Overthinking: How to get out of the trap of overthinking?

Sound familiar? Then it sounds like overthinking is your discipline too. How do we stop this overthinking and turn our brains off before we serve ourselves anxiety? Our mental health experts advise.

What is overthinking

Overthinking is like a thought marathon, where you keep running (thinking) but you don't get anywhere. Your head offers you hundreds of different scenarios of how things can go wrong, even though 99.9% of the time none of them happen. For every situation and event in life, it throws a thousand different perspectives at you, and 999 of them are negative and stressful. It will dissect every decision you make into its smallest parts and start to question it. Eventually, the thoughts will completely exhaust you without any solution coming out of them.

You may feel like the only person in the world who is still staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m. with an uninterrupted stream of thoughts. But you're not, not by a long shot. According to the study, there are a lot of us chronic overthinkers. Among people between the ages of 25 and 35, a full 73%.

Is overthinking a psychological diagnosis?

Not on its own, but it often goes hand in hand with anxiety or depression. That doesn't mean at all that as an overthinker you have to have any of these diagnoses.

Overthinking is a thought pattern. Overanalyzing gets you into a spiral where negative thoughts intensify and stress and anxiety grow with them. These can grow into a real problem in the long run. But it's never too late to do something about it.

It's time to stop overthinking

It's not just that your head is a little busier. Overthinking complicates your life on several levels:

• Decreases mental and physical health – The effects of stress and anxiety on our health probably don't need to be mentioned, do they?
• Complicates relationships – in relationships, overthinking is a real problem. It forces us to analyze every interaction and then either avoid confrontations and revel within, or instead solve problems that don't even exist. In short, to create tension. Fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, on the other hand, can also isolate us socially.
• It limits us at work – we put off important decisions because we endlessly analyze them. This leads to procrastination and low productivity. Overthinking also exhausts us, and is a reliable contributor to burnout.
• Keeping us stagnant – every new step into the unknown is a challenge for our minds. In the end, out of fear, we often do nothing and stay where we are. In an apartment that doesn't work for us, in a relationship that's been giving us nothing for a long time, in a job where we're not progressing.

Now let's skip analyzing how many things in our lives could be different if we didn't have to think about everything endlessly.:-) We'd better look at the solution.

How to finally turn off your brain and stop thinking

Our therapists recommend these 7 steps.

1. Write your thoughts on paper

If you find yourself replaying your thoughts over and over, take a piece of paper and write them down. Once they're out there in black and white, you'll often find they're not so scary. Plus, it will be easier to find a solution or decide what's really important.

2. Focus on what you can control

Overthinking arises from the feeling that we want to be in control. Think about what you can actually control. What you can't control, try to just let go. You can't do anything about it, so there's no point in overthinking it endlessly. Think of it like a balloon that you're letting go into the sky. When you let it go, relief washes over you.

3. Realize that thoughts are not facts

All those catastrophic scenarios are often not based on reality at all. Ideas are not facts, they are just products of your mind. When you look at them from that angle, it's easier not to take them so seriously.

4. There is no perfect decision

We often overthink because we want to make the best decision. But there is no perfect decision. All options have their pros and cons, and we can never know for sure how things will turn out. Sometimes it's better to make a "good enough" decision and move on. Mistakes are a part of life and cannot be 100% avoided.

5. Find an activity in which you are mindful

When you find yourself in the prison of your own thoughts, go do something that can fully catch your attention. Something that makes you forget about time. For some it's sports, for others it's video games, painting, or even cooking. Ideally, something that requires your full attention so that your thoughts don't have space.

6. Make a plan and stick to it

When you have a challenging task or decision to make, create a clear plan for how to handle it and stick to it. Break larger tasks into small steps and focus on just one at a time. This will help you avoid becoming overwhelmed.

7. Practice mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness helps you to come back to the present and stop the flow of thoughts. Try a simple meditation – sit in a quiet place, focus on your breath and watch it come and go. When you lose focus, come back to the breath again.

Talk to someone

Don't let it consume you. Sometimes you just need to have a chat with a friend, colleague or sister to get a new perspective. Often, you'll also find that it's not as bad as it seemed.

If you want to put an end to overthinking once and for all, psychotherapy can definitely help. The therapist will never be overwhelmed by your thoughts and will always listen to you patiently. Therapists will also show you concrete ways to get out of your head and stop overthinking.

At Hedepy, you can choose from over XY certified therapists and book an online session in the next few days. Learn how online therapy works.

Or take a 5-minute test and we will recommend the three most suitable therapists for you. The right therapist is the key to success.