Personal development

How to stop overthinking

Overthinking can be a mental quicksand, pulling you deeper into a vortex of unnecessary worry. Let's explore strategies to break free from this cycle, fostering a healthier mindset and promoting a more productive, stress-free life.

Use metacognitive strategies to break free

Many common strategies sound reasonable or useful, but research shows that they can inadvertently cause more harm than good and typically lead to even more overthinking

Constantly looking out for threats
Excessive planning
Seeking answers and reassurance
Aside from these unhelpful strategies, another key factor that can perpetuate overthinking is your beliefs about thinking
When we spend too much time analysing our problems and dilemmas, we often end up more at a loss than we were to begin with
If you come to a point where you depend on these strategies to calm you down and reduce your worries, you’re on a slippery slope

Challenges

Ask yourself if your ruminations have ever led to better decisions, fewer symptoms and more control?

Most people’s answers are ambivalent
On the one hand, you feel a sense of safety and control; on the other hand, worry strategies cause tension, restlessness and perhaps even anxiety
Challenge negative beliefs about the usefulness of worry by evaluating the pros and cons
Set a worry/rumination time and postpone your worries and rumination to that specific time
You can’t worry and ruminate extensively about everything that’s gone wrong, while at the same time stay emotionally balanced and without burdensome symptoms

Links & Books

The metacognitive therapy approach is the most effective way to deal with overthinking

Available resources are limited because this therapeutic approach is still rather new
Some books include Live More Think Less: Overcoming Depression and Sadness with Metacognitive Therapy (2020) by Adrian Wells
If you’re a mental healthcare professional, you might find the treatment manual in Adrian Wells’s book “Metacognition Therapy for Anxiety and Depression” useful
A five-minute interview with Adrian Wells from March 2020 is available on YouTube

What to do

Get to know your trigger thoughts and let them be

Trigger thoughts can be referred to as ‘trigger thoughts’
If you pay enough attention, these thoughts can trigger an explosion of bodily sensations and feelings, and a myriad of associations
The more time you spend engaging in these thoughts, the slower and heavier you will feel
Recognize what you can and can’t control
Think of trigger thoughts as like thoughts on a train – each train represents a thought or a sequence of thoughts
You have a choice over which train to board, and you can control whether or not to engage in a trigger thought