How to Stop Overthinking So You Can Enjoy Your Life
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To stop overthinking, you first need to understand the difference between intrusive, unwanted thoughts and mental processes that are in your control and can be changed.
What are Intrusive Thoughts?
Those are usually the thoughts that first trigger your anxiety and often open the door to things you feel uncertain about. We all have intrusive, negative thoughts. That’s just a quirk of our brains. I might be walking down the stairs and suddenly imagine throwing myself down them. In this example, I have no actual desire to end my life. I just had a stray thought. Intrusive thoughts are involuntary and can be really uncomfortable.
Do Intrusive Thoughts Mean Anything?
Not necessarily. Some of our thoughts are alerting us to danger or highlighting what’s important to us. But some of our thoughts are completely random or not very rational.
Thoughts we Actively Participate in
When you’re spiraling out from one negative thought to the next, it can feel like you have no control. But we also have thoughts that we are actively choosing to engage in. This is usually the next thought after the intrusive one, such as “What did it mean that I had that thought?”
These kinds of thoughts are in our control. They are usually aimed at finding some sense of certainty because we think that will make us prepared or keep us safe. When these thoughts have become repetitive and excessive, making it hard to be present, we call them mental compulsions. These are the thoughts that keep us trapped in a loop of overthinking. Read my article to learn about common mental compulsions and why we get stuck in this cycle. Mental compulsions are voluntary, although they can often feel like they’re happening automatically.
But you don’t have to be a victim of your thoughts. You can learn to respond in a more helpful way.
Steps to Stop Overthinking
Recognize the thought in a mindful way. Mindfulness is non-judgmental, moment-to-moment awareness. If you spot an intrusive thought, notice it without trying to resist it or judge yourself for it. What we resist can make our suffering worse. Research has also shown that trying to suppress a thought will only make it stronger. Instead, label it out loud or in your mind. “That’s a thought.”
Allow yourself to feel your emotions. Label the feelings. For example, “I am feeling nervous” and then notice and label what physical sensations you are feeling in your body, such as tension or a pit in your stomach. Allowing yourself to feel the emotion will help it pass in time.
Solve the problem. Ask yourself, “Do I have concrete evidence for this problem?” Concrete evidence is not your feelings or even your thoughts. Concrete evidence is something that would hold up in a court of law, such as test results from your doctor confirming you have a medical condition. If you do have evidence, then ask yourself, “Is this a problem I can solve right now?” If it is, make a plan and follow through with it.
Interrupt it. If there is no evidence of a problem or it’s something you can’t solve right now, mindfully notice the thought, then stop engaging in the mental compulsion. This can be hard, especially at first, but you can get better at it with practice.
Shift your attention away. You can use grounding techniques such as focusing on your five senses or where your body makes contact with the ground. Or you can focus on anything you want to be paying attention to in the present moment. When you shift your attention away, you are not trying to stop feeling anxiety or discomfort. Let yourself feel your emotions, but then anchor your attention in something like grounding or the activity you care about.
Awareness and Attention
The key to overcoming intrusive thoughts is to practice being aware of when you’re engaging in unhelpful mental compulsions, so you can interrupt the process. Awareness is like your flood light. Attention is like your spotlight. At this moment, you are aware that you are a human and are breathing, but you probably weren’t paying attention to it until I pointed it out. What you attend to, you give power.
Accept, Allow & Engage with the Things You Care About
You can practice being aware of something, like a ticking clock in the background, without fixating on it. If you fixated on the ticking, you would probably get anxious or frustrated. But if you noticed that ticking, accepted you can’t change it, allowed yourself to feel whatever feelings came up, then shifted your attention to what you wanted to be focusing on, you would probably feel a lot different.
Intrusive, obsessive thoughts are usually passive. You don’t have the ability to stop them. Instead, if you allow the thought to be instead of resisting it, your brain can eventually get bored with the thought because it no longer holds the power resistance was giving it.
Practice
It may come back, and then you can mindfully notice it and re-direct your attention away from it again. This is basically like doing reps of exercise. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at catching yourself over-thinking and pulling yourself out of the cycle so you can be more present in the things you care about.
It is important to validate that this is hard and may be very different from the way you normally relate to your thoughts. But you can make this change through consistent practice. The goal is to disengage from the unhelpful mental behavior instead of trying to eliminate it. Mental compulsions may happen. That’s ok. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Accept your struggle with kindness and then try again.
I specialize in anxiety and OCD. If you’d like to learn more about how to stop overthinking, schedule a free 15-minute consultation. Or you can contact me at mayra@anxietycenterca.com, 818-473-0945.
Michael Sier, LCPC “Treating OCD.” Online lecture.
Winerman, Lea. 2011. “Suppressing the ‘White Bears’.” Monitor on Psychology 42, no. 9 (October): 44–45. apa.org/monitor/2011/10/unwanted-thoughts
The information above is provided for informational purposes only. Assessment and treatment should always be directed through a one-on-one consultation with a trained professional. I am not liable or responsible for any damages resulting from or related to your use of this information.
