If you’re reading this… welcome to the club! Overthinking is extremely common when it comes to anxiety, daily stressors and/or trauma symptoms.
We all the know the feeling… overthinking about something we said or didn’t say, overthinking about a romantic parter, staying up at night replaying the past, future, all of our to do lists, desires, regrets.
Below I’ve compiled the top five ways to stop overthinking:
1. Get out of your head and into your body. When we are overthinking, all of our energy is in our head. When this happens we often lose touch with our body. We lose touch with our emotions, our sensations, and a general sense of embodiment. A great way to stop over thinking is to get out of your mind and focus your concentration on the emotions and sensations in your body.
2. Move a muscle change a thought. This means that when we are running, exercising, playing, or doing intentional body movements like yoga – we have to focus on what our body is doing. This is a really great way to stop overthinking. This can even mean something as simple as going for a really short walk.
3. Change your environment. This is a great technique because when we are in a certain environment we get used to the external stimuli and then we relax into our internal stimuli- meaning our thoughts. When we change the external stimuli, or our environment, it also helps to change our internal environment. This can be as simple as moving from one room in your house to another.
4. Focus on your breath. This is a mindfulness activity and probably one of the most central ways to not get lost in thought. In all meditation and mindful traditions one of the most common and historical is to focus on our breath. When all else falls away, we are left with our breath. It is safe, consistent, and life-giving.
5. Question your thoughts. Our thoughts are not often reality. Our perception of the present moment is clouded by our past experiences and the negative core beliefs we hold about ourselves. A really important practice is to begin to not focus on whether a thought it’s true or not but to focus on whether a thought is helpful or not.
If you begin to practice these five coping skills to stop overthinking you were really start to notice a difference in your quality of life.
If you have any more questions about overthinking please feel free to reach out via the Metta Holistic Therapy contact page or email me directly at reneeminxtherapy@gmail.com
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