Do you overthink anything, and you are worried about it? So you are at the right place. Today, I will tell you how to get rid of overthinking.
A study of 2020 shows that we can estimate over six thousand thoughts per day.
We are human beings, our mind jumps from one thought to another, and sometimes it can lead us to anxiety and stress, which can affect our well-being. Hence, it’s necessary to understand overthinking.
So let’s get started without further ado.
What is overthinking?
Overthinking is something where your brain gets activated, and you got many thoughts in your mind, or sometimes you think about the same thing now and then. That’s overthinking.
For example: If someone insulted you and went from there, but you keep thinking about it. The same things will run in your mind for a long time. You may think about it for a whole day or many days. I am not sure if you have faced this situation in your life or not? But if you have faced, then you can relate to this.
What causes overthinking?
There can be multiple reasons for overthinking. Such as:
- You may have faced some situations in your childhood (like your parents fighting) that can be the reason for overthinking.
- Your fear of losing someone or something can be the reason for overthinking.
- Uncertainty can cause overthinking.
- Your desire to control things can cause overthinking.
- Your desire to be perfect can be the reason for overthinking and stops you from doing anything.
- Conflict with someone can cause overthinking.
As such, there can be many reasons for overthinking. But I feel these are the significant reasons that can trigger overthinking. If you know other reasons, you can let us know in the comment box below. It will help us to learn more about it.
Overthinking symptoms:
Now, the next question is, how would you know whether you are overthinking or not? There are some symptoms of overthinking. If you see these symptoms in yourself, that means you are overthinking.
- People who overthink tend to have a lot of doubts and concerns about themselves and their abilities.
- They may feel like they need to be perfect every time and that anything less is unacceptable.
- They may become very anxious or stressed when things get complicated or while making any decision.
- Likewise, they may think about their past and think about their mistakes in their mind.
- They may worry about the things which they can’t control.
- They may also have a hard time trusting their intuition or feelings.
- Finally, they may finish a lot of time analyzing and second-guessing themselves, which can eventually become a habit.
Effects of overthinking:
There are many effects that you can face due to overthinking, and I have mentioned them below:
- Overthinking can affect the quality of sleep.
- Overthinking can increase anxiety and stress.
- It can decrease your creativity and productivity.
- It can affect your decision-making ability.
- Overthinking can interfere with your problem-solving skills.
- Increase in distraction or decrease in focus.
- Overthinking can have adverse effects on mental and physical health.
How to get rid of overthinking?
As we have discussed the effects of overthinking, we need to know how to get rid of overthinking.
I have mentioned five ways that will help you to get rid of overthinking. So let’s go ahead.
1. Focus on taking actions instead of results.
I have seen people who overthink and worry about their future. But think about it, does it make sense? Do you know about your future?
You don’t know, am I right? Then why do you need to worry about it?
Let’s understand it by an example. Two friends are studying and doing graduation, and they have to give their final exam after a week. One friend is worried and thinking so many things in his mind. After a week, I have to attend my exam and don’t know if I will pass the exam or not? What if I fail the exam? On the other side, the second friend is studying hard and giving his full attention, even though he doesn’t have time to think about these questions.
You tell me the answer, who will get good marks? I hope you got the answer.
Even in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says we should focus on the process and take action instead of focusing on results.
2. See if things are in your control or not.
Sometimes we try to control the things which are not in our control, and we only keep thinking about them. As a result, we may feel stressed and anxious.
We discussed the example above that if someone insulted you and went from there. However, you keep thinking about it. What was my mistake? How could he say this to me? But I was right, etc. So instead of thinking this much, if the person is in your contact, you can call that person and sort out things. Or else, you can ignore it.
We should see if things are in our control, then take action and solve it. Otherwise, we can avoid it. We should not keep thinking about the things which are out of our control because we can’t do anything about them.
Related- Know How To React When Someone Insults You?
3. Understand the value of the difficult situation.
When we face difficult situations in our life, we do everything that we can do to change our situation, but our condition doesn’t get change. It happens in our lives.
But we should understand that, whatever happens, happens for a reason. Sometimes things take time to happen. We should not be afraid of challenging situations. Even our muscle fibers break to become bigger and stronger. We may face obstacles in our life, but we should know how to overcome an obstacle in our life.
The hard time in our life is like our test, and how well we handle it decides our future.
4. Live in the present moment.
We are human beings, and we don’t understand the value of the present moment. We stick with our past and think about it. If we don’t control ourselves, then we start overthinking, and it affects our mental as well as physical health.
We should understand that the past has been gone, and we can’t predict the future, it is only the present in our hands, and we should give our best to make it better.
5. Learn detachment.
Sometimes we are attached to someone or something, and our attachment increases our desires and expectations. If these desires or expectations don’t fulfill, we feel unhappy and start to overthink them.
We need to understand it with an example: Let’s assume your friend’s relationship was not working fine, and her girlfriend broke up with him. He is going through a difficult period and overthinking it. What will you do?
You might give him a lecture. But think if the same thing happens to you. Then what will you do? You will do the same things that your friend did. Am I right? Because when it’s our problem, we are attached to it, and we overthink.
It’s an attachment with goals, things, and people that hold us in bondage. Hence, if you learn to detach yourself from the situation or focus on the things you have control of, you will not fall into the overthinking problem, or you can overcome it easily.
So these are five points that I believe we need to understand and apply in our life. It will help anyone to get rid of overthinking.
Is overthinking bad or good?
In my opinion, overthinking is not bad. If you see the scientist in the past, they used to think too much or not?
They used to think very much, right? So the point is that thinking or overthinking is not a problem, but wrong thinking is a problem. Because when we have good thinking, we are thinking in the right direction, then we can find the solution to our problems.
And once you find the solution to your problem, you can stop thinking about it.
How long does overthinking last?
Overthinking is not a problem that we can’t overcome. We can surely get out of it, but it depends on an individual. As we discussed, we need to understand and train our minds to think in the right direction. We need to learn to focus on the solution instead of a problem.
Conclusion
Today we discussed the topic, “How To Get Rid Of Overthinking: Know Everything.”
Here, I covered almost all the questions that will come to your mind related to getting rid of overthinking and tried to answer them in this post.
I want to thank you all for reading the post till the end! I hope you will learn something valuable from it and you will get the solution to your problem.
If you have any concerns related to this topic and want us to answer your problem, then feel free to ask in the comment section below.
And if you think it is valuable and will help someone, then please share it with others too.