How to Stop Overthinking? Here's Some Things You Could Do

Once in a while everyone would overthink about certain stuff, but there are some people that have to deal with a constant and huge amount of thoughts all the time. Overthinking and worrying about certain stuff is normal for human beings to do, but these can affect your mental health if left unchecked. If you are a chronic overthinker and wonder how to stop overthinking, here are some things you could try.

Distract Yourself

The first and easiest thing you can do to deal with overthinking is to get yourself a distraction. You can shut down those destructive thoughts by doing things that you love or learning something new. You can try to go out and have a walk in the park, go to the mall, watch a movie, or you can learn how to cook a certain dish, learn how to play a guitar or any new interesting stuff.

Obviously, distracting yourself will not solve the problem entirely since you will only shut down those thoughts for only a certain amount of time, when you are doing the distractions. But this will be handy if you desperately need to get away from those thoughts. And more importantly, you are aware that you are overthinking and you know that it's not a good thing. This is important since some people overthink so much that they don't even realize that it's happening. Being aware of your problem is crucial.

Focus on What You Can Do

Just constantly thinking and dwelling about your problem is not helpful at all, especially when you keep thinking about what you should've done instead of what you did. What will be helpful is looking for the solutions. Think about what you have control over and try to figure out how to fix it or at least make it better for you.

If the things that had happened were out of your control, try to come up with strategies on how to cope with it. With things that are out of your control, the things you can control is your attitude and effort on dealing with them. Stop thinking about what could've or should've happened since it is completely useless and will only drain you.

Give Your Thoughts a Challenge

With negative thoughts, it is easy to be carried away so you might be exaggerating what may or may not happen. So, before you think that you may get fired just because you were late one time, be aware that you may be exaggerating.

Emotions will interfere with the ability to look objectively at certain situations. So to make sure that you don't get carried away, when you overthink, try to take a moment to yourself and look at the facts and evidence you have. After that, try to differentiate between which facts and evidence are true and logical, and which one are just the results of your mind exaggerating. Don't let the negative thoughts win, challenge them.

Meditate

The next thing on how to stop overthinking is to meditate. Meditation is known to make people calmer, more relaxed and more fresh both in mind and body. A good meditation could help your mind from those noisy thoughts that just won't shut up. All you need is a quiet room with some music and aromatherapy if you prefer, and 15-30 minutes of your time. One meditation won't do, try to make this as your daily habit.

Help or Do Something Nice to Other People

Helping or doing something nice to others will not make you feel wonderful, but will also help with your overthinking issue. If you help ease the load or pain of someone else, it will help you to see things in perspective. You can try to find a friend or a relative who is going through a difficult time, maybe a breakup, divorce, or they just got fired.

If those are too big for you, you can always start small. Maybe you can help your neighbor get their groceries out of their car, or give a present to your friends or coworkers. To know that you have the power to make their day better will help to free your mind from negative thoughts. Not only that, you will also be distracted and instead of dwelling into your thoughts, you are doing something nice and productive.

Look at Your Success

Another thing you can do to ease your overthinking is to look at your success. Success doesn't have to be big things like a promotion or a good grade at school, but small things like you cleaned the house, you babysit your friend's baby, or you didn't buy that thing you didn't need are also accomplishments you should acknowledge.

When you start to overthink, try to grab your phone or your notebook and pen if you are old school, and start to list the things you have done right the past couple of days or weeks. You will be distracted while listing your accomplishments and plus, you might be surprised at how good those little successes will make you feel about yourself.

Look from Another Viewpoints

Sometimes you just can't get some thoughts out of your head because you are only looking from your perspective. In some cases, to help you ease your mind, you should try to step out from your usual perspective.

Ask for Help

If you have tried all of those and you still can't stop yourself from overthinking, it is time to finally ask for help from other people. This might be difficult if you are an introvert or you have problems trusting people, but you need to know when you will seek help.

In how to stop overthinking in a chronic sense, you can get yourself a good and qualified therapist. You can ease the burden by having someone listening to you, and you can work together to find the best ways to overcome your overthinking.