How do you stop yourself over thinking?

Post Reply New Topic

Hey guys

I tend to waffle quite a lot so if you want the bottom line just read what's in bold.

I've become a bit of a mess over the last few months and I now realize (after a WP member pointing it out to me) that I'm over-thinking.

It seems so obvious now that my problem is over thinking, or experiencing hyper-intention (a term I'm borrowing from the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl).

This is something I am quite susceptible to, which when left unchecked (like it is now) turns mole hills into mountains, constantly distracts me and inhibits 'doing' because I'm so busy 'thinking' .

Despite knowing I am susceptible i tend to let the over thinking habit take over insidiously without noticing. This also tends to leads to a vicious cycle as my natural approach to problems it to analyse & think my way out (i.e. when I'm in the hole I keep digging).

Regrettably I cannot just switch off my thoughts, therefore simply knowing i'm over think is a diagnosis but not a cure.

That said I'm not completely hopeless I have come up with several treatments for over thinking

Talking to people - This is the best method as it can both relieve over thinking (a problem shared is a problem halved) and detect it - other people generally notice I'm over thinking before I do. The draw back is there are a limited number of people I can talk to in this way and they aren't always around/available or in the right mood to listen (which is the case at the moment). Plus I don't want to constantly burden them with my problems.

Physical exercise - It's greatest benefits are mental rather than physical and I highly recommend it. Unfortunately I recently broke my collar bone so I can't do most of my activity's ( Rock climbing, Aikido, Yoga) for at least 5 weeks. I like waking and hiking but it's winter in Ireland at them moment so it's constantly wet and cold .

Listening to music - Can be helpful but I find it's more helpful for stress relief/ altering moods than over thinking. It's great but the effects tend to were off (and listening to music constantly gives me a headache).

Writing out my thoughts - Can be helpful as it's a means of expressing them and I tend to learn from them and develop them more this way. However sometimes it leads to periods where I obsessively write out my thoughts (like now) and this often just increases the over thing.

because I currently can't really talk to people or use physical exercise as an outlet (see above) I'm not managing my over thing very well. Does anyone else have problems with over thinking?

How do you manage over thinking? Any novel approaches?

I kinda want to sort this soon. I have college exams in under a week and I'm procrastinating rather than studying because I'm over thinking!

I do anything that can distract me. I am religious and I find talking to God helps me, stop over thinking. I also have some other non religious activity that helps. I read a book, draw a picture, get on the computer. Facebook. play a game, build a puzzle, sing, dance, listen to music in other languages. Anything to DISTRACT me from my thoughts that just wont go away. I also day dream.

hope this helps..


regards Teredia.

Stop over thinking stuff and start studying for your exams already! Sorry, but I thought you need someone to tell you this.

BTW, I like your list. Its very useful.

Thanks Teredia you've given me an idea.

I'm not religious per say but I do talk to my mom (we were close, she passed away in 2010).

Sometimes I talk to her, and sometime she reply's (not sure if that's her or a mental construct of her in my head but either way she gives good advice) it's helped before so I'll give it a shot.

Marybird Thanks for the complement.

and yes your right; I need to cop on and get my act together. To switch from thinking to doing

I am glad i could help =)

I wish I had some more advice on this, but this is one issue I have myself that I have not been very successful combatting. The one strategy I do use is trying to focus on what is it that I can possibly do to move the issue along and then once I have done all I can do, call it a dead horse and try not to go back. But its hard, because my mind seems to have a mind of its own in this behavior and doesn't listen to what I say. Or is like a puppy with a two second attention span.

Get Drunk?

It does work, but you don't want to become dependent on alcohol in order to relax yourself. There are many more sensible and effective ways of stopping yourself from over thinking such as meditating (Not something I do my self, but I am thinking of starting to help manage this exact same problem)


Also, if you want something simple to concentrate on, you could try specificaly observing everyday life around you-Sounds, conversations, people's movement ect, if you won't find that kind of thing boring.

I have a strong tendency to over-think, too. Studying buddhist philosophy and practicing insight meditation has helped me a lot with this (and other things too). I'm not a religious buddhist, so do not follow any particular school.

I can recommend listening to dharma talks like the ones on this site: http://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/?search=thinking&sort=talks_teacher.name

I entered 'thinking' as a search word and as you can see, there's a lot of talks dealing with this issue. I usually download the talk and open it in a sound editor, so I can jump past the chanting bit in the beginning and so I can go back and repeat whenever I lose track. I actually listened to the talk by Ajahn Amaro at the top of the list just yesterday (before reading this thread) and found it really helpful.

You can also find lots of dharma talks on youtube.

I don't have any friends except for my boyfriend, so reading books, listening to talks, watching videos and being on WP is the only way for me to get an outside perspective on things.

Be content.
How to be content?
Be earnest in your doings.
That mitigates thinking too much.

I like to destroy things or make things. Sometimes both. As I work with computers all the time. I get a lot of Brocken or bad hard drives. I need to make sure the data is unretrivable so I destroy the hard drives when I feel down stressed or need help refocusing on a task at hand. I save out the aluminum bits and melt them down into ingots. It creates some pretty cool art.