How to stop overthinking and overanalysing, starting today

If you want to know how to stop overthinking then I’m not surprised, to put it mildly, it is far from a pleasant experience to overthink.

The smallest and sometimes most irrelevant thing can happen and that’s enough to set the wheels in motion.

For example, you really need the toilet and then you wonder what would happen if you didn’t make it.

Then you start replaying that incident of when you didn’t make it when you were 8 at a Halloween party.

You replay it over and over, feeling all of those emotions again and again.

Sound familiar?

I don’t mean the Halloween party incident, that would be oddly specific.

I mean that feeling where it feels like your brain is in overdrive and you just want it to stop but no matter what you try it just doesn’t.

If you find that you overthink and want some tips then read on.

But why should you listen to me?

Well my name is Chris Piercy, I’m trained in cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy, NLP, I’m a life coach and I run GYST Coaching.

Oh, and perhaps, more importantly I spent years overthinking so many different aspects of my life.

Here are 10 different techniques that I have I’ve either used myself or have learnt in my various trainings.

Read on to learn how to stop overthinking….

1. Don’t call yourself an Overthinker

The labels we put on ourselves can and does have a big impact on how we feel or act.

This is true whether the label is put on or we put the label on ourselves.

If you’re labelled the class clown at school you’ll act up more.

Get called the fun one of the group, you’ll feel pressure to always be fun and not want to let things out.

Call yourself an Overthinker? Well you’ll make yourself overthink even more.

Tweak your thoughts from “I am an Overthinker” to “I am overthinking at the moment”.

The same can be said with people seemingly happy with being referred to as a “a worrier”.

Seriously!
How on earth do you/we/us think we’re helping ourselves at all by saying things like “Oh, I’m just a bit of a worrier”

What to do to stop overthinking:

Stop identifying with that label.
Don’t let ourselves be called an overthinker/worrier.
Stop calling ourselves a worrier.

2. Stop thinking and start solving

Our minds are incredibly powerful, look what we as humans have achieved. Look at how we’ve evolved from cave dwellers to creating a device which has access to all the knowledge in the world.

That’s how powerful our brains are.

The problem comes when we use our brains incorrectly, what a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist would call faulty thinking.

It’s like trying to work out what you should have for dinner by using our brains to count the number of birds in a fast moving flock.

Our brains, when overthinking, can become very problem focussed.

We are presented with a problem and we examine every aspect of the issue with a view to finding out everything that is wrong and perhaps that could go wrong too.

That leaves us with a whole selection of problems and smaller sub-problems.

How does all this overthinking help us?

It doesn’t, not even a little bit.

We should turn our heads towards proactively thinking about ways in which our problem could be solved.

Perhaps even deciding that there isn’t even a solution right now.

What to do to stop overthinking:

Stop thinking about the problem, start looking at the solution.

At any moment that you become aware of what you’re thinking simply ask yourself:

“Is what I’m thinking helping me towards a solution?”
“What would be a more helpful thing to think?”
“Is there actually a solution to my problem right now?”

3. Distract yourself

When we want to stop ourselves overthinking it is very tempting to just scream at yourself “shut up brain, just stop thinking”.

We are, or at least we should be, aware that not thinking is basically impossible.

So rather than telling our overthinking brain to shut up we need to show it an exciting shiny object to grab its attention instead.

This can be a mental thing like a puzzle or a physical thing such as a vigorous exercise.

If you’re someone who overthinks a lot and you’ve lost your mind trying to tell people who tell you to try “mindfulness” or “meditation” so solve your issues then don’t worry I’m with you.

It’s not that mindfulness and meditation won’t help the situation.
It’s just that trying to meditate when you feel like your brain is trying to think of everything in the known universe all at one time is nearly impossible.

How to stop yourself overthinking:

Give your brain something engaging to do!

4. Stop judging yourself for thinking

How about you give yourself a flippin’ break!

If something has upset you or is worrying you then of course your brain is going to think about it.

It would be really, really weird if your brain didn’t think about it.

Honestly it is human nature.

So let’s stop beating ourselves up, stop calling ourselves names and start telling ourselves that thinking about it is ok.

The more you fight against yourself the worse you will make yourself feel.

How to make yourself feel better:

Be kind to yourself and calmly accept that thinking about things which are upsetting/worrying you.

5. Stop judging your thoughts

On a very similar note, how about we also stop getting annoyed with ourselves for what we are thinking.

We are allowed to think whatever we want and we also can end up thinking things we don’t want to think.

For example, if someone has really wronged us it is entirely normal for our brains to think about harm wanting to come to that person.

That doesn’t mean that you actually want to harm that person.

Thinking thoughts and acting on thoughts are two entirely different things.

To my knowledge no-one has been arrested for thinking about punching their boss in the face.

How to stop overthinking:

Remind yourself nice and calmly that it is OK to be thinking it no matter what it is – yes even the really dark stuff.

6. Remind yourself that thoughts are not facts

Riffing off the back of the last one remember that anything that you think is just a thought.

Please remember that your brain can think ANYTHING but most of it is opinion, fantasy or simply not true.

I could sit here thinking that foxes are normally green or that Beyoncé is hideous or that everyone hates me.

Thinking those things doesn’t mean they’re true.

How to stop overthinking:

Remind yourself that thoughts are not facts.

You can actually stop a thought and ask “Do I have any evidence that what I am thinking is actually true?”

7. You’re not Derren Brown

A lot of worry and angst comes in the form of “knowing” what other people are thinking or thinking that we know what they will do in a given situation?

For example:

“I’ve done this, and Betty will find out and when Betty finds out she will think this and therefore she will do this”

Sound like a familiar train of thought? Probably not with Betty though.

The question then becomes do you know exactly what other people are thinking?

If no then stop pretending like you do, if yes then go and start your own mindreading stage show to rival Derren Brown.

How to stop overthinking:

Get the message through to your silly brain that you do not in fact know what other people are thinking.

Catch these thoughts and then tell yourself “I do not know what other people are thinking”.

8. Stop projecting

We tend to have very strong opinions about ourselves and are particularly interested in our own flaws.

As stated firmly above we do not know what other people are thinking.

But what we think they are thinking is often a projection of what we think about ourselves.

Here’s an example.

Due to a previous relationship you feel unattractive and unlovable.

You are messaging someone through a popular dating app and after sending a photo of yourself happily smiling (fully clothed of course) you feel as if they are messaging less.

Your brain starts thinking that they’ve been put off because of the photo.

You convince yourself of this fact.

This then re-asserts that you are unattractive and unlovable.

You are projecting your feelings of being unattractive into the mind of the person you’re messaging.

End of example.

What we think about ourselves certainly isn’t any proof whatsoever that someone else may think the same thing.

How to stop overthinking:

Tell yourself “What I am thinking could be very different to what someone else is thinking.”

This spiral of projection and reassertion is a downward one and it is built on no proof whatsoever.

9. You do not know the future

Overthinking often lives in “what if” land where we start looking at all the different possible outcomes of certain scenarios.

When overthinking we tend to gravitate towards the most disastrous ones which typically tend to be ridiculously unlikely.

Living in an imagined future fighting off pretend stressful scenarios is a surefire way to feeling pretty crappy.

We tend to say “what if this happened?”, instead we could “what if this didn’t happen?”

The best way to stop overthinking:

Chuck the imaginary crystal ball in the bin and ask yourself “Do I know the future?”

The answer is no.

Stopping and challenging your thoughts with this simple question is very beneficial.

10. Let go of the things you can’t control

This is probably one of the hardest things to do which is why I saved it until last.

I’ve spoken about what we control being way less than we realise in quite some depth in this blog

Unfortunately we only control our thoughts and our actions.

So if something you’re overthinking about is not your thoughts or your actions then it isn’t in your control.

One of the quickest ways to stress yourself out is to try and control something that you can’t control.

Or to worry about something that you can’t control.

Here’s a list of things people like to overthink about that you have no control over, no matter who you are:

• The past
• Someone’s opinion of you
• What someone else thinks
• What anyone else says or does
• When someone messages you back
• How people interpret what you’ve said or done
• Other people’s happiness
• The future
• The weather
• Anything that isn’t our thoughts or our actions.

How to slow down that overthinking you keep doing:

When you notice you’re overthinking, stop and ask yourself “What do I have control of in this situation?”

Make a list in your brain, on your phone or written down.

Then ask “What can I do about the things I have control over?”

Make a list of these.

Do the things on this list.

And that’s it.

You’re finished.

You’ve just done all the things that you can possibly do about the situation, it’s now time to let your brain concentrate on other things.

So how do you stop overthinking?

Well I’m hoping that you’ve read through all 10 of these different ways to slow down or stop the overthinking that you’re doing.

My guess would be that 1 or 2 of these will have resonated with you more than the others.

A lot of the time it’s a case of actually being able to notice when we start indulging in overthinking.

It doesn’t matter WHEN you notice only that you do notice, so initially you might have been sat overthinking for an hour before you notice, that’s fine.

Once you’ve noticed you can apply one or two of the suggestions above to jam a spanner in your works.

Hopefully the next time you start overthinking you’ll notice sooner.

Actually noticing when you are overthinking is a bit of a skill which means that you can learn to get better at it.

The more you notice the better you will get, the better you get the more you will notice.

It’s a cycle which feeds into itself.

If you’d like to download a cheat sheet for overthinking then fill in the form below.

Or if you’ve had enough of anxiety and overthinking and would like to learn techniques to reduce and control it then check out my 4-week online course anxiousness to awesomeness.

Alternatively you might want to think about working with me as your life coach, if so click the book a free call button and we’ll have a chat and take it from there!