Is Overthinking Taking Over Your Life? Try Some Of These Tips
Overthinking is the thief of all joy. The thing about overthinking is you don’t realise you are overthinking in the moment. Whatever it is you are “overthinking” feels incredible real and rational to you. For that reason overthinking can be debilitating and leave you riddled with anxiety.
Life is too short to spend time giving in to your mind and sweating the small stuff. If you have noticed you tend to spend time over analysing the emoji you sent in a text message or how you think someone interpreted a comment you made, try some of these.
Life is tough enough as it is honey, without adding overthinking in to the mix!
Take a step back and notice when you are stuck in your head
Like we said before, the voice in your head is very convincing. Your thoughts will convince you that that person is mad at you regardless of the fact that they told you they were having a bad day.
One thought can lead to a spiral of anxiety driven thoughts convincing you that you have ruined a friendship or people don’t think you are a nice person. It is so draining!
Train yourself to take a step back and ask yourself, “am I overthinking this?” that will take you out of the situation and help you to analyse the situation at hand better.
Put yourself in to the other persons shoes, and see how they would see it from their perspective. Chances are there is nothing wrong with what you did!
Noticing when your thoughts are spiraling and checking your self can stop the overthinking before it gets out of hand.
Focus on trying to solve the problem rather than overthinking
It is easy to get sucked in to overthinking without realising it. The thing about over analysing something is it does absolutely nothing for you or what it is you are worrying about. It only leaves your feeling miserable. Instead think about the situation you are overthinking and think firstly does this require action or am I just overthinking it? and secondly if you feel like taking action would help your anxiety think of a step you can take to solve whatever it is you are overthinking.
If it is a text you think might have come across rude, there is no harm sending a text saying sorry you didn’t mean it to sound that way. Stopping your overthinking and taking action will be much more progressive and leave you feeling better as well.
Tell a friend what you are overthinking about
It’s hard to understand the severity of the situation when the only opinion you have on the matter is the voice inside your own head, which all over thinkers can agree can be a little dramatic!
Explain to your friends that you can’t get a certain situation off your mind and what does it look like from their perspective. An outsider can see a situation a lot differently to you and their opinion can help put your anxiety to rest. They may also be able to offer advice on how to best handle the situation and suggest things you can do to fix the issue.
Recognise that overthinking is not helping you
Call out your overthinking and remind yourself that it is doing absolutely nothing for you. This realisation will make you realise that it is only upsetting you and that you are not getting anything from sitting and thinking about the situation. If it can’t be fixed by constantly thinking about it then there is no point sitting dwelling on it.
While it is a lot easier said than done, getting real with yourself may be what you need to do to get yourself out of the vicious cycle of overthinking.
When you start to overthink, remind yourself it isn’t progressive and you have two choices. You can either do something to solve the situation or leave it and move on with your life because overthinking the situation is doing nothing for you!
Overthinking is horrible and can ruin your whole day or even week. The good thing however, is while it may be difficult, the power is in our hands to put an end to our overthinking.
Our minds may be our problem but it can also be our solution. It all comes down to taking control of the narrative going on inside it.
To all the over thinkers out there, don’t worry we are going to be ok <3