As you practice these strategies yourself, you will start to convert your brainpower into a holistic force for a life well-lived. For instance, I worked with a woman who discovered during the pandemic that she has the ability to master new languages with minimal effort. One gradual habit can become a powerful mental tool. So, listen to your thoughts. Its different than stress as it often doesnt have a logical cause. Its not the trigger thought in and of itself that causes unpleasant symptoms, nor is it the amount of trigger thoughts. Turning into positive action can make a significant difference in your mental well-being. Each person, depending on their condition and triggers, will require different approaches to medication, psychotherapy, and lifestyle changes. For now, download our app on your mobile device for the best experience! If you find yourself caught with ANTs like these, breaking down the situation into tasks may help shift your mindset away from the predominant mood controlling your thoughts. Flow states are powerfully supportive of the sense of authenticity and congruence in their lives that gifted HSPs crave. 1. Many people who identify as gifted report having some of the same qualities as HSPs, like thinking more deeply than other people, being overwhelmed by sensory input, having high standards for themselves, and being very perceptive about other people. Should statements can contribute to anxious thought patterns because they put a demand on you thats sometimes impossible to live up to. Negative thought patterns are like a paper cut you keep getting when you have only a vague idea of whats causing it. Put aside perfectionism. Many view overthinking as an innate personality trait; something we cant change. 2. You Might Be a Highly Sensitive Person, 18 Things That Fill Highly Sensitive People With Joy. Life After Divorce What Nobody Ever Tells You. She often writes about trauma, relationships, and ADHD. But that can be easier said than done. Yet this strategy often leads to even more worries, since Googling relatively common symptoms typically yields a wide range of search results, including diagnoses that you hadnt even thought of. Our mission is to improve emotional wellbeing through therapy and educational resources, for those who cannot access therapy services. Even if you cannot stop it once it's happening, developing a self-awareness of over-thinking helps you to control the behavior over time. The more you remind yourself of these things, the more your thoughts will untangle so you can reach the next stage of growth and strength. If youre unable to find a therapist near you, bear in mind that some clinics, including my own, provide online therapy in English. Heres how to do that: With our highly active brains, gifted HSPs spend a lot of time on the edge of overstimulation. Meditation requires practice to get to the point where it is restorative, but, then, it becomes a powerful tool in combatting stress and anxiety and benefitting your mental health. How to Stop Overthinking is the result of a lifetime's work on implementing positive thinking and healthy boundaries in his own life, combined with his dedication to helping others do the same. Step 6: How to Declutter Your Mind and Become What You . Learn the most common thought patterns, how to recognize automatic negative thinking, and ways to reorient and give yourself the kind and constructive consideration you need. One of the best ways to stop overthinking is to remind yourself of your ultimate goal before the stress gets to you. Why do I overthink everything? All rights reserved. The key is to answer the question "Why do I overthink everything?," then take decisive action to change your mindset. Required fields are marked *. In fact,intelligence itself is far more than any of those things. From work to school to interpersonal relationships, overthinking has almost become something of a rite of passage. If you can learn to identify and separate unhelpful thoughts from helpful ones, you can find a different way to look at the situation. But what if you could finally feel calm instead? Are there other explanations or possible outcomes? In metacognitive therapy, these thoughts are referred to as trigger thoughts. The main point of rating them is to see how much of your thoughts were influenced by a specific type of mood an anxious mood versus a guilty one, for example. They believe that their thoughts just appear and automatically attract attention and that they cant control whether these thoughts develop into hour-long ruminations about how bad things are now, or into catastrophic worries about what could go wrong in the future. Whats potentially damaging is the word should. This can trigger guilt and send you down a frustrating path of spiraling negative thoughts. For the work example, this could be something like: "I'm prepared. She often writes about trauma, relationships, and ADHD. Most of the thoughts we have come and go almost instantly because we dont grant them any special attention but leave them and return to whatever we were doing. Breathing into your diaphragm in counted, measured breaths lowers stress and anxiety. Mistakes will only make you stronger and help you to learn that sometimes overthinking prevents you from taking action on an issue. Step #2: Put Some Order to Your Mess. Related Read: How to Develop Your Interpersonal Skills. However, the "thinking through" oftentimes leads nowhere. This looks like thinking that leaves you edgy, moody, or fearful. This can make it difficult to catch these thoughts in the first place. And the more you think, the more one feeling grows fear. Maybe reading this will inspire you to try it out yourself: Another exercise you could try that I use in my clinic is the windowpane exercise this will further illustrate that your attention is under your control, independent of the existence of trigger thoughts in your head. This causes us to be stressed and waste our time, and it can even cripple our ability to make logical decisions. When you do have the energy, you can slowly work toward moving past initial thoughts of I feel sad to recognizing there may be a problem and considering a workaround. You can choose whether to answer the thought and follow it up with more related thoughts or just let it be. Play out the worst-case scenario and see how you feel about it. Overcoming Negative Thoughts 5. While this might seem a hard goal, in fact its something you already do on a daily basis without realising. Thankfully, stress is based on real problems, which means there are real solutions. When you are unsure of what direction to take on an issue or if you just cant stop thinking about whether youve made the right decision in a specific area of your life, remember to trust yourself and accept that your worrying and fear are just insecurities. Farah Aqel 09/19/2022 Overthinking and excessive worrying create feelings of distress and restlessness that may lead to anxiety or. We found that those who participated in metacognitive therapy benefited more than others allocated to receive CBT (74 per cent met the formal criteria for recovery at post-treatment, versus 52 per cent of those in the CBT group, and this was largely maintained at follow-up). Finally, while this might seem obvious, the worry/rumination time is a way of reducing and containing the amount of time you spend worrying and ruminating. Now how can you change it? Take a break and give yourself another day. Learn about the "worry time" technique, as well as other tips, steps and strategies you can use to help you manage and stay on top of your worries. When dedicating themselves to this experiment, most of my clients find that it is indeed possible to postpone worries or ruminations. I have made mistakes, but in general I work very hard., Ive gotten good feedback so far and my manager trusts me to do this.. 3. 1. As you dig into the details, you might discover that this work situation is independent of your past and future. By allocating a set period of time for worry and rumination, youre more likely to feel in control and prevent yourself becoming overwhelmed. Not necessarily. How to stop overthinking Grappling with your thoughts will leave you even more entangled in worry. Deep Breathing Breath awareness Watching the mind physical exercise helps. 1. Some of the ways that you can get rid of negative thoughts include: Using mindfulness to build self-awareness Identifying negative thoughts Replacing negative thoughts with more realistic, positive ones Practicing acceptance rather than trying to avoid or deny negative thoughts Learning to cope with feedback and criticism When I was introduced to metacognitive therapy, in which the focus is on simply letting go of your thoughts (Wells jokingly calls it lazy therapy), it radically changed my understanding of mental illnesses. Trick your brain! The single most common complaint that my clients have is that they cannot get out of their heads. ACEs include things like an unwell parent, being neglected, or a home with violence. So what else might be driving your busy mind and how can you stop overthinking? Please note, if you find this exercise at all difficult, I recommend that you wait and try it with a professional metacognitive clinician (see the Learn More section to find out how). My hands will shake, my face will turn red, and. If encouraged, these traits can drive a virtuous cycle where the gifted individual gains more and more practice in their type of intelligence by pursuing their interests. Overthinking is exhausting and can mean you both sabotage good things or avoid making any decisions. All feelings, whether positive or negative, are usually ephemeral if we tolerate them and let them be. For instance, if youre handing in a work project, your moods may include: In this case, if nervousness which falls into anxiety is your predominant mood, youd rate it around 80 percent. You have your evidence for both sides, so now its time to be a judge. And its hardly surprising. Or maybe you dont notice the cut at all until it starts to sting. It may take several tries before you nail the mindfulness approach enough to make it an effective method of avoiding the process of overthinking. By throwing everything at a problem at first, you can then start to pare down solutions based on what will likely work and what may not. Stop overthinking your future and start living your future today. Once your mind . In the same way, you can learn to consciously ignore your own internal trigger thoughts, thereby experiencing that you really do have a choice in whether you choose to engage in them or not. And during those times, its important to remember that simply recognizing the thought, or acknowledging it as mentioned above is enough. She is the author of Live More Think Less (2020). Why Do So Many Highly Sensitive People Struggle with Gifted Kid Syndrome? On top of that, persistent overthinking can result in a wide range of symptoms such as insomnia, trouble concentrating and loss of energy which, in turn, often leads to further worries regarding ones symptoms, thereby creating a vicious cycle of overthinking. Founded in 2006, we are an award-winning group connecting you to highly experienced therapists in our London rooms and online worldwide. Conscious breathing is gaining ground as a mental health tool. Instead, recognize that you can use these qualities to serve you as an adult. Even if you cant resolve it at first, you may stop overthinking the issue simply by proxy of the fact that you are attempting to resolve it. Yes, I am a journalist Click here to confirm you are a journalist. By focusing on something in the here and now, you can break the cycle of overthinking. This may help you to divert your attention to the issues that truly matter instead of overthinking everything in your life. Or use our online booking platform to find UK-wide therapists and online counsellors available as soon as today. One way to avoid overthinking is by reminding yourself of your successes. True, many of my clients felt CBT had helped them (and it certainly is beneficial to many), but I no longer believe its the optimal approach. 21+ Growth Mindset Quotes to Know for Success, Happiness & Fulfillment, 50+ Great Maya Angelou Quotes to Inspire, Empower, and Encourage, 5 Important Benefits of Volunteering & Community Service, How to Learn Anything Fast With the Feynman Method, Connect with improvement-focused people from 150+ countries, Ask questions and get support when you need it. It sounds odd, but is quite powerful. It is also available as an audiobook. This article contains affiliate links. Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available. Why is that? Here's how to get started. It is not a substitute for independent, professional medical or health advice tailored to your specific circumstances. For instance, if a quiet walk at the end of the day is the point at which you can reflect on the things you are overthinking most effectively, then make it a point to make time in your schedule for a walk. ANTs are your first thought when you have a strong feeling or reaction to something, like a reflex rather than free thinking. In that case, in metacognitive therapy we use attention training to help clients realise that they can shift their attention regardless of inner inputs, such as trigger thoughts, and outer input, such as external stressors. 1. Common strategies for controlling anxiety and worry, such as threat monitoring, seeking answers and reassurance, and excessive planning, are unhelpful and backfire. Good grounding techniques can stop overthinking, calm your system, and help you deepen your mindfulness practice as well. Studies have found that the majority (77-87%) of gifted people are also highly sensitive. Perhaps they are afraid of making the wrong decisions or they are not sure what decision to make when it comes to an important area of their life. Here are 11 tips for how to stop overthinking in relationships: 1. Another example is constantly keeping an eye out for whether people like you, trying to figure out what they think of you, which inadvertently results in you becoming more distant, non-participatory and worried, and not being able to enjoy their company. If you can learn to take a step back and challenge unhelpful thoughts by thinking about what evidence really exists to support them, over time you can succeed in changing them into more positive ones. Sometimes, this helps you to avoid worrying and negative thoughts because you instead use your brain to work on . Learning to tune into your thoughts like this might feel difficult at first, but even just being aware of the types of unhelpful thoughts that exist should help you start to recognise when you're engaging in unhelpful thinking yourself. Postpone and reduce your worries and ruminations. How is this situation different from past projects? You can interrupt your negative self-talk in a few ways, such as by silently saying, "Stop," or "This isn't helpful," or snapping a rubber band on your wrist. Instead, its better to practise letting go of your trigger thoughts. Get some exercise or spend time with a family member or friend. We'll share thought-provoking and supportive articles on career advice, self-improvement, navigating the college landscape, climate action, social impact, and more. I get to rescript the narrator to my life. Irritation and guilt would then fill up the remaining 20 percent. Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? When youre feeling more confident you could introduce a recording of a trigger thought into the exercise, and practise switching your attention away from and back to the sound of that thought. Eventually it stops ringing. In many cases, overthinking is caused by a single emotion: fear. Heres how, I can eat healthier today by doing these things. I have some good news: you dont have to live with excessive worry. However, if we know what sort of thinking is unhelpful, we may find it easier to spot. London Bridge. Practice Meditation to clear your ming Meditation is a great way to clear your mind of any negative thoughts that you have on the spot. 4 Ways to Stop Negative Thinking Having a critical voice is helpfulknowing how to block it out is even more helpful "Humans, and our brains, have evolved such that we are capable of language, something no other mammals have," explains McLean's Lisa W. Coyne, PhD. In an episode of the podcast Minds and Mics, hosted by the clinical psychologist and fellow Psyche author Nick Wignall, I talked about how the metacognitive approach can help people struggling with anxiety and depression. Copyright 2020 Highly Sensitive Refuge LLC | Privacy Policy & Affiliate Disclosures. If you find yourself overthinking, focus on generating solutions. Overthinking is a habit that can be hard to break. I should stay in the relationship, I shouldnt stay, shown as helpful by a large body of research, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Another benefit of cultivating mindfulness skills is that they can lead you to greater acceptance of what it means to be a sensitive person in the first place. It's often the case that we are not even aware we're thinking in an unhelpful way. The first step to remedying the behavior is knowing how to identify it. Does that mean that giftedness and high sensitivity are the same thing? However, you might be one of the many people who hold more ambivalent views toward your lifelong habit of overthinking deep down, you might believe that there are some advantages in thinking or worrying excessively. However, overthinking, in terms of worry and rumination, is a learned strategy that we choose consciously or unconsciously in trying to deal with our thoughts and feelings. It is the time you spend engaging in these thoughts, ruminating and worrying, that weighs you down. Last medically reviewed on November 29, 2018. Switch chairs and speak now from the other side (but he doesnt support, Keep switching chairs seeing where it takes you, not judging what comes up but just speaking as freely as possible and allowing your. It's like I get to rewind the negative tape playing in my head. After two minutes, repeat the exercise, but switching more quickly between the sounds now focusing on each one for just two to four seconds each. Go for a Walk. Embrace the beauty of having a small circle of relationships where you can express and receive empathy. Many chronic overthinkers struggle to change their belief that their thoughts can be brought under control, and perhaps youre still not convinced. In most instances, making a mistake is better for your mental health than taking no action at all. You re-evaluate how you reflect on a situation, or even what you think about, to focus on something else. If, as a way to calm your worries, you start to excessively scan yourself or the people you care about for signs of illness, this threat monitoring will lead only to a heightened sense of danger and more health-related worries.