Overthinking: 5 tips to overcome it

Overthinking, we all say we do it every now and then. So, what is overthinking and when does it become a problem? As I mentioned in my post about negative habits that keep you down, when you are in an endless loop of thoughts and almost feel paralysed, you are overthinking. Some people casually refer to this as analysis paralysis. When you can’t break the cycle of thoughts and make a decision, you know you are overthinking. While it may be okay if it’s limited to a certain topic or situation, it’s concerning if we tend to do it often and in almost all situations.

Types of overthinking

Some researchers define overthinking in 3 categories.

1. All or nothing thinking

This type of overthinking is when you look at a situation only in black and white terms. If the situation can turn into a complete success or a total disaster.

2. Catastrophizing

Considering one failure will lead to more failures and result in ultimate fiasco.

3. Over-generalizing

Assuming certain events will always or never happen. Taking a past event experience to always overthink all future events.

How does it affect us?

When we overthink, we can hardly focus on anything else. We often fixate on things that are outside of our control. Repeatedly focusing on negative thoughts. While overthinking is not an illness, it has a bidirectional relationship with mental health issues. Stressful events, anxiety can lead to overthinking and then this can contribute to several serious physical and mental issues:

• Stress
• Depression
• Anxiety disorder
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Social Anxiety Disorder

My tips to overcome overthinking

I’ve dealt with overthinking for quite a while. I would often ruminate about the future and my past experiences would constantly haunt me. I’d be terrified to plan, to make decisions considering all the possible scenarios. (All 735 millions of them!) 🙁 Not able to break the cycle and make decisions would cause me more stress and trap me into a panic attack situation.

So, what did I do about it? Breaking the cycle of overthinking is not easy. There is always more than one cause behind this habit. It could be past events, experiences, relationships, or other factors in our surroundings. For me, it’s been a journey. Looking back, I know it couldn’t have been an overnight success. I’m sharing these five tips that helped me and might be helpful to some of you.

1. Choose to let go

I will start by saying that there comes a time when we say ‘enough is enough.’ I remember feeling something similar. I was over exhausted of thinking about all the possible scenarios. It had taken a toll on my well-being, and I was getting nowhere. Something inside me told me, what’s the worst that could happen? It if might happen, I’m not changing anything by thinking about it anyway. So, LET IT HAPPEN!

Whether you call it letting go of things that were out of my control, or accepting the situations and my limitations as they are, it boils down to the same point. I thought to myself, let’s think about what am I afraid of? My health, financials, relationships, Job, anything else? If it must go bad, despite all my effort (Man! Did I put a lot of effort!) it will. Then, what am I fretting about? Just this one thought was so liberating. The moment I accepted this thought, this possibility, I felt free! Free of a lot of evidently unnecessary burden on my head.

From that moment on, I could focus on the task at hand without any other thoughts bothering me. I became more productive, efficient, and saved a lot of time and energy for myself. Yet, I can’t give complete credit to my will power or to chance. It’s not a new fact for me that we shouldn’t think about things out of our control, Not worry about what others think, yada yada. We all know this! For some reason though, it doesn’t work out just by knowing this. My theory is, we all are wired in a certain way, and we need to go through some situations before we realise some of these ancient wisdom in our lives. 🙂

The most important learning I get from my experience is, that while we are struggling to apply the wisdom to our lives, we know what we should do or not do and yet it seems like an insurmountable skill, that maybe we don’t seem to have. 🙂 We should keep reminding ourselves to take it slow, have faith, and be kind to ourselves. 🙂 It WILL happen. It happens, slowly, ,while we remind ourselves to be kind to ourselves and stay on the path. Our subconscious is chipping away at it. Perhaps, this is the true explanation of, “Time heals everything.”

2. Focus on what I know, and what I can do

As an over-thinker you are constantly analysing millions of scenarios that could happen or might have happened. It’s frustrating to not have control over the situation. However, If you really think about it, all of us have very little control over any situation. Most of the times the only thing we can control is our actions and what and how we think. We cannot really control, what other think or what actions they might take. At the very best we can only guess.

It’s difficult for it to sink in. On the surface it seems like a simple sentence that makes sense. When you understand it and internalize it, it’s liberating. The scope of what you need to focus on becomes very limited and in turn manageable. So, whatever it is you are worried about, stressed about, what’s the next step you can take? That’s all you need to think about in that moment and then actually take that step. When you are driving at night on a lonely unlit road, you can’t see the road that stretches for miles, you can only see a few feet that are lit with your car’s headlights. Sometimes, that’s all you need to see to keep driving on a journey of miles and miles. So, I sit down and just focus on solving the puzzle I have in front of me.

One other thing that helps me avoid distractions is Time Boxing. It’s easy for me to go down the rabbit hole when I am researching about a topic. In the age of internet and social media there’s an endless amount of content that you can surf through, so I put a reasonable timeline to finish my task. Then I work with the timer. It helps me to focus on what’s important and not go in loops on the periphery.

3. Pay attention to my health (Diet, workout, spending time in nature)

I cannot stress the importance of health enough. In this post we’re talking about mental health, however it’s not separate from physical health. At the end of the day, how we feel, what we think also is a result of for a variety of chemical reactions in our body. We are nothing but a complex organism on this earth. Hence, endorphins, cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline, are the hormones that make us feel, happy, sad, afraid, excited, nervous, brave, and so on. There needs to be a healthy balance. In that respect a healthy body breeds a healthy mind and vice versa. It’s really that simple.

Diet and workout

If you pay attention to the demands of your body by feeding it the nutritious diet, right level of carbs, proteins, and other micronutrients, you will see immediate impact on your state of mind. Similarly, a balanced workout for your whole body is important to flex your muscles including your brain. I’ve mentioned this in many of my previous posts, If I am particularly sad, I see an immediate difference in my mood after I finish my workout.

We are one with nature

Lastly, we come from this earth, and we feel more energised and grounded if we keep that connection. This is a big one. In the age of internet and AI, we spend a tremendous amount of time in a virtual world in front of screens. Without realising we spend hours on our devices. Almost every app and interface that we interact with is designed to hit our dopamine levels and keep us hooked. Guess what? They are succeeding. My mom, who has never been a fan of TV for decades and would rather sit alone while my dad is busy on his phone. In 2024, she’s starting to get hooked to YouTube.

I remember years ago when I discovered Youtube, it usually begins with something useful like looking at a recipe, then you find yourself looking at 15 different versions of the same recipe, moving to how potatoes were not native to India, to how carrots were not originally orange but of multiple shades from purple to yellow, then you are watching processed food and health issues, then cancer, now you are stressed about all that is wrong with the world, and have spent three hours on your screen. Now you are too hungry to cook, so you’ll order salad and call it a night.

The point am trying to make here is it’s not just easy to be distracted, it’s natural to get hooked to our screens. On the other hand it takes a lot of effort to avoid it. That says, it’s crucial that we break this cycle. I notice, for whatever reason when I’m doom scrolling for a while, I see my anxiety rises and I become sad without explanation. So, let’s step out into the nature and spend considerable amount of time experiencing the elements and talking to 3-dimensional people as Phoebe put it in FRIENDS. We don’t need to know everything that’s happening at every moment anywhere in the world.

4. Remove yourself from unhealthy situations

We spoke about what’s in our control and how limited that is. Sometimes though we are stuck in a situation, where it’s difficult to break away from distraction or the endless cycle of thoughts. It could be the people around us, it could be work or family or any other situation. It’s important to recognise that the situation is making it impossible for you to stay focused. When you do, it’s time for a break from the situation.

Like everything else we talked about, is it easy? Yes and No. I hate it when people give this response. 🙂 Well, hear me out. I have been stuck in situations when I’m surrounded by people whose way of looking at the world is very different from mine. What adds fuel to the fire is, if they are disrespectful about others’ opinions. It could be very difficult to break away from such a situation, if you depend on these people for some reason, for example, you are a kid and they are your care takers, or it’s your job and you don’t see an immediate option elsewhere. You might even feel responsible for them and for that reason might not want to walk away. That answers why it is difficult.

At some point though, you need to decide that this situation is not healthy, and you need a break from it the moment you can. The moment you make that decision, taking actual action might still be a bit far away. It becomes relatively easy. Especially when we are talking about emotional attachment. It’s not always possible to just up and leave. As long as you recognise you need to at some point, and sooner rather than later.

5. Seek help where I need it

I mention this in the end but it’s certainly not the last option. We all need help. Humans are social animals. We need human connection, we can do it all, but we cannot do it alone. We should seek and welcome help wherever we can find it. Whether it’s our partner, a family member, a friend, or a therapist. I’ve got help and it’s a relief to hear an objective opinion on something from someone who is not connected to you like all other people. Therefore, can be most unbiased about the situation.

There! These are the tips that really helped me control my overthinking. Hopefully you’ll be able to take something from it. What do you do when you find yourself in endless loop of thoughts? I’d love to hear about your thoughts in comments.

Until next time. Ciao!