Overthinking Everything? Try These 3 Tools to Calm Your Brain
I often find myself talking to people about overthinking; that feeling of your mind racing ahead and dragging you with it.
Do you ever replay conversations long after they’ve ended, analysing every word?
Do you catch yourself catastrophising about something that hasn’t even happened yet?
Maybe you tumble down rabbit holes with your thoughts until your anxiety feels completely overwhelming.
Is that your experience? Is it holding you back?
If spiralling thoughts feel familiar, here are 3 things that can help:
1. Reclaim your focus. Bring yourself back to now.
Why this helps?
Bringing yourself to back to the present and noticing that you were beginning to spiral is an important step. It shows that you are in charge of your brain! It’s ok that you were starting to spiral, it’s ok that maybe you’ve got caught up in it, but now your noticing, you’ve stepped out of the spiral.
How to do it:
Say to yourself (out loud is good, but I know not always possible),’ I’ve noticed I have started to spiral. That’s ok, now I’m choosing to stop’. If you can move, change the room you are in, shake your body to release some of those feelings. Notice the feelings that have arisen and name them.
2. Schedule a ‘ Worry Window’.
Why this helps?
Scheduling a time to worry can be useful because if you tell yourself to stop thinking about something chances are it will be all you can think about. Having a set time to worry lets your brain know you’re not avoiding it and you will deal with it. Hopefully the worry will be a less of distraction and you can get back to your day. It can be helpful to write down your worries in the Worry Window as writing it down feels like taking action and can give you a different perspective.
How to do it:
Find a good time for you that you can commit to most days. Maybe just before bed and set a timer for 5, 10 or 15 minutes whatever you feel you need, but not too long. Then get ask yourself some questions about the worry; what’s the worry trying to tell me? Is it true? What’s the evidence? Are there any small actions I could take to help? What advice would I give to someone in the same situation? This is about curiosity not criticism.
3. Think about the best-case scenario.
Why this is helps:
Our brains always seem to take us to the worst-case scenario, our brain is just looking out for us it wants to be prepared so we will know what to if something bad happens. But sometimes this can leave us feeling anxious, overwhelmed or frightened. We might even start avoiding things, so we don’t have to feel that way.
But there is another way, the best case.
How to do it:
Next time you notice you’re in the worst case think about the best case. Imagine what that would look like; what would you be doing? How would you be feeling? How would you feel afterwards? Now spend some time noticing how you feel now, how does your body feel? Hopefully you feel a little more relaxed. Often real life will land somewhere in the middle of the two.
Don’t feel you have to try all of these, maybe just pick one and see how that feels for a few days, if it doesn’t help, choose something different. This is about finding what works best for your brain, what someone else finds helpful you may not.
Change happens by taking small steps regularly, it doesn’t matter how small they are.
If you would like some support with overthinking, you’re welcome to get in touch with me.
