Conquer Overthinking

“Most days, in breaks between tapping at a laptop alone in a small room, two fingers of my mind reach backwards. They rummage a little and retrieve a single, well-worn worry from somewhere close to the surface of my brain. Namely: What will I do if society collapses?

Like a spider's web decorated with beads of rain, this headline worry serves as a frame for dozens of tangential thoughts that can absorb me, with increasing feelings of anxiety, for hours.” 

In ‘The Book of Overthinking: How to Stop the Cycle of Worry’ New Zealand-based clinical psychologist Gwendoline Smith seeks to provide practical guidance on managing such spiralling streams – surely ever more present between a lack of fresh stimulation and a chaotic, miserable news cycle.

What is 'overthinking?'

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary's definition of overthinking is "to think too much about (something): to put too much time into thinking about or analysing (something) in a way that is more harmful than helpful."

Smith notes that it is possible to overthink about something positive (imagining how brilliant your first post-lockdown holiday is going to be) and so defines the problematic version –predicting negative catastrophic outcomes, like my "end of the world" saga – as "worrisome overthinking," or just "worry," for brevity. This might also include "rumination," in which you re-hash the past, pouring over it to pinpoint the causes of your current distress.

Worry can be 'superstitious'

Worry is referred to as a 'superstitious behaviour' that then becomes a very stubborn habit. The habit is reinforced by two very distinct mythological belief systems. Firstly, the preventive power of worry, what this means is that the individual believes that if they worry they can stay on top of their environment and prevent terrible things from happening.  

And secondly, the predictive power of worry, they believe that this form of vigilant overthinking will also provide them with the ability to predict and therefore be prepared for predicted negative outcomes.

No one can predict the future; we can see that this is not true. Releasing yourself from the belief that worry can keep you safe, or help you to be prepared for things that go wrong, can be liberating.

Your thoughts or beliefs are not facts

Once your mind has sized on something to overthink, it can assume that this is a reality. It is as a result of these superstitious belief systems that people create a physical and emotional fear (your fight/flight response). However, you can believe that you are a fortune teller, but that does not make it a fact. Hence, beliefs are not facts.

And you should challenge them

The most effective strategies for worry are the strategies that challenge the meaning of the thinking. Increasing awareness of the rationality of thinking is very helpful. Ensure that your thinking is grounded in fact/truth/reality and ask yourself if this type of thinking is helping you.

Telling yourself 'I shouldn't worry' does not work

When you feel yourself sliding into thoughts that begin with "should", catch yourself. The emphasis on the toxicity of the words should/must/have to comes from the school of Rational Emotive therapy. Thinking 'should' creates all sorts of unhelpful emotional states, such as:

I should have = guilt/ regret

They should have = anger/frustration/disappointment

I have to = pressure/tension/obligation

“The point that I make with worry and 'should' is that if you tell yourself you shouldn’t worry – apart from this being futile – it actually results in worrying more. If you tell the brain it 'shouldn’t' worry, it will attend to the thoughts more intensely.”

Observe what happens when I say “now, just focus on what you are reading and whatever you do, don’t think about camels, red sand and pyramids and camels and so on.”

See? A better idea is to work at challenging your thoughts, as mentioned above.

Some people are more prone to overthinking than others

It can feel frustrating that some people seem to glide through life barely worrying at all, while others struggle to sleep for thoughts whirring. Sometimes, this creates tension in friendships or romantic relationships, when one person thinks that "it’ll be fine, chill out," the other feels that the former person doesn't care enough.

This understanding comes from the research about the biological contributors to temperament. 

Draw a line between 'overthinking' and 'concern'

When the world is burning, it would be disingenuous to imply that parking all of your worries and watching Netflix is necessarily a responsible choice. If you have the time and means, for example, volunteering for a cause that you're thinking about a lot; say, your local food bank or a climate change group, can add purpose to your days. The distinction here is between worry and concern.

Worry is a spiral of thought going around and around taking you nowhere, apart from feeling more anxious. Concern, on the other hand, has specific destinations in mind: time frames, solutions action plans which are much more helpful and constructive. 

So, work yourself away from the former and into the latter and stop overthinking and.