You might go to the gym every day, you might eat a balanced diet too! You might do skin care regularly all for your body to be fit, healthy and for you to be happy! But you just forgot about one major part of your body. The root, the control center, and the supreme source for all kinds of happiness is your brain. Working on your thought process, feeding yourself good thoughts, and eliminating destructive thinking practices are essential to being healthy, happy, and stress-free. One of the most destructive thinking practices is overthinking.
If you are an over-thinker you would know how hard it is to deal with the problem of constant running of thoughts! It is therefore invisible but an extremely destructive health issue! If you want to know how to stop overthinking you first need to know what overthinking is? Whether you have it or not, and further what could you do about it?
“Thoughts are powerful, your thoughts become your reality” hence do not take the problem of overthinking lightly.
You are never born an overthinking and the good news is that it is possible to get over the habit of overthinking. Also, before answering how to stop overthinking, you must know that it’s a slow but constant process. You have to be consistent with it.
What Exactly Is Overthinking?
One thing is thinking. This is normal. The other thing is overthinking. This is not Normal. While thinking is neither that time-consuming nor exhausting on the other overthinking makes you second guess your decisions, actions, and situations.
In simple words, it’s thinking too much that harms your mental health, prevents getting things done, and makes you feel stuck up in a dilemma. That’s when you feel like you’re nowhere. You feel lost and you can’t make any move. According to research by Harvard University too much thinking or a lot of brain activity depletes a protein in your brain causing a reduced life span.
Know The Symptoms Of Overthinking:
- Ruminating: this is thinking over the past. Thoughts like, “I wish I never said that”, “I wish I just went back home”, etc
- Incessant worry: this is a negative prediction about the future. For example, “I don’t think I’ll be able to get admission”, “ I don’t think I’ll ever be able to complete this assignment”. This is a very toxic thought process and it’s a destructive thinking pattern.
- Being stressed, worried, panicked: you might develop high levels of stress when you’re simply not present in the moment and just thinking about the past or future. That’s definitely going to give you an anxiety attack, it would also affect your physical health.
- Being depressed and sad: long term sadness is depression and if you think you’re depressed you’re simply caught in an invisible prison created by your own thoughts which you’re unable to escape.
- Being a pessimist: constantly thinking negatively about the future and past will make you only notice the wrongs, the faults, the negatives and you will become a highly pessimistic individual.
- Constantly thinking of what others think of you: constantly worrying about what others are thinking about you, or if someone talking about you. Depending so much on others’ judgments is not good.
What Leads To Overthinking?
If you know what causes you to overthink, then you automatically know, how to stop overthinking. This problem will be solved easily, sooner, and in a better manner if we know what causes you to overthink. If anxiety or depression has led to overthinking then it’s important for you to treat anxiety or depression.
Also Read: Regular Yoga Lead to Healthy Life
How To Stop Overthinking?
- Change what you tell yourself: We all talk to ourselves, and we do make judgments about ourselves as well. While we create all of these thoughts about ourselves on our own. It’s necessary for us to make sure that all these thoughts are good. If you’re going to create stories like, “I am not a morning person”, “I can never be on time”, “I always finish things at the last moment”, “I can’t study early”, guess what? That’s what you’re going to become. STOP, Immediately stop. Change your thoughts. When you challenge your thoughts and say things like, “I am a morning person”, “I reach before time”, and “I study well before the test” you won’t know how but you’re actually going to change your lifestyle.
- Accept the past and move on: it’s understandable that it’s not easy to let go of past traumatic events, break up of a relationship, unpleasant memories, etc. But, it’s hard not impossible. You just need to give it enough time and you’ll move on. Say for example, when someone tells you to forget what happened, you only tend to think more about it. It’s alright that’s human nature but a better way to deal with unpleasant past experiences is to analyze them in such a way that, you understand what learning you’ve earned.
- Be in the moment: attending the French class but thinking of the presentation in math class will ruin the purpose of the French class. Whenever your mind floats away to the past or future, try to bring it back to the present by focusing on what’s being done right now. Try to enjoy it right now. Try to give your best right now. Yesterday was history, Tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift, that’s why it’s called a present.
- Know your fears: Sometimes fears are what make you step back and forward while making a decision. Imagine, if there’s no fear, if there’s no risk, would even think about such a thing? Obviously not. Fear is what causes overthinking the horror. The best way to deal with this is to identify your fears and thinking what worst could happen. Try it out. Think what’s the most extreme unwanted thing that can come. Once you know that. You could figure solutions for that. Hence, take decisions accordingly.
- Take the first step: when in the dark you can’t see which step will lead to your desired destination and how. All you should do is take the first step. That is take action!
- Write down the solutions: rather than ranting about your problems and all the negative things in your life, expressways to solve issues. Focus on solutions, figure out how you can solve problems and that’s what’s going to help you.
- Forget about what’s not in your hands: when you’re preparing for an exam, focus on the syllabus and how you would cover it all. Focus on how many books you will study and how your notes will help you in last-minute revision. Do not focus on things that are not in your control. Overthinking about things like, “what if an earthquake came and the exam center gets destroyed then my preparation will be of no use” all such thoughts are not be focused upon. Things like these are not in your hands, what’s exactly in your hands is the syllabus of the exam which you shall focus on.
Conclusion
This exercise is definitely going to help your brain function in a healthier way. But if you want to be the best version of yourself, and vanish all the uncomfortable dilemmas, and frustrating brain moments you also need to ask yourself How to stop overthinking? The solutions listed above will solve 70% of the problem however, the rest 30% will be solved by constantly questioning yourself, and keeping a constant check on your brain activity. Challenging your thoughts and one day you will definitely achieve an extremely healthy state of mind that will make you help others dealing with such problems.
Written By: Nehal Sharma
(Disclaimer: This article is from the author’s perspective. Kindly do check with experts before following. newzito.com will not be responsible for any kind of inconvenience and incorrect or misleading information.)
