Overthinking might not strike you as a strenuous activity. You don’t have to move a muscle to spend hours imagining worst-case scenarios, debating choices or playing the day’s headlines on a loop. And yet, running mental laps can feel almost as exhausting as real ones.
You can blame a few culprits for that: When we have stressful thoughts, our brains — and in turn, our bodies — respond to them as if they were threats, which kicks off our stress response. While that process helps provide us with bursts of energy to respond to acute stressors, it drains us when activated chronically. Then there’s the cognitive resources required for common overthinking activities such as making decisions, anticipating outcomes, remembering details and focusing on things that matter to us. Not to mention all the sleep we lose when anxiety keeps us up.
If you identify as an overthinker, you can learn to recognize and manage those anxious thoughts — and finally give your brain the break it deserves.
What overthinking looks like
Thinking itself isn’t the problem. Ethan Kross, psychologist, researcher and author of “Chatter,” said that our inner voice can be a really valuable tool. It allows us to reflect, plan, rehearse important conversations, motivate ourselves toward goals and make sense of what happens to us, among other things.
Overthinking, on the other hand, is when that inner dialogue becomes repetitive and unproductive, veering toward what Kross described as “chatter.” That chatter can take many forms:
- Clinicians often describe worry as future-focused, revolving around what might happen or go wrong. That could be “What if it rains and my entire trip is ruined?” or “I’m never going to get that promotion.”
- Rumination pulls attention backward, replaying past mistakes or experiences. Maybe you ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store and said something that you’re now realizing might have sounded weird — and you can’t stop thinking about the interaction and what they thought.
- You might also overanalyze or plan excessively. Think: You’re redecorating your bedroom, and you’ve spent way more time than you’d care to admit choosing between 15 shades of nearly identical white paint — yet still can’t make a final decision.
- Or you might have intrusive thoughtsthat pop up and kick off more distress. For example, the sudden image of swerving your car off the road while driving, followed by, “Why did I think that? I don’t actually want to do that, do I?”
Whatever shape your thoughts take, and whether they’re mostly draining your brain or causing you actual distress, if you find yourself treading the same territory without moving on or taking action, you’re probably overthinking.
Strategies to stop overthinking
The first step in managing overthinking is often noticing when and how you’re doing it in the first place. Emma McAdam, a therapist and creator of the Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube channel, said that a lot of people aren’t tuned in to their own thoughts, let alone able to recognize when they’ve spiraled.
To build that initial awareness, she encourages taking random samples of your thoughts throughout the day. Use an alarm or mindfulness app to prompt periodic check-ins: Were you mentally prepping for an argument with your partner? Berating yourself for that flub you made at work? Running through that pro and con list again? Over time, McAdam said, you might notice patterns that point toward an overthinking habit.
Next, try these five strategies:
1. Confront your thoughts instead of resisting them.
One of the top mistakes people make is trying to force their brains to just…stop. That can look like telling yourself not to think about something at all, arguing with your thoughts to prove them wrong or engaging in avoidance behaviors to keep the chatter at bay. While understandable, resisting anxious thoughts can backfire. “You’re sending the message to your brain that your thoughts are actually dangerous,” McAdam said, which makes it pay more attention.
Instead, McAdam said, the goal is to observe more than engage. That might be as simple as labeling what’s going on (“these are worry thoughts”) or acknowledging what your brain is doing (“thanks for flagging potential danger”).
2. Engage in some mental time travel.
“When we experience chatter, we tend to focus really narrowly on the problem,” Kross said. “A natural antidote to this tunnel vision is to broaden our perspective and look at the bigger picture.” He recommended something he calls “mental time travel.” Ask yourself how you’ll feel about a situation in a week, a month or a year. Research shows this exercise can remind you that what you’re dealing with is temporary and help dial down the emotional intensity. You can also rewind — think about experiences you have already survived to prove to yourself that you can get through this one, too.
3. Address yourself in the second person.
Talking to yourself from an outside perspective (using “you” instead of “I”) is another way to take a step back, Kross said. This shift, called self-distancing, has been shown to help people think more objectively about stressful situations. Not to mention, it taps into the compassion we’re typically better at showing when speaking to others rather than to ourselves.
4. Schedule some of your worries for later.
Given how much there is to think about — from personal stressors to the constant drip of bad news — it makes sense that your brain is swirling with concerns. To lessen the mental burden, McAdam recommended a research-backed practice known as worry postponement. In practice, that means scheduling dedicated time to worry, ruminate or process, ideally in writing or out loud. Whenever worries or anxieties pop up outside that window, gently remind yourself, “Not now — we’ll come back to this later.”
Your brain might resist at first, but with repetition, it’ll learn to contain concerns within the boundaries you set. Think of it like potty-training a puppy, McAdam said — your goal might be to stop it from peeing on the carpet, but in practice, you have to teach it when and where to go instead.
5. Change up your environment.
When people feel uncertain or powerless, they do what they can to create a sense of control, a phenomenon known as compensatory control, Kross said. For some, overthinking serves that function, whether you’re trying to prepare for the worst, learn from past mistakes or simply pay attention because it feels like all you can do.
To evoke the same sense of control without getting pulled into a thought spiral, Kross recommended turning to your environment instead. Simple, concrete actions such as tidying your space, organizing your desk or going for a walk can restore a feeling of agency and quiet mental noise. Plus, a large body of research touts the power of nature for anxious minds. “Your attention naturally drifts away from inner chatter when you’re around beautiful, awe-inspiring things,” Kross said.
6. Just do something.
When responding to immediate threats, the course of action is often pretty clear: Run from the fire, slam on the brakes, fight or flight. But when you kick off a stress response by overthinking, your body treats real and perceived threats similarly, and it’s not always obvious where to put that energy.
When possible, channel that activation into some form of action, even if it’s small, McAdam said. Research options, call your senator, make a pro and con list, soothe physical symptoms, talk it out with a friend. Dig into what’s at the heart of your anxious thoughts and ask yourself what might help you get out of your head.
If overthinking persists no matter what you do, don’t lose hope. Learning to notice and redirect your thoughts — instead of getting stuck in them — “is a muscle that needs to be developed,” McAdam said. “You probably spent years building the overthinking muscle.” It’s only natural it’ll take time to strengthen the skills you need to combat it, too.
Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email [email protected], and we may answer it in a future column.
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