Tips To Cope with Over-thinking
Many of you asked me how to deal with over-thinking so I asked you guys back about it and some of your tips for dealing with it. I’ve based this short article on many of your responses and hope that it helps in some ways.
How would you define over thinking?
Even though we each have our own experiences, I think this captures the essence of your responses of what over thinking is:
Over thinking is when we think too much about something especially a problem causing us to lose sight of the big picture. Often times, we may find ourselves thinking too much to the point that we become delusional, complicating a problem, creating a problem that is not there, or/and making ourselves feeling anxious and worried. Over thinking also causes us not to be able to enjoy an experience that we don’t have to think much about.
Here are some tips to deal with over thinking:
1. Distraction. We can distract ourselves away from the thoughts. For example, by listening to music, going out, watching a movie, working on a project or hobby, or going to sleep or on Tumblr. There are many ways to distract ourselves and it seems to be the easiest way to do so. However, the down side is distraction does not help in the long term. The thing you are worried about with your thoughts are still there. The only thing distraction helps in my opinion is it buys you time to let the problem pass.
2. Letting go of your thoughts. This point was brought up by one of you to my inbox and I find it really ingenious and valid. Often times when we over think, we are also most likely keeping the problems to ourselves or working through them alone in our head. If we instead, share the thoughts with other people or write them down in a journal, we ‘may’ be able to let go of those thoughts temporarily off our head. In my opinion, if this works for you, it is a much better tip than distraction, because you are dealing with the problem and not avoiding it. This may help you reach a compromise or peace with your thoughts. The down side of this is that it may end up being a waste of time, because the problems you are thinking about may not be real. You may be thinking too much when it’s not even something you should worry about.
3. Find a balance between the above two approaches. Over thinking may be there for a reason. It may be there to help us solve a real problem and our brain is working hard to fix it. If you feel the problem is valid, then trying to work through your thoughts may be the best approach. If you feel the problem is not there or that you’re possibly over thinking, then you may consider just distracting yourself (until things work out on their own or when you find more leads to your problem).
None the less, over thinking is an exhausting process and dealing with it is not easy at all. Overthinking may be there as an adaptive mechanism. It makes you smarter so you can work through a problem to avoid it. It may also be excessive and harmful when it becomes a habit and prevents you from enjoying your self. None the less, hope the above tips helped in some ways. Feel free to leave me a message.
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