A breaker that trips is doing its job. It is a switch designed to open before the wire behind your wall gets hot enough to matter. So the useful question is never how do I stop it tripping, it is what is it protecting me from.
There are only three real answers, and telling them apart takes about two minutes once you know what to look for.
Overload: it trips after a delay
If the breaker holds for a while and then trips once the dryer, the AC or the kettle has been running, that is a thermal trip. The circuit is carrying more current than it is rated for, and the bimetal strip inside the breaker slowly bends until it releases.
Overloads are a capacity problem, not a fault. The fix is either moving a heavy appliance to its own dedicated circuit, or adding capacity. In Hawaii this shows up constantly as households add mini splits and induction cooktops to services that were sized in the 1970s for a fridge, a TV and a window fan.
A common Oahu example: a kitchen where the microwave and the rice cooker share a 15 amp circuit with the fridge. Nothing is broken. There is simply not enough circuit to go around.
Short circuit or ground fault: it trips instantly
If you push the breaker to the on position and it snaps back immediately, every time, with nothing plugged in, that is a fault. A hot conductor is touching a neutral, a ground, or the metal box. Current takes the shortcut and the magnetic element in the breaker opens in milliseconds.
This one does not wait. A fault means damaged insulation somewhere, and damaged insulation does not heal. Common causes in island homes are rodent-chewed cable in a crawl space, a nail or screw driven through a cable during a renovation, water ingress into an outdoor box, and old cloth-sheathed wiring that has gone brittle.
If the breaker trips instantly and you also smell anything warm or see discolouration around an outlet, stop resetting it and call (888) 633-7804.
The breaker itself has failed
Breakers are mechanical devices and they age. One that has tripped hundreds of times, or one that has been sitting in a humid coastal panel for thirty years, can start tripping at well below its rated current.
This is the least common of the three, which matters, because replacing a breaker is the first thing people try. If the breaker is genuinely weak, replacing it fixes the problem permanently. If it is not, replacing it just removes the warning light from the dashboard.
Why Hawaii panels fail early
Salt air and humidity get into panels through the knockouts, the meter can and the service entrance. Aluminium lugs oxidise, connections loosen, and loose connections generate heat. Heat is what eventually shows up as a breaker that trips under load, a warm panel cover, or the faint smell of hot plastic.
If you live within a couple of miles of the shoreline, it is worth having the panel opened and the terminations checked and torqued every few years. It is a short visit and it catches the problem while it is still cheap.
What to do right now
Unplug everything on the affected circuit, reset the breaker once, and watch what happens. Holds with nothing connected, then trips when you plug something in? You have found the appliance. Trips instantly with nothing connected? You have a fault in the wiring and it needs tracing.
Do not wedge, tape or upsize a breaker to make it hold. Putting a 20 amp breaker on 14 gauge wire removes the protection the wire depends on.