25 Nov how to stop overthinking everything!
Does overthinking lead to anxiety that eats away at your happiness?
Do your thoughts spiral out of control and ruin your calm?
I’m happy to say … there are solutions!
So if you want more peace and happiness then keep reading…
via the Ladders by Thomas Oppong
Overthinking can lead to serious emotional distress and increase your risk of mental health problems.
Thinking about something in endless circles — is exhausting.
While everyone overthinks a few things once in a while, chronic over-thinkers spend most of their waking time ruminating, which puts pressure on themselves.
They then mistake that pressure to be stress.
“There are people who have levels of overthinking that are just pathological,” says clinical psychologist Catherine Pittman, an associate professor in the psychology department at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana.
“But the average person also just tends to overthink things.” Pittman is also the author of “Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry.”
Overthinking can take many forms: endlessly deliberating when making a decision (and then questioning the decision), attempting to read minds, trying to predict the future, reading into the smallest of details, etc.
People who overthink consistently run commentaries in their heads, criticizing and picking apart what they said and did yesterday, terrified that they look bad — and fretting about a terrible future that might await them
‘What ifs’ and ‘shoulds’ dominate their thinking, as if an invisible jury is sitting in judgement on their lives. And they also agonize over what to post online because they are deeply concerned about how other people will interpret their posts and updates.
They don’t sleep well because ruminating and worrying keep them awake at night.
“Ruminators repetitively go over events, asking big questions: Why did that happen? What does it mean?” adds Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, the chair of the department of psychology at Yale University and the author of Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life.
“But they never find any answers.”
If you consistently focus on ruminating and make it a habit, it becomes a loop, And the more you do it, the harder it is to stop. Clinical psychologist Helen Odessky, Psy. D., shares some insight…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE