We, humans, get roughly 70,000 thoughts each day. According to German scientist and neuroscientist Ernst Pöppel, our mind is only in the present time for about 3 seconds at a time. Everybody likes to figure out their lives by thinking about all possible conditions they might face in their future. This probably occurs every single time in our life, most probably during our bad times. We go through this phase of overthinking which is considering all possible or rather "not possible" life situations that cause constant worrying or anxiety which might affect our mental health. So how we can figure out whether we are undergoing thinking or overthinking?
The cause of overthinking Overthinking causes when we constantly keep rendering about our past or when we overstimulate about the future events which we might not even face. So overthinking is of two types first one is when we try to live the past scenario again or we keep thinking about the past activity that we did which is also called ruminating. The second one is worried about your future or daydreaming about the future. Sometimes it is the fear which leads to overthinking. When we sense fear we overthink so much that we become fiction writers. We think about the situations which won't even happen to us. But after all the NHT [Natural Human Tendency] pulls us over. This probably happens because we try to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
Effects of Overthinking Overthinking can lead to severe mental health issues like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress. When you are unable to turn off unwanted thoughts you struggle with your daily routine and also with your sleep schedule. It affects your daily functioning and also your appetite. When you are in a state of overthinking you start to isolate yourself from the people. You get that social anxiety kind of feeling. Overthinking mostly involves dwelling on your worst past scenarios or constantly thinking about the future.
Less is more When it comes to creative people like writers, artists, etc., or even a person working in a 9-5 job, the less you think the better you execute your ideas and the more efficient your life will be. Our mind is not made for storing any kind of data we only remember moments and not the time or the days. When creative people are trying to explore new ideas they have a larger tendency to overthink a particular idea which might even lead to derailing yourself from your actual work.
Quality suffers Let's take an example you are going to bed after a hectic and long day as you lie on your bed you start thinking about the chat you had with your co-worker or the promotion that you missed after some time you are thinking about the family problems you are currently facing these kinds of thoughts won't let you sleep and more often they just degrade your sleep quality. Also, remember this basic rule with what emotion you go to sleep with you wake up with the same emotion. So when you are going through these unnecessary thoughts instead of sleeping peacefully you will wake up with the same thoughts in the morning, bored and monotonic. When your sleep suffers your whole day suffers. It can get affected if you wake up in the wrong circadian rhythm which then is followed by a slump. [check out here how to get rid of slump]. So your working quality suffers. This cycle starts with overthinking and ends with the same.
The two wolves We constantly keep hovering through our thoughts. Our mind is just like a restless monkey constantly jumping from one branch to the other. Our mind has two voices. Like the two wolves fighting in combat one of the wolf carries all the negative energies like anger, lust, greed fear, envy, lies while the other has love, compassion, peace, kindness, humility, positivity. They are constantly combating with each other. The wolf which you feed always wins. It means that It solely depends on you whom to listen to. The real and most correct voice might be lower in your mind but you should have the ability to listen to it. The bad wolf will always try to hinder your focus from your goals but you have to ignore him and choose the good one. You will be tested every single turn of your life.
How to stop overthinking?
Practice meditation- Meditation is the thing that will connect you more towards your current time rather than loitering in your thoughts. Meditation might feel boring for some people because when you have to do nothing and just sit peacefully with your eyes closed your restless monkey mind takes over and you start overthinking. So when this happens focus on your breath or the mantra you are chanting, when you focus on your breathing you are already in your present moment. Here is a guided meditation performed by Radhi Devlukiya.
Practice gratitude- Gratitude is being grateful for the things you have or just the things you go through. Practicing gratitude daily helps you get rid of negative thoughts and also helps you to get a peaceful sleep. Practice gratitude before going to bed and also early in the morning when you wake up. Gratitude can be anything you are grateful for it can be "being grateful for this life" or "I am grateful for this person in my life" it can be anything. There's a Youtuber called Joey from Better ideas in one of his videos he talked about how his mother was facing insomnia and was unable to recover from it. One day she texted him that she got a better sleep after so many weeks. The only thing that she did was practicing gratitude and listing out the positive things throughout the day. So gratitude is one more key factor to stop overthinking.
Build the habit of journaling- When you get random thoughts jot them down because when you write them down somewhere you get rid of the thoughts for time being and would focus on your actual work. Journaling can be writing your thoughts or writing the most positive or most story-worthy moment of the day. Ali Abdaal calls it a morning dump where he writes random thoughts in the morning so that he doesn't need to focus on them and shift the mindset on more productive work. Anything which you feel like is stressing too much on your mind write them down and get rid of it.
Being present in the moment helps you to enjoy the task you hate or being immensely focused on the present. Research shows that only 2% of people can do multitasking properly while the rest are just miserable at it. Focus on the present moment if your mind is wandering in the past and future you are allowing it to wander. If you allow yourself to daydream you will always be distracted. The true essence of life comes from living in the present moment.
Sources- Check out these blogs which structured my blog.
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