How often do you find yourself stuck in the spiral of thoughts? Does the darkness in the life seems never ending? Does this constant feeling of helplessness keep you away from everyday enjoyment? 

It’s normal to think from time to time. Thinking is a part of human nature, especially while evaluating situation or making decision. Thinking help to ensure all decisions are well-informed by organizing experiences and planning effectively. 

However, when you think about something too much or for too long could result in overthinking. 

Simply put, overthinking can be described as going round and round and reaching nowhere, other than the worst possible situation. 

Habit of living in the past

Memories of past humiliating or embarrassing moment always trigger overthinking. You often found flashing back and experience pain of recalled events. You are constantly reminding yourself about your past mistakes and regret too much. 

Holding onto traumatic life experiences, old insult and failures make your present life horrific. You may compare your current life with your past and start to blame yourself for not doing well in your previous years. You can’t let things go and criticize yourself a lot. Rumination on the past makes you feel guilty where you constantly think that you have made a mistake.

Your mind is habituated to memorize the record of your past that has significant influence on your current behavior, thoughts and emotions. It is hard for your mind to shut off at the given moment, and you feel exhausted with loss of enthusiasm.

Spinning stories about future

It’s human nature to want to be in control of things, especially the future.

Overthinking leads to creation of imaginary problems where you can get lost in vague fear. You are always running in the scary time of the future where everything seems problematic. 

Our brain is wired for survival. Therefore, when you see bad happenings around, you feel the same threat about your own future. Persistent negative thoughts land your mind in a state of chronic worry. A constant thought of something bad will happens in the future lead to mental overdrive. 

Your worries weigh heavily on your mind, and you are concerned about things that are not in your control. You think of every possible thing that can go wrong. You always analyze things even up to death or expect the worst. You are concerned about your reputation and what could happen next. The occupation of the mind with fearful thoughts creates unnecessary stress and anxiety.

A small nagging thought about a future could turn into a storm brewing in your mind. It’s like a record stack on repeat, endlessly spinning the same worries, offering no new solutions, just more questions.

These excessive worries create fear of uncertainty where everything becomes unclear to you. You get lost in vague fear and found yourself in mentally vulnerable situation. 

Recalling conversations repeatedly

You are habitual to take things personally even they aren’t so important to you. You constantly try to extract the hidden meaning in things people said or events that happened. You always try to guess what is on someone’s mind. Your mind is full with thinking about other people behavior towards yourself. 

It’s the continuous, draining process of analyzing a situation way past it’s usefulness. When you’re overthinking, you find yourself caught up in doubts, assumptions, and focusing on minor, often irrelevant details.

You experience non-stop thoughts, i.e. simply repetitively going over a same thought and have difficulty switching off from that problem. Most of your time is completely immersed in reliving embarrassing moments from past life. You experience trouble in detaching from your thoughts that slowly paralyze you.

Often wondering “what if …?”

You are always having worried thoughts of “What if….?’. What if I will failed in examination? What if I am unable to get a better job? What if I am unable to perform well in an event? What if my family member experiences difficulties? 

Even sometimes you hate making decisions or afraid of wrong decisions. Therefore, either you would take longer to take decision or rather choose to someone decides for you. You never feel 100% certain about situation and feel tense. You are always confused on placing logic over emotions.

Negative narratives about self

You blame yourself for many things that didn’t go well in life. Therefore, you consider yourself worthless and give several negative remarks.  “I am useless”, “I don’t deserve this” “I am stupid”, “I shouldn’t have said that”, “I can’t commit to anything”, “My life is mess”. “My relationship is in problem”, “I can’t do better in job”. 

It becomes a relentless critic, undermine your confidence, shaking your self-esteem, and clouding your decision-making abilities.

What you repeatedly tell to yourself or describe yourself is what you come to believe. This becomes your identity and does more harm than good.

The repetitive and unproductive thoughts lead to restlessness, irritability, feeling of sadness and feeling of worthlessness. This process is exhausting and takes away your peace of mind. Subsequently, a cycle of overthinking can trigger a host of health problems because of associated stress, anxiety and depression. 

Inability to sleep, fatigue, irritability, muscle stiffness, headache and dizziness are some of the physical symptoms usually recorded in person having a habit of overthinking.

Excessive thinking can ruin your mental health too. When you lived too much in your mind, it is hard to lead a quality life. Therefore, it is necessary to break this cycle of overthinking. 

Also Check : The Core Concept Of Mental Health

Remember that overthinking solves no real problem. In fact, the outcome will remain the same regardless of your thoughts.

Disclaimer

Mediclin Brain Health’s content is for informational and educational purposes only. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.