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7 Practical and Proven Ways to Curb Your Overthinking

What is overthinking?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines overthinking as "to put too much time into thinking about or analyzing (something) in a way that is more harmful than helpful." Surprisingly, even a non-psychological lexicon considers overthinking more harmful than helpful. In psychological jargon, overthinking usually involves misinterpretation or misattribution of situations, past events, memories, and even feelings. Some common types of overthinking patterns, also called irrational thoughts or cognitive distortions, include all-or-none thinking (always/never thinking), jumping to conclusions without substantial evidence, disqualifying the positives, magnifying things out of proportion, catastrophizing (assuming the worst-case scenario), taking things personally, using negative self-labels (e.g., “I am a loser”), and should/must thinking (imposing rules on yourself or others). While we all engage in these overthinking patterns periodically, sometimes these irrational and negative thought patterns become our default thinking style. This then prevents us from using a more rational approach to challenge our faulty thinking style leading to more negative views about self, others, and the world around us, thus, setting the stage for depression and anxiety. The good news is that there are proven ways to challenge these maladaptive styles of overthinking.

Is it really overthinking?

Before you begin to challenge your overthinking, it is important to explore if it in fact is irrational. You may be facing a genuine problem, such as not budgeting your expenses and being in debt now. The underlying thought in this situation may be, “I should have budgeted better.” This is a valid thought and you are certainly not overthinking here. The more helpful approach in this situation is problem-solving. At other times, there may not be a solution to your problem and you may have to switch to an acceptance mode (e.g., dealing with a terminal illness in a family member). The strategies listed below are more relevant to negative and irrational thoughts that lead to overthinking (Duggal, 2016).

7 ways to address overthinking   

1. Questions exploring evidence behind your overthinking:

  • What is the evidence to support the thought?
  • What is the evidence against the thought?
  • What is the likelihood of my thoughts being true?
  • Are there any small pieces of information that contradict my thoughts that I may be ignoring or discounting as unimportant?
  • Am I jumping to any conclusions that are not completely justified by facts?
         These questions are particularly helpful in situations where your overthinking is based on conclusions that you have arrived at without weighing in the evidence that supports or contradicts that conclusion. Because of some preexisting bias in your thinking or learned behavior, you may react to certain situations in a certain way, which makes you jump to conclusions or make wrong assumptions about yourself or others. For example, you fail to make a good impression at a meeting and start feeling that you don't have any people skills. However, if you look for evidence for and against this notion, you are more likely to replace your overthinking with a more rational and balanced way of thinking that is not global and self-critical.    

2. Questions exploring alternatives to your overthinking:

  • What are some of the alternative ways of seeing this viewpoint?
  • What other explanations are there for this situation?
  • What other thoughts can help me cope with this situation?
  • Are there any strengths or qualities I have that I am ignoring?
  • Are there any positives in this situation that I am ignoring?
        If your overthinking stems from ignoring the positives and mostly dwelling on the negative aspects of a situation, then these questions are really helpful. We are all guilty of misunderstanding someone's intent. For example, if you greet your co-worker and they don't reply back, you may think that they are ignoring you on purpose or they are trying to avoid you. However, as an alternative way to explain this situation, your co-worker may be too engrossed in their thoughts to pay attention to you or they are having a bad day and want to be left alone. Thus, looking for other ways to interpret a situation prevents you from defaulting to your overthinking style of misunderstanding social interactions. Also, sometimes your overthinking may involve minimizing your own strengths while dealing with a difficult situation and these questions would help you explore your strengths and not dwell on what is not working for you. This is especially true if one is dealing with depression. 

3. Questions to gain an objective perspective:

  • If my close friend or family member were to go through the same situation, what would I tell them?
        This question elicits the “double standards” you hold yourself and others to; you are compassionate when others are stressed but become self-critical when the same stressor affects you. For example, if your best friend is having marital problems and then finds out that he may be losing his job, you would offer him words of encouragement and support his well-being. However, if the same happened to you, you may start feeling that you are a failure and that there is no hope for you. Of course, you won’t say these words to your friend!

Other questions that will help you look at your situation more objectively include: 
  • If I am not feeling this way, would I think about this type of situation any differently?
  • How would my old, more positive self-view this situation?
  • If I had a coach who I trusted, what would they say about my thinking?
  • How would I view this situation a month or 6 months from now?

4. Questions to curb catastrophic thinking:

  • What is the worst that could happen?
  • What is the best that could happen?
  • What is the most realistic outcome?
          These questions are especially helpful in anxiety provoking situations wherein you may be assuming that the worst-case scenario is true.

5. Questions to elicit the effect of holding on to irrational thoughts:

  • What is the effect of my believing this thought?
  • Is holding on to this thought so doggedly helping me or hurting me?
  • What could be the effect of changing my thinking?
        These questions are particularly helpful when an irrational thought has some grain of truth to it but is causing you distress because you won’t stop obsessing about it. For example, you have an interview for a new job tomorrow but as you were busy with other things, you didn’t get any time to prepare for the interview. You are worried and your thoughts are, “I should have given myself more time to get ready for this interview.” These thoughts are justified, but if you continue to tell yourself the same thing, you will get anxious and frustrated. Using the above mentioned questions will help you refocus your thinking and find solutions for the problem.

6. Seeking feedback from family and friends:

Ask your friends or family members to give you their honest opinion about a situation that is bothering you. Be careful to choose someone who is trustworthy, supportive, and not critical. An example would be, “I am feeling X about the situation Y and I would like to get your honest opinion if my feelings of X are justified for the situation Y.”

7. Learning from past experiences:

If you have faced a similar situation in the past, then ask yourself:
  • What happened during that situation?
  • What did I tell myself when this happened before?
  • What was the outcome of the situation?
  • What have I learned from my prior experience that could help me understand this situation differently?
To put these techniques to best use, you first need to identify overthinking patterns that:
  • are most upsetting
  • are recurrent
  • appear most convincing
  • arise in situations for which you have no solution
It is neither practical nor recommended that you use all the techniques mentioned before to challenge your patterns of overthinking. What you may discover is that certain types of questions are more relevant to certain kinds of thought patterns. For instance, if your overthinking is because you are jumping to conclusions, then using questions to elicit evidence for and against the thoughts makes more sense.

To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that promote mental health and well-being, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page.

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES

Duggal, H. S. (2016). The complete guide to self-management of depression. Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing.

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