For Overthinkers
How To Break The Habit of Overthinking
To have an active mind, a strong inner chatter, and to be prone to the habit of overthinking, is now so common that we rarely stop to question it.
Sometimes it’s almost seen as a quality, people self-describe themselves as overthinkers as if this meant that they are smarter, or deep thinkers.
In fact, it’s the opposite; the more you overthink, the less likely you are to have the mental space and capacity for deep thinking, and profound intellectual insights. The fast inner chatter operates on a surface level, going through petty everyday worries, whereas the deep philosophical reflections come from a place of calm.
Overthinking not only perturbs your inner peace, can prevent you from sleeping, can disrupt conversations (because of lack of presence), and also somewhat reduces creativity, innovation and deep thinking.
Overthinking Habit
Overthinking is habit, it’s a pattern, it’s something we have unconsciously trained our brains to do. And it’s something we can change.
Overthinking can make small decisions feel impossible, and lead to analysis paralysis, procrastination and feeling stuck.
Whether you can it overthinking, worrying, rumination, obsession, it’s all similar: a looping of the same thoughts over & over again with no way out and no solution.
The brain is trying to protect us, either through looking for a solution, or not letting us feel the fear, or take action. The overthinking is a protective mechanism but it often gets in the way of us taking meaningful action.
How to Know If You’re Overthinking
Some signs of overthinking include:
Repeated thoughts
Keeping coming to the same thoughts
Not able to fully relax
Not being fully present in conversations
Struggling to fall asleep
Waking up not feeling rested
Being jumpy, nerves on edge
Emotional outbursts
Feeling on edge, worried, anxisous
Fixating on things that are not in your control
Feeling drained and exhausted
Doubting your choices and decisions
Reviewing the same situations over & over again
Imagining worse case scenarios
Having many negative thoughts
Reducing Overthinking
You can change overthinking by retraining your brain to slow down, be more present, not get caught up in overthinking loops, catching your thoughts…
Meta Attention
Meta attention is the ability to notice your own attention, i.e. to notice your own thoughts, and how you focus.
You train your meta attention when you meditate. Through a regular practise of meditation, you become more aware of your attention, your thoughts and you become better at catching your thoughts and re-directing them.
Meditation is one of the best tools to stop overthinking. By training your attention, and becoming so much more aware of your thoughts, you are able to slow down your racing mind, your thoughts, and catch the habitual loops you get caught into.
Thought Selection
Mo Gawdat, in his book ‘That Little Voice in Your Head’, says that he requires of his brain only 2 types of thoughts: Useful or Joyful.
If a thought comes through that is neither useful nor joyful, he thanks his brain and asks it to give him a better thought.
This is Jedi Master level of thinking. As you train your brain to give you useful or joyful thoughts, you become better at selecting your thoughts, dismissing the thoughts that don’t serve you, and quiet that inner chatter. We have a lot more power over our own thoughts than we realise.
Brain Meeting
In the book ‘Unstressable’, the authors (Mo Gawdat & Alice Law) recommend having an appointment with your brain. Listening to all it has to say, taking a few notes, and then something quite astounding happens. The brain slows down and after a while it runs out of steam.
The way I have been practising this is through vocal messages. This is similar to journaling but through speaking. I leave myself a 10-20 minute vocal message to go through certain key thoughts, ideas, emotions… and afterwards, my mind is calmer, my thoughts slow down, because all the main things on my mind has been addressed.
Mind & Body
The mind & body are so intrinsically connected that it’s no surprise that if you can calm your body, it will also calm your mind.
Hormetic stressors, such as exercising & cold exposure, initially expose the body to greater stress & cortisol, but then the body regulates and gives you that nice dose of endorphins and you feel calmer. The mind then slows down, because your body is calmer.
This is my go-to strategy for my racing mind, even more than meditation. A walk, being in movement, and calming down my body does wonders for the mind.
Brief Distractions
I am not the biggest fan of distracting ourselves when we are preoccupied, or ruminating. Distractions, such as social media, scrolling, are rarely useful (mostly because they add more mental noise).
However, being engulfed in a great conversation with a friend (about another topic than the one preoccupying you), watching a wonderful film, being absorbed in a novel are all healthy distractions.
Sometimes, the mind needs some space to process all the information, and brief distractions can help to calm down the mind, and afterwards you might find that you are better able to deal with the inner chatter.
Presence
Greater presence is both a consequence of a calmer mind, and can lead to calm. It’s a virtuous circle.
To increase presence, regularly bring your attention back to the current moment. Notice your 5 senses. Ask yourself what are you currently focusing on, what are you noticing around you. Place your attention on your breathing, on your emotions. Pay attention to your own thoughts, and actions.
Mindfulness is a practise. The more often you train yourself to come back to the present moment, the better you will be at being present: with yourself, with your surroundings, with other people…
Stop Accelerators
A few things are guaranteed to accelerate your mind. Being aware of these accelerators is a great help with calming down the mind.
Some ‘Mind Accelerators’ (gets the mind spinning, faster, and more agitated): xConsumption of caffeine, alcohol, sugar: all these cause body inflammation, and if that body is inflamed, so is the mind.
Sleep deprivation: lack of sleep makes the mind jittery, and incoherent.
Multi-tasking: doing too many things at once leads to greater levels of cortisol in the body, and makes the mind agitated.
Disturbing stimuli: want a racing mind? Watch a horror film, read something terrible on the internet, watch the news… All of these create disturbing stimuli for the brain, and causes overthinking. Less upsetting stimuli, less material for the mind to process.
Doom-scrolling: the more information you have to take in, the more the mind will spin. The speed at which we scroll and absorb information is far too much for the mind to process…
Chase bigger challenges
The mind loves to stick at small daily troubles and obsess about them. This causes greater rumination and is rarely productive. A great way out: find a challenging bigger problem (in business…) and ask your brain to solve that. What happens is all the daily small stuff dissipates as all the attention is focused on solving a bigger problem.
Dopamine tech detox
Too much stimuli, too much input leads to an agitated mind. Just taking one or two days with no tech, no phone, no PC can do wanders for calming down the brain.
And if you combine it with time in nature, that’s a bonus!
Challenge negative thoughts
When the mind jumps into catastrophising, or negative thoughts & beliefs, don’t just take it in, challenge it. ‘When was a time that this wasn’t true?’, ‘What could be another scenario?’, ‘What’s another option?’…
Understand the story
Very often, the rumination is caused by a background story. There is a fear, a thought, something in the back of our mind that is causing the rumination.
Once you’re able to identify that story, to question it, and to deal with it, the overthinking slows down.
Solution Focused
Being stuck in our own thoughts is not a very comfortable place to be. Physical movement can help us to break through these loops, but also actions related to what is preoccupying us. The moment we do something about it, the mind calms down as it’s being dealt with.
We want to shift from ‘overthinking’ to ‘solution focused’. Overthinking emphasises the problem over & over again. Solution focused addresses the actions that can be taken. It’s how you shift from victim of a situation to ownership of the situation.
Last Thoughts
Though overthinking can happen to all of us at different moments in our life, some of us are more prone to it. If it’s linked to depression, anxiety or PTSD, please consult a professional to discuss this further.
If it’s something that happens to you at random moments that you want to work through then some of the tips above can support you in calming & quieting your mind.
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie