If your mind is always wondering what if or constantly ruminating on the past, then your brain might be overthinking things and causing you extra stress. Overthinking isn’t uncommon. It’s something I face in my own life sometimes. And I’ve fallen victim to those late nights or replaying things in my mind over and over again. When I get stuck in the rut of overthinking. I have to remind myself that I’m overthinking things and move forward by creating solutions instead of analyzing every little thing and feeling stuck. The way we think can either be a powerful asset or a barrier. So here are seven things you can do to stop overthinking.
Take Note of When You’re Overthinking
The first step to change is awareness when you start noticing a bad habit, you can take steps towards changing it. So if you want to stop overthinking, notice when you’re overthinking and the signs.
Break the Pattern
Overthinking is a bad habit, a pattern created as a way to deal with stress. The good news about bad habits is that they can be broken, replaced with new habits. By changing your thoughts, behaviors, and environment. Notice when you’re overthinking and intentionally choose not to indulge in overthinking, so you can start to break the habit of overthinking everything.
Daily Brain Dumps
Sometimes we have a lot going on in our heads. And one way to sort through it all is by doing a brain dump. By getting everything out of your head and on paper. You’ll gain insight into what’s going on in your head. For more information about doing brain dumps, check out Relax and Empty your mind with Brain Dumps and download my free printable brain dump worksheet.
Talk to Yourself
If you’re more of an auditory person, and writing isn’t really your thing. Then your solution to overthinking may include talking to yourself. It might sound a little weird, but talking to yourself is completely normal and research shows its good for your mental health. Just like writing it’s a way to process everything that’s going on in your head.
Bring Yourself to the Present
When we overthink our minds tend to ruminate on the past or future. So take a moment to bring yourself back to the present moment. Then remind yourself that right now everything is okay and that everything will be okay. When you bring yourself back to reality, you take your mind off worrying about the past and future.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Getting caught up in overthinking every little detail of everyday life, will only cause your stress. Instead, focus on the bigger picture. If it’s something that won’t matter years from now, then it isn’t worth getting worked up about.
Focus on the Facts
Sometimes our problems get buried underneath noise and distractions. We have our beliefs, feelings, judgments, and other things that’ll only amplify our problems by clouding our judgment. It only leads to more overthinking and feeling overwhelmed. So when you start to overthink things write down the facts of the situation, so you can examine your problems objectively with a clear mind and stop overthinking.
Overthinking is probably a habit you’ve had for years, so it may take some time to break the habit. But by bringing awareness to it and these helpful tips, you can shift your brain to a more productive way of thinking that’s practical and solution-orientated.
Related post: 7 Simple Ways to Reduce the Symptoms of Anxiety
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I am super duper guilty for sweating the small stuff. I always play out the worst case scenarios in my head and consider myself to be very unlucky so I always tend to overthink because I fall in this ditch. I find that talking to myself does help sometimes. I’ll have to document and be conscious of when I’m doing this. Thanks for the tips Angela!
Geraldine
Me too! My anxiety definitely gets the best of me sometimes. Talking to myself helps as well. I always feel a little weird talking to myself, but it doesn’t help put things into perspective. Thanks for stopping by and hope these tips help.
It actually really helps me sometimes to calm myself down when I’m overthinking. I feel like I’m crazy for doing it sometimes, but it works and that’s all that matters.
Same here! I have to do it at working when things get overwhelming.
Great points. I also would suggest self care too.
Thank you.