How do you stop overthinking everything
Overthinking things can be a challenge, overthinking can sometimes even lead to catroshizing and over analyzing situations. It can feel destructive to your health and your emotional state and leave you feeling worried and anxious all the time. Dealing with overthinking will take a lot of time, patience and persistence. In this article we will go over different ways to deal with overthinking things.
1.)Learning not to Dwell on The Past
Dwelling on the past is one of the biggest contributors into overthinking. We often overthink about our past because something goes unresolved or we wish things could have been different and we wish things were better than what they are now. One of the important things to realize though with this is that we can not change the past and we only can control what’s going on in today’s world and our reality.
- Something that can help you is to remember that just because things didn’t happen the way you wanted in the past doesn’t mean that things could be better in the future. Getting hung up on what happened in the past won’t solve today’s problems.
- It’s also good to note that while getting stuck on the past can be unhealthy you can start to use your mistakes that you made from back then into learning lessons and use it as an ability to grow. Its good to recognize and own up to what happened but you can use the things that happened in the past as a way to grow and learn.
- One other important thing you can do is learn to appreciate who you are today and what you have become. Even though those things weren’t the desired outcome, think about where all these events lead and where they have taken you so far. Sure things might not be perfect or ideal but it has helped shape you into the person you are today.
2.)Recognize When You Spiral
Another reason why we get stuck in our heads is because we can replay a scenario over and over and over again in our heads with no end in sight. We do this because we are either nervous about an upcoming event and imagining the worst case scenario or a past scenario which you wish you could solve or fix. A spiraling thought might look like a lot of repetition of thoughts and here are some ways to stop that cycle:
- A good way to start getting out of your head when your spiraling is journaling all of your thoughts down on paper. Getting them down and written out can help slow down these thoughts and expressions.
- Mediation is another way to help you get out of your head just a little bit more. This method probably is one of the more difficult things to start doing. What I think might be better is practicing meditation while you don’t feel like you’re spiraling so that way you get used to meditation itself. Over time once you learn to clear your mind it can be used as a tool when you feel yourself having thoughts that won’t stop spiraling.
- Working out and doing something highly engaging is an excellent way to distract yourself from these thoughts. Its better to probably do something more intense and something that requires more focus that way your mental focus is put into the workout and not letting your mind continuously wander.
- Watching a TV show or movie is the easiest and lowest effort thing you can do on this is list. However just because its low effort doesn’t mean it will have the same level of effectiveness. If you do this a lot eventually the effect of getting your mind of these spiraling thoughts might not last simply because doing this will become automatic and you wont have to think about that your mind is more likely to stay in this loop or just dig itself deeper. It may work for awhile but doing this over and over again may lose the effectiveness it had at one point in time.
When we make ourselves do things that require more energy and effort this allows our minds to have focus on these things rather than on spiraling thoughts.
3.)Practicing Being in The Present Moment
Being present in the moment can be extremely challenging whether that be worrying about your past failures or mistakes or even how your future will change. There has been plenty times where you might end up going back and forth between the two without realizing you don’t even know or arent even paying the slightest attention to the moment you are currently in.
- Take a break from your phone TV or really any other electronics. This can be one of the most refreshing things you can do to live in the present moment but at the same time the most difficult with how things are set up in this day and age and how many people are addicted to there smartphones. Learning to slowly disconnect and be more present can help you focus on what there is you have to live for now and appreciate whats good about your life rather than comparing yourself to the endless sea of people on social media. Not only that but it will allow you to be more open to trying different things and enjoying the moment more often.
- Spending time in nature. Going outside and spending time in nature might be difficult for you but doing so will allow you to have a breather from life and enjoy what there is around you. It is a great way to relax and help you unwind.
4.)Learn to Be Easy on Yourself
Sometimes when we are overthinking we beat ourselves up for thinking these thoughts, and wanting different and wanting better. We treat ourselves harshly telling ourselves that i wish i could have done better or telling ourselves that we are stupid. Practicing and learning how to be self compassionate is difficult but can be a big way into dealing with overthinking and being fixated on our negative thoughts.
- Learning to accept we make mistakes and that its part of being human. No one can be perfect and making mistakes can be a way we can learn and grow as people. An interesting way to frame this is asking yourself would you be mad or more forgiving if a friend did this or had this happen to them. By giving yourself that kind of framing most of the time you see that you probably wouldn’t be as harsh on them as you are on yourself with these thoughts. You probably would be more likely to forgive, let go and move on.
- Acknowledging negative thoughts is another important tool you can use. Sometimes instead of simply allowing yourself to have that thought we criticize ourselves harshly for it instead of just sitting with that thought.
- If thoughts keeping stewing aggressively and you cant seem to slow them down another thing that can help is reaching out to a close friend and talking to them about it. This not only helps you get outside of your head but gain a different perspective on the matter which is useful tool that can help you be more forgiving on yourself as well as letting go of your negative thought patterns.
5.)Take Time to Reflect
Sometimes one of the easier things to do is one of the harder things for us to do is. Reflection is a useful thing we can do instead of letting our thoughts overwhelm us taking time to reflect can help us process through some of that. If you can set up time to meditate or just let yourself think through this rather than letting yourself fester you might be able to see some of the issues your dealing with in a more relax manner rather then feeling charged and freaked out about these things. Making a little time to practice some sort of mindfulness to either reflect about the day or the week can help you process things more easily rather than get hung up on whats bothering you the most.
In Summary: Overthinking things can be extremely challenging and takes a lot of effort. But if we can learn to be present more and recognize when these thoughts are occurring and what triggers them we can start gradually working through them. These tools won’t solve your problems overnight and will take lots of practice and awareness to do so. Overthinking is something that will always take work but things like reflecting each day can help make it easier to process through those thoughts too. Its important during overthinking when it occurs though is to go easy on yourself and not beat yourself up over it because that will only spiral something harder to deal with.