognise the reaction forming.
The Noticing Way draws on this understanding to offer small, repeatable skills you can practise using within those moments. Rather than needing to analyse or fully understand your reaction first, you learn to work with the experience as it unfolds, while there is still room to influence what happens next.
When thinking harder adds to the load.
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- You replay conversations, trying to work out what someone meant or what you should have said.
- You rehearse tomorrow’s difficulties, but still don’t feel prepared.
- You keep searching for an answer, even when you’re tired and going over the same ground.
- You find it difficult to be present with other people because your mind is still working through everything else.
These efforts may begin as ways to understand, prepare or find reassurance. But when they keep circling without bringing resolution, the thinking meant to help can become another demand.
Learn what to do, not just why it happens.
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The Noticing Way brings together an understandable explanation of how your mind works and practical skills you can use in ordinary situations. Informed by contemporary psychology and predictive processing, it explores how past experience and expectations help shape what you notice, feel and do.
You’ll practise recognising the first signs of a familiar response, then making small adjustments to your attention and how you meet the moment. This isn’t about arguing with your thoughts or forcing a positive interpretation. It is about learning to take in more of what is happening before the first reaction decides what comes next.
The learning extends beyond managing pressure. It includes meeting yourself with less criticism, recognising what you need, setting boundaries and making choices that reflect what matters to you — alongside listening, speaking honestly and reconnecting when relationships become difficult.
EXPLORE THE NOTICING WAYTHE PRACTICAL WAY IN
Where noticing begins.
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The first step is learning to recognise what is happening while there is still room to respond differently.
Notice earlier.
Recognise shifts in body, mood, attention and thinking that offer clues about what is happening within you and what you may be bringing into the situation.
Create more room.
Learn to adjust attention, loosen the grip of familiar interpretations and allow more of the present situation back into view.
Respond with greater care.
Use the space you create to bring more awareness, responsibility and choice to what happens within you, with others and between you.
“Joanna's work is filled with the kindness, wisdom and helpfulness we so need in these noisy days.”
Rick Hanson, New York Times bestselling author of Resilient.
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Choose how you’d like to begin.
01
BOOKS
An accessible introduction to the ideas behind The Noticing Way, exploring how experience is shaped and how noticing earlier can create more room for awareness, care, choice and connection.
02
COURSES
Explore practical learning designed to help you notice earlier, understand what happens when minds become overextended and respond more skilfully within yourself, with others and at work.
03
EVENTS
Explore practical learning designed to help you notice earlier, understand what happens when minds become overextended, and respond more skilfully within yourself, with others and at work.
FREE WORKBOOK FOR OVERTHINKERS
Before Reaction Takes Over
A practical guide to noticing earlier
A short workbook to help you recognise the small shifts that happen before overthinking, overwhelm or familiar reactions gather momentum.
Learn what to look for, try simple ways to create more room in the moment, and use a five-day noticing experiment to begin recognising your own patterns earlier.
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Explore The Noticing Way.
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Ready to move beyond familiar habits of mind?
Learn more about the six-step process for noticing what is happening, creating more room in the moment, and responding with greater awareness, care and choice.
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