From Pity to Praise

Many of are plagued by worry or easily fixate on certain thoughts

Do you ever find you can’t sleep because the same thought is circulating round and round in your head? Do you replay past situations over and over again, plagued by “what if’s” or spend a lot of time worrying about at event in the future- even an insignificant or imagined one? You might be a over-thinker.

Simply put, it’s the act of giving a thought to much time and attention. When does analyzing become more harmful than helpful?

So, why do we over-think? We can over-think situations that are both actual and hypothetical. For many people it’s all about social situations: “why did I say that?” “What Will everyone think of me?” But overthinking can creep into any part of our lives.

Often it about things that haven’t even happened yet. Many people start to overthink in the guise of preparing for a situation. While this is normal and can be helpful, it’s when this preparation turns obsessive that they can find themselves in the unhelpful overthinking phase.

It can also happen in The absence of other stimulation or distractions. The fact is that when our minds are idle, it’s most likely to obsess about topics that you wouldn’t be considering if we were doing something engaging. Nighttime seems to be the culprit.

When Overanalyzes Affects Wellbeing

While fixation can be a good thing to drive you towards an end goal, if you find that you are often fixated on small and insignificant things in your life, leading to heightened feeling of stress and anxiety, perhaps it is time to step back and re-assess what it is that is causing you to over analyze.

The first sign is simply turning a thought into a worry or stressor until it becomes an unhealthy fixation, “analysis paralysis isa known state of mind within the psychological profession -as your mind fixates on a thought or specific subject, the bigger it seems the worse you feel, often leaving you feeling paralyzed by those emotions and unable to act or move past them.

In other words, just thinking about something a lot isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem. Overthinking often means dwelling on it so much, and going around in so many circles, that you’re unable to take action.

I tend to overthink about my son, every night like clock work, I start thinking of him being over 2000 miles away, and being by himself. It’s not that I don’t think he can take care of himself. I know he can. But it still bothers me, I try and tell myself he’s an adult and he’s fine. But my brain just circles back to the same worry. I have lost many night’s sleep over him. I have gone over every scenario in my mind of what could happen.

If something like this is a common occurrence, it can have a negative impact on our wellbeing and mental health.

Finding yourself unable to stop playing imagined situations over and over again can lead to trouble sleeping and difficulties concentrating on the situation you’re actually in. This in turn can cause irritability, more stress and more anxiety.

Whether anxiety is the cause of or the effect of its hard to know. Like the chicken and the egg scenario, it an be hard to know which came first.

How To Get Out Of Your Head

First and foremost, you need to recognize when a thought pattern isn’t serving you. Simply telling a close friend or family member might help you recognize this behavior, then you can take practical action to resolve whatever was troubling you, rather than continuing to fret about it.

Often distracting yourself with a favorite hobby or you doing some exercise. I listen to Bible scriptures when I begin to overthink about my son in the nighttime hours, until I drift off to sleep. But if you overthink during the day you can try focusing on the last five repetitions at the gym, knitting, painting, reading a book, or learn or plat an instrument that takes a lot of concentration, pushing unnecessary self-destructive thoughts out of your head,

Don’t forget to exercise some self-care and be kind to yourself. It’s not your fault and overthinking can be unlearned by just being a little more mindful. The premise behind mindfulness is not overthinking.

The idea is that while mindfulness makes us concentrate on everyday things like eating, and breathing, we don’t need to exhaust our brains by thinking about these aspects of life, as they are part of something we’ve been doing since the moment we were born. Simply slowing your mind down if you find yourself in a overthinking frenzy, and focus on just breathing can be a really helpful exercise.

Practicing mindfulness can lead to you trusting and using your gut instinct more, instead of constantly over-analyzing and becoming a person of action instead. When we’re preoccupied with assessing, dissecting, and observing everything around us, we occupy the mind with unnecessary clutter, making it less creative and therefore able to find solutions.

Try writing down your thoughts and worries it may help you feel more in control. When we write things down, they feel more manageable. Journaling can be a way of scheduling “worry time” a dedicated time each day that we devote entirely to worrying.

Once your thoughts are written down, make sure you do something that’s going to divert your attention elsewhere. You can come back to them later, at a scheduled time- without it taking your entire day.

Sometimes a little outside perspective is necessary. ‘If overthinking is having a bog impact on your mental health, it’s helpful to speak to a therapist who can help you with tools and techniques for managing it.