What is Overthinking?
Ruminating about a certain thought and transporting ourselves into the past or future while being stuck in the present, is categorized as overthinking.
If you are thinking while-
- Zoning out
- Biting your nails or picking your skin
- Jumping to conclusions
- Being confident that only the worst would happen
Then, you are most likely overthinking the situation.
There is a thin line between thinking - overthinking and worrying - overthinking which is quite often blurred because sometimes we are told to “think things through”.
How do you snap back into existence?
Here are a few tips provided by a few practicing therapists:
- Have a hair tie on your wrist at all times when you notice that you notice that you most frequently overthink. Once you start getting lost in that loop of "what if something could have gone better" or "why didn't I do better at that task", snap your hair tie at your wrist until you feel like you've come back to your senses.
- Carry a few sour candies with you and eay once every time you get nervous about something that out of control.
- Splash cold water on your face repeatedly and take deep breathes afterwards
- Use the 4-7-8 breathing technique to calm yourself down
- Breathe in for 4 seconds
- Hold your breath for 7 seconds
- Breathe out slowly in 8 seconds
- Shake your hands and feet frantically and feel the blood in your body reach the tip of your fingers.
- Address your thoughts instead of ignoring or ruminating on them
- Meditate 🧘
When should you seek professional help?
Although a certain amount of overthinking is considered normal, if this gets in the way of your daily activities or poses potential danger to yourself or others in any way then, you should consider getting some help.
There is no harm is asking for help. You can always ask a friend for emotional support or a partner too. After all, it is their duty to be there for you (and if they were in your shoes, you’d do the same too) and no, you are not a burden. You can learn on another person too and that’s okay.
Professional help like practicing therapists or psychologists should be approached when you feel like everything is going out of hand. They help address your thoughts and emotions and read our article “Therapy : Offline or Online”, where we discuss the effectiveness and weigh the pros and cons of each mode of therapy (Stay tuned)!
Ending Scene
If you are going through a rough time, take some time out of yourself, probably do nothing (because that is completely okay) and relax.
Sometimes time helps us heal but, buffers like eating good food, sleeping well, getting good exercise and rejuvenating yourself, speed up the process quite a lot.
Realizing that you need to change this pattern of negative overthinking, is in itself, a huge step so, congratulations on that, you’re halfway there!