From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, you’re thinking. Your brain is always on and thinking though current, past, or future events. This can get exhausting, which causes some people to turn to meditation so they can learn to shut their brain off, but for many this is really hard, especially for overthinkers.
What is Overthinking?
It’s hard to tell if you are an overthinker or not because everyone’s brain works differently and processes information differently. That being said, there are still many common signs that imply you are an overthinker. For one, you think about the same things over and over and over. Maybe you had a conversation with your best friend and 20 minutes after you’re done talking, you’re still replaying the conversation in your head and analysing everything each of you said. Most people would think about it maybe once then move on, but overthinkers keep finding new angles to see it and different ways to read between the lines.
This also goes hand in hand with other signs like trying to read minds. Overthinkers tend to look so deep into a conversation that they try to guess what the other person was thinking while they were speaking. The speaker could say “I love ice cream!” simply as an interesting fact about themself, but an overthinker would try to find a deeper meaning in that sentence, even if there is none. They try to imagine what is going on in someone else’s brain, which of course, is nearly impossible.
This impossibility does not stop overthinkers though. One single comment like that can cause an overthinker to lie awake in bed for an hour trying to figure out “what they meant”. They will dwell on past events for hours and will still have more to think about. Maybe they’ve thought through that conversation with their best friend to the point of exhaustion, but then they’ll just start thinking about events that happened a week ago, or a month ago, or even years ago. Extra thought goes into it if the event is embarrassing because, unfortunately, we tend to remember those in clearer detail as it seems that they dragged on forever.
More signs of overthinking include thinking about things that you have no control over, including the future. Overthinkers can think about a future situation forever, even if they can’t change the outcome. For example, they can think about school for hours and obsess over what they’re going to learn in a single class, even though they haven’t arrived at school yet and they cannot change what the lesson will be. They try to come up with different scenarios and possible outcomes, none of which are helpful or going to change anything.
Lastly, one other sign of overthinking is that you spend time thinking about things instead of actually doing them. While overthinkers are thinking about the future, they try to plan out every single detail and work out how every single situation will go and it can take so much time that they never actually get up and do the thing. They can also stress themselves out so that they’re so worked up over the imaginary situation that they are too anxious to actually do it.
Why You Shouldn’t Overthink
As an overthinker myself, I do almost all of the things in the above paragraphs and I can tell you straight out, overthinking is not something that you should do. It’s generally super unhelpful and just makes unnecessary stress and anxiety. It can make you worry about things that didn’t even happen and about things that were totally different than how you’re remembering them. Overthinking can cause you to be really unhappy with yourself because as you’re looking at the situation from every single angle, you find ones that you look really bad in and ones that make you internally cringe. You start thinking “why did I say that” and “I’m so stupid”, along with the million “what ifs” circling around your head; “what if they thought that meant…” or “what if they don’t like me anymore because…”. Overthinking can make you feel awful, but you still continue to do it and find bad things in every good situation.
Overthinking also causes insomnia and trouble falling asleep because you can’t shut your brain up and make it stop thinking about everything. You lie there for hours reliving every bad memory and analysing them so much that you wish you had a switch to just turn off your brain. Overthinking takes a ton of energy, brainpower, and time so it can leave you exhausted all the time, even if you manage to get enough sleep. There is pretty much no benefit at all to overthinking so it’s time to learn about how to stop.
Ways To Stop Overthinking
The first step is to realize when you’re overthinking. Once you’re in the habit, it’s easy to overthink and not even notice that you are. You need to start actively watching your thinking and notice when your thoughts start to spiral. When you start noticing it, you can begin to stop it by redirecting your thoughts to something like a happy memory or by focusing on things like your breathing.
You can also learn to stop overthinking before it happens by simply living in the moment. I know this sounds like a big cliché because everyone tells you “live in the moment!”, but it is actually super effective if you do it properly. I found it really hard to do at first, but then I learned a few tricks to help me stay in the present. For example, I try to notice each of the five senses as in ‘what does it smell like right now’ and ‘what do I see right now’, and so on. This helps me focus on what is happening right then instead of focusing on what has happened in the past.
Another way to stop overthinking is to try to focus on what you actually can do. Instead of worrying and overthinking a certain situation because you accidentally said something mean, you can apologize to them and forgive yourself for messing up. If you’re overthinking a presentation you have to do later at school or work, you can practice the presentation and get to the place early so that you can settle yourself and feel ready. There is almost always something that you can do to stop/reduce your overthinking.
Often, one of these things that you can do is to let go of the past. People tend to remember bad and embarrassing memories, but they just make you feel bad about yourself. You need to learn to accept those mistakes so that you can move on. I know it’s super tempting to just compartmentalize and shove all the bad thoughts in a box in the back of your head, but trust me, they just keep coming back. You need to look through those memories, cringe all the way, but then accept them and let them go so you can stop overthinking them.
Finally, you should spend time with people who make you feel good and who help you make sense of your thoughts. Find people you can talk to about what you’re overthinking so they can help you realize what actually happened and what you’re making seem worse than it was. Having someone to talk to about your thoughts is honestly one of the best ways to stop overthinking because hearing someone else’s point of view and perspective can make you see that it’s never as bad as you think it is.
Key Takeaways
- Overthinking means that you keep thinking about a certain event over and over even though it has passed
- It causes you to spend a ton of time thinking instead of doing
- Overthinking creates a lot of unnecessary stress and unhappiness
- It makes it really hard to shut your brain off and fall asleep/meditate
- You need to pay attention to your thinking so you can stop overthinking everything
- It’s helpful to stay present and focus on what is happening at that moment
- You should learn to let go of bad memories so you can move on and stop overthinking them
- Spend time with people who make you happy and who can help you make sense of your thoughts
- Don’t Overthink It!
Thank you for reading my article on overthinking! I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. Be sure to let me know if any of the tips work for you or if you have any others that are helpful, I’m always up for self-improvement! Also feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or read another one of my articles like this one on getting to know yourself! Thanks!
