How to Stop Overthinking
What is overthinking? Is it really such a bad thing? Or could there be something useful in it?
During a philosophy lecture at university the lecturer asked us students – if we had the choice, who would we rather be for the rest of our lives? He gave us two options to choose from: Socrates, with a mind constantly questioning things or… a clam, blissfully unaware at the bottom of the ocean swaying with the tides and in a state of peace for the rest of our life.
Whether the lecturer was biologically correct about a clam experiencing life as enjoyable or not wasn’t relevant. He wanted us to contemplate whether we prefer the idea of a life with guaranteed mental stress from a high amount of thinking or whether we would prefer to forego all thinking entirely and gain lifelong bliss instead.
It was a no-brainer for me. I chose Socrates. Thinking about stuff in great detail and asking the big questions was part of my personality and something I deeply valued.
When a number of years later I noticed the term ‘overthinking’ being used more and more, I was confused to hear thinking referred to in this negative way. I cherish thinking and analysing so much that my gut reaction is that you can’t think ‘too much’ or overdo it. After all, it was only because of an intense amount of thinking that life-changing inventions have been discovered and produced. Any scientist who uncovered a great mystery likely also had to think the topic over again and again, coming back to the many ‘what ifs’ and revisiting previously dismissed theories to go over them again in minute detail. The point I’m trying to make is that thinking in itself is a powerful resource we have within us and can be an incredibly powerful tool… if we use it effectively.
And that’s the key difference between useful analytical thinking versus overthinking. Ask yourself, “Is this way of thinking helping me get where I want in my thoughts and emotional state or is it doing the opposite – taking me into a negative spiral where I feel out of control and emotionally worse off?”
When people seek help for overthinking with me I often notice three things:
1. There is a pattern of rumination on a negative thought/s that go unchallenged.
2. The positive intention hasn’t been identified and connected with.
3. And finally, part of the thinking includes negative what-ifs and catastrophising.
To stop the cycle of negative thoughts, there are some simple things you can do to redirect your thinking towards new helpful patterns.
First, get the thoughts out of your head and onto paper. Literally write down the thoughts using pen and paper because it will help slow things down and increase your focus. Don’t worry about proper sentence structure, grammar, spelling or anything like that. You just want to write freely and imagine letting the words flow from your mind to the paper. Think of it as doing a brain dump.
Why is this effective? When someone is overthinking, there is a tendency to keep looping the same thoughts again and again. When writing thoughts down, the looping seems to lessen and after writing down the core thoughts a number of times eventually you reach a moment of thinking “what else?” In order to continue writing, your thinking progresses to new thoughts you might not have otherwise reached.
Writing things down can also be a good moment to challenge the unhelpful thoughts. You can do this by rereading what you’ve written, noticing any statements you’ve written as if they are facts and then writing a more objective, possible reality. Here are a couple of examples: “Everyone hates me” could be challenged with “Hannah told me she didn’t like what I did at the party and Zoe is giving me the silent treatment, but my Mum, Dad, brother, Sam, and Zac have all been friendly still and all the other people in my life are also still acting like normal”. Here’s another example, “The fact he hasn’t written back yet means he’s not interested and if only I hadn’t sent him that last text everything would be fine. It’s all messed up now and it’s my fault.” This we could challenge with: “I meant what I wrote and it was important that I told him. It’s been half a day since he last wrote. He could be busy or he might be thinking about his response. And it’s important to me to have a boyfriend who understands this about me, so it will be interesting to see how he responds once he answers.” Do you see how to challenge the thoughts? Essentially, you’re wanting just to loosen up the story you’ve been telling yourself and give yourself a bit of a reality check.
Finding the positive intention is something I find really helps when I feel like a thought is unhelpful or distressing. It can be as easy as asking yourself: “If my subconscious is ultimately wanting to help me by thinking these thoughts, what positive thing is it trying to do?” You might realise it’s trying to keep you safe, or make sure you are prepared for something important, or to look after a friendship you cherish. Sometimes finding a positive intention doesn’t come instantly, so take some time to reflect on the question. Once you’ve identified a positive intention, it can make things a lot easier to work out some action you can take that aligns with what you ultimately want.
Sometimes our brains just get really skilled at thinking a certain way. A negative thought pattern like asking ourselves “What-if?” and then coming up with numerous worst case scenarios might be a habit you’ve simply got into. If you’re particularly skilled in this creative thinking pattern, you can learn to flip it on its head. Start asking yourself positive what-ifs, like “What if I am early to my new job all this week and my boss sees me as a reliable employee?” or “What if this argument actually brings us closer because we were really honest with each other about what we want” or “What if a solution is just around the corner and looking back in a few years I’ll wonder why I was so stressed about this.” Get the drift? You don’t even have to restrict yourself to reality: “What if I arrive and they say I’m their 100th customer and it’s lucky I was late because that means they can sneak me backstage to watch the show”. Again, the aim is to loosen up the thinking and bring more play into it which then also reduces the stress. The stories we tell ourselves in our heads are sometimes completely made up anyway so we might as well make them enjoyable stories!
Finally, a word on how exhausting overthinking can be. Sometimes what’s needed is just a break from it all. It’s a legitimate choice to step away from trying to work something out in your head and giving your mind and body a rest. Go for a walk, put on some music, dance and sing along. Go outside and pull up some weeds, play a game, give yourself a massage with something that smells nice, or sink into a good book or movie. Do what works for you to relax, switch off or switch over to another task. Often making a conscious decision to do something else can be the break we need to return to the topic later refreshed and with new ideas.
What about you? What do you find has worked in the past when you’ve found yourself overthinking and caught in a loop of unhelpful thoughts? We’re all unique so it can be useful to write down the techniques that have worked for us in the past as well as trying out new ones and then over time you build up a toolbox of techniques that you can choose from. I hope that gives you some new ways to approach overthinking in the future.
If you ever want to explore these topics more in relation to your life and how you want to live it, then send us a message.
Warm regards,
Maree