By Henrik Nordahl, psychologist
How to effectively reduce overthinking and worry?
Thoughts are not important, but how you relate to your thoughts is very important. What thoughts are you spending your time on, and what recurring themes come up?
Life is uncertain, which makes it impossible on our part to predict what the future will bring. Some people make a good living, while others struggle to make ends meet.
Another reality is that we cannot change the past. What’s done is done, what has happened has happened. But the way that we choose to deal with what has been, what is now, and what may happen in the future is absolutely crucial to living a good life.
What is overthinking and worry?
Overthinking and worry refer to thoughts that are repetitive and/or recurring. These can be seen as both a vulnerability factor and a symptom of mental health issues.
The content of overthinking is usually negative, focused on the past, and centered around negative emotions. It is characterized by self-focused attention, meaning that you focus inward on your own negative thinking instead of looking outward at the world.
Overthinking vs. Worry: What’s the difference?
Rumination is often triggered by “why thoughts”. One goal of these thoughts is to try to find answers and meaning in things that have happened in the past, and in current symptoms/thoughts/feelings.
Some examples are:
- Why did she say that?
- Why do I feel this way?
- Why did this happen to me?
Worry is defined as a chain of upsetting thoughts that are primarily verbal, have a “what-if” format, and whose purpose is to find solutions to anticipated future threatening situations. “What if I get attacked?”, “What if it’s cancer?”.
Some examples are:
- What if I get attacked?
- What if I have cancer?
Also read: 5 Tips to Turn Negative Thoughts into Positive Ones >
It’s normal to worry, but is it useful?
Worry has its costs: you can become anxious and stressed, you may find it difficult to concentrate, and you may find it difficult to relax. In short, worry is incompatible with relaxing and restitution, so if we are going to invest our time and energy in worrying, it should be worth the effort.
Some people, for example, think that worrying helps them be better prepared, but does it really? How do you know what to worry about?
- Finances, cancer, or your children?
- Maybe you should cover all possibilities?
- How much time should you spend?
Is it lucky if the exact thing you’ve been worrying about for years actually happens? Are you well-prepared to handle, say, cancer, if that happens?
We all need to find meaning in life, and to understand the world and what is happening around us. Unfortunately we cannot find answers to everything. It may be that you have made a choice that you wish you had made differently, or a comment that was made to you that you did not understand.
Examples of ruminating thoughts are:
- Why did I do that?
- Why did she say that?
- Why am I so tired?
How do you feel when you think like that? Do you feel happy and content, or more angry, sad, and frustrated with yourself?
Overthinking maintains and amplifies bad moods
Questions you should ask yourself is:What do I get out of all this overthinking and analyzing?
If the cost is a worse and more prolonged bad mood, you should at least get some good good answers and solutions from your worries.
- Has there been a good balance between cost and reward with your overthinking topics?
If not, how much more time do you need to find the answers you’re looking for?
Do you need help finding balance?
Metacognitive therapy – understanding thought processes
Professor Adrian Wells from the University of Manchester, England, has developed a model and theory that explain psychological difficulties as a result of a self-regulatory failure, in which maladaptive cognitive strategies and behavioral strategies maintain and/or reinforce difficulties and suffering.
The problem with unhelpful thought processes like worry and overthinking is that they maintain and/or amplify stress and discomfort, and interfere with other processes necessary for emotional processing.
This is why it’s important to reflect on the themes you’re spending mental energy on and understand your motivation for doing so: Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks?
If you conduct a cost-benefit analysis of worry and overthinking, very few would conclude that it’s worthwhile to give these thought processes time and energy.
How to effectively reduce overthinking and worry?
It is important to distinguish between trigger thoughts and thought processes.A trigger thought is the first thought that comes to you with respect to a topic, while the thought process involves all the thoughts that follow the trigger thought on this topic.
Trigger thoughts come and go, and we cannot control the thoughts that come to us. But that is not so important. The thing that counts is how you choose to react to trigger thoughts, regardless of how unpleasant they may be.
Detached attention – what is it?
An alternative to focusing attention on unhelpful thought processing is to take a meta-perspective on your thoughts and feelings.
Wells calls this state “detached attention.” This means adopting a passive and observational perspective on your thoughts, rather than getting caught up in them.
How to practice detached attention
It involves developing an awareness that thoughts are just thoughts, and that you can simply choose to let thoughts go by without going further into the thought process.
It’s about becoming aware that thoughts are just thoughts, and you can choose to let them pass without getting further involved in the thought process.
- Let the thought just be there – you don’t need to give it attention. It’s just a thought.
- Bills won’t be paid by your worries, anyway.
In summary, the key to detached attention is to do absolutely nothing with your trigger thoughts.This is something you already do with most other thoughts that your brain produces during the day.
Ready to shift your focus?
