What is overthinking? – Part 1

Have you ever been told you’re overthinking things? The brain has the capacity for deep and complex thoughts, but overthinking usually means your thoughts are stuck in a loop with no apparent resolution.

This means that usually these thoughts are unproductive, unhelpful and in extreme case can have a negative impact on health. It seems to also be called “rumination” if the thoughts deal with past or present events or situations. It also seems to be called “worry” if the thoughts deal with future, possible, or probable events.

How do you know you are stuck in the overthinking loop?

Thinking is important to solve problems, understand information, learn from our past and plan ahead. However, if the same thoughts keep popping up without leading to a solution then we may be stuck in the “over”-thinking part. We may believe that the more time we spend on a problem the better the solution we come up with will be. However, that is usually not the case and if we can make ourselves act we have less time and energy available for the action phase. In addition, second-guessing and always imagining worst-case scenarios can be exhausting.

We tend to overthink about specific subjects and the most common ones are:

• Rumination about the past. Regrets and resentments can fall in this category and overthinking can come into play in ways that are not helping our present or our future. Whether we are re-hashing what we said last week or wishing we chose something different earlier in our life as examples.
• Rumination about the present: Subjects can include relationships, circumstances, personality, or identity. Ruminating over our relationships can also include the relationship we have with ourselves. If we think of ourselves positively then we might not have an overthinking problem, but if we fixate on aspects that are more negative such as perceived character flaws and mistakes, it can be a sign of overthinking.
• Worrying about the future: It can be a short-term worry about specific projects or long-term and existential concerns such as our feelings of fulfilment in life or relationships or both.

There are some signs that we are overthinking, so what do we look for?

• Inability to think about anything else is a big one. Our thoughts keep coming back to the same things repeatedly.
• Inability to relax: Of course, there may be other causes, but it can be a hint that we are ruminating on the past or the present, or worrying about the future because the body will tense up in response to these thoughts.
• Constantly feeling worried or anxious
• Fixating on things outside of our control: We may think that by focusing our thoughts on these things, we may come up with a way to gain control. However, we are more likely to exhaust ourselves.
• Feeling mentally exhausted: Thinking takes time and energy. It is important to do especially when facing a problem, but when we start overthinking about the situation in question,  it can dramatically drain our mental capacities.
• Having a lot of negative thoughts: Negative thoughts are normal, and everyone has some and they should have their space, but when they become all we can think about, it can have a negative impact on our health.
• Always replaying a situation or experience in our mind. No matter what we do, we can’t stop thinking about this event and thinking over and over again about what we could have done differently or how we shouldn’t have done something.
• We are stressed about what others think of us: Social anxiety can be causing overthinking, if we replay every social encounter and social situations in our mind. It can even lead to increased social anxiety by worrying about these situations ahead of time.
• Second-guessing decisions: A little bit of second-guessing is normal, but having the thought come back over and over again without a solution or unproductively preventing you from acting on your decisions is when overthinking is involved.
• Paralysis: We are so stressed about making the wrong decision that we take no action at all and this is definitely a red flag that we are overthinking things.

Of course, we all overthink about some things at one point or another the important thing is that we don’t get stuck in this stage and start ruminating or worrying about every little thing.

Next week I will write about why overthinking about a problem or situation isn’t helpful and can in fact be harmful in the long term. If you have any questions about the topic, please leave them in the comment below.

Thank you for reading.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”

– Albert Einstein

Resources

https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/overthinking.html

https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-know-when-youre-overthinking-5077069

https://www.goodrx.com/well-being/healthy-mind/how-can-i-stop-overthinking-everything

https://practicalanxietysolutions.com/what-is-overthinking/

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