Overthinking and anxiety, overthinking and depression

By Dr Sarah Woods, Clinical Psychologist at NEpsychology – CBT in Morpeth, EMDR in Morpeth

Overthinking can be associated with difficulties such as stress, anxiety, low mood and depression. It is often the case that stressful and negative thoughts drag us down, keep us stuck in unhelpful habits and cause us unwanted feelings. We might find ourselves so lost in our thinking that we are not very present in our conversations or relationships.  It is common that it distracts us from sleep as well, we are focused on our thinking and find it hard to relax to sleep.

All of us struggle at points with stressful and negative thoughts. Thoughts are different to emotions, feelings or sensations, which arise in our body.

When people come to psychology they often talk about overthinking and wonder what they can do about it, or how to ‘switch it off’.

If we understand the nature of thoughts and apply some changes, it is possible to loosen the effects of unhelpful thoughts and unhook from overthinking.  

1 – Understand that the nature of the human mind is that we think 

The mind is a constant stream of thoughts.  Even if thoughts stop temporarily, soon enough they start up again.  Thinking is normal, we cannot switch it off.  

Thoughts can tell us how to live, how to evaluate ourselves, what to do or what to avoid. We are wired to think in this way, we all do. But despite being normal, many thoughts are not helpful to us in the pursuit of living a fulfilling life.  Imagine you always evaluate yourself negatively and decide not to try for a new job.  This will narrow your opportunities and you may never find out that you could have succeeded.

2 – The thoughts themselves are not the problem

We cannot switch our thoughts off, thoughts are normal.  But problems arise when we start to give a lot of space to stressful or negative thoughts.  When we start to fully believe them without taking a step back from them. We might start to feel like they drag us down or push us around, they guide our choices.

Problems can also arise when we do the opposite, resist our thoughts.  This can be a lot of effort and the thoughts often pop back into our minds. The effort of avoidance can take us away from engaging in important activities.  

Thoughts are just words, sounds, images, mental content.  We can learn to observe them, unhook from them and decide whether to give them our full attention.  We can decide whether a particular thought is helpful to us – right now, later or at all. We can then choose instead to focus our attention on something meaningful or important to us.  

3 – Learn to unhook from and have distance from overthinking

We can learn to choose which thoughts help us and to unhook from those that do not. 

The thoughts that are unhelpful are those that stop us from engaging in the important things in our life. If thoughts are pushing us around then we are likely to be making choices that are not in line with how we would prefer to live our lives.  If we can unhook from our unhelpful thoughts it makes is easier to connect to the things that make life meaningful.  We might be avoiding challenging ourselves or finding it hard to be fully present in our conversations and relationships. 

Things that help us unhook from negative thoughts include:

• Notice which unhelpful thoughts crop up regularly for us.
• Remember thoughts are not facts.
• Writing thoughts down and asking ourselves how helpful that thought is right now, and whether accepting it as a a fact is helpful to us.
• Allocating 15 or 20 minutes a day ‘worry time’.  Use a pen and paper and choose a time when things are quiet and without interruptions.  Make a note of any worries during the day and ‘save’ the worry until the allocated time.  At the end of time move away and do something that will distract you and that you enjoy.  Such as make a cup of tea or go into the garden.
• Most mindfulness exercises help us practise noticing thoughts without getting too tangled up in them.

4 – Overthinking linked to decision making

It is common to find ourselves overthinking when we have an important decision to make.  That is a natural part of the decision-making process. However, sometimes we don’t want to be thinking about it at that point in time or it is a difficult decision and it causes us distress to think about too often. At those times, we may want to limit and allocate worry time.  Set aside time to think the thoughts through, perhaps with a pen and paper.  And then stop and use distraction to change focus.  Choose something positive and enjoyable to do instead.

If overthinking includes thoughts about self harm or danger to yourself or others and it is important that you seek help. You can call the Samaritans to talk further, contact your GP or 111 or if it is an emergency call 999 or go to A&E.

Contact us if you would like further help

You may consider therapy to help loosen the impact of negative thoughts.  This can improve our mood and help us make positive choices about how to spend our time. If you want to speak further about how we can help, or to book an appointment call 07870 241970, email hello@nepsychology-co-uk.stackstaging.com or contact us through the website.

hello@nepsychology-co-uk.stackstaging.com

07870 241970

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