Get out of your head and into your life

Overthinking majorly involves 2 things:

· Rumination, that is, contemplating or thinking about something in depth from the past.

For example, “I shouldn’t have spoken in the meeting today. It made me look like a fool”.

· Worrying, or rather catastrophizing, which means negative predictions of the future.

For example, “I will never give my opinion in team meetings, I won’t even get promoted now and everyone will think of me as an incompetent person”

There are some faulty thinking patterns, also called ‘cognitive distortions’ involved in overthinking.

Mind reading is one of them, where, based on your assumptions, you already know how the other person feels about you. And when someone asks how you know they feel you are ‘incompetent’, your answer is “I just know. I know them enough”

You may also tend to jump to conclusions straight away. For example, "today she didn’t call me, that means that she doesn’t like me".

The quickest solution is that you ask yourself immediately:

· “Is there sufficient evidence for me to come to that conclusion or is it my mind fooling me into things?”

· “Is it a fact or my opinion”?

There are many faulty ways of thinking we may engage in, but let’s learn some techniques to manage our thoughts and emotions.

4 ways to stop overthinking your life and start living are:

1. Pinch yourself or loudly say ‘STOP’

This needs to be done just to break the flow of thoughts and get yourself back to the present moment.
This will help take the power away from your thoughts.

2. Reason with yourself- What COULD happen V/S what WILL happen

Some questions to ask yourself are:

1. What is something you are worried about? (Define the problem and make a problem statement)

2. What are some clues that your worry will not come true? (Evidence-based)

3. If your worry does not come true, what will happen instead?

4. If your worry does come true, how will you handle it? Will you eventually be okay?

5. After answering these questions, how has your worry changed?

3. Schedule a worrying time

Have 15-20 minutes in a day to think about all the things you want, and write them down. Then, with a colored pen, circle all the things you have control over.

Sounds weird? Well!

· It will help you take your power back.

· You will know that your thoughts don’t CONTROL you.

· When you delay them for a while, you gain more power over them. You may also explore some things that are bothering you at the moment, and may not even feel significant enough in the worry time.

4. Focus on problem-solving and solution-seeking

It’s easier to get stuck in the cycle of distressing thoughts as compared to making active efforts to look for solutions.

So rather than dwelling on the problem, and asking why something happened, ask yourself what you can do about it.

P.S. If you are a chronic over-thinker who is facing problems in relationships, work, and other areas too, seeking professional help will be a better option to address the concerns from the root level.

Well, that’s the title of a famous book written by Spencer Smith and Steven Hayes. Interesting title, isn’t it? Makes you wonder about so many things!

If you are reading this article, I am sure you feel tired of all those recurring thoughts, playing various conversations in your head, and worrying about things that may never even happen.

I too went down memory lane while writing this and just know how it feels. I can imagine the tiredness and overwhelm that come with it. And the worst part in this is that we realize later that things were completely different from what we assumed. Yes, you read it right, assumed.

To not assume any further and learn the ways to break free of the web of overthinking, read on..

But before diving deep into this topic, let's see how you will benefit from this article.

These are the skills you will be learning here:

· Being more objective

· Having control over your thoughts

· Art of reflection

· Choosing facts over assumptions

So let’s try and understand what exactly is overthinking and learn some simple hacks to deal with it.