Overthinking and excessive worry occur when the mind repeatedly processes “what if” scenarios, past errors or failures, and future challenges. Normal levels of worry support preparation and organization; however, excessive thinking and worrying can deplete your energy levels, make decision-making much more difficult, and disrupt both your ability to fall asleep at night as well as your concentration during the day, and your overall mood. The approach to managing excessive daily worry and thinking does not require eliminating all worries and thoughts from your mind. Rather, you need to develop the skills to recognize your worry early enough so that you may take actions to calm your physical body and redirect your thinking to behaviors that will promote productive action. Consistently using simple approaches to manage your excessive daily worry will enable you to better manage your excessive worry and improve your quality of life.
1. Identify the Thoughts and Reduce Their Control
Most individuals experience overthinking as an immediate and urgent concern. A helpful way to begin to address this issue is to identify what your mind is doing. Identifying what your mind is doing allows you to put some space between yourself and the thought and enables you to view the thought as less true and less powerful.
Short labels are most effective because they are easily remembered and repeated. You should not try to reason with your thoughts; you should simply identify them.
Some examples of labels which have proven to be helpful are:
- “This is a worry cycle.”
- “This is worst-case thinking.”
- “My mind is trying to control my uncertainty.”
After labeling the thoughts, you may choose a response to the thoughts instead of responding to the thoughts without conscious thought.
2. Use a Brief Physical Reset
While excessive worry is primarily a mental process, excessive worry is also a physical process that manifests itself as muscle tension, rapid breathing, and agitation. Reducing the level of physiological arousal in the body will facilitate quicker calming of the mind.
A brief reset can be accomplished almost anywhere and will typically take less than 2 minutes. The key is to slowly inhale and exhale while maintaining a steady pace.
Examples of simple resets:
- Slowly breathe in for 4 seconds and slowly breathe out for 6 seconds. Repeat this 6-8 times.
- Release your shoulder muscles and release your clenched jaw. Release the tension in your hands.
- Use grounding techniques. Identify 5 things you see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you hear.
- Once your body has relaxed, your thoughts will appear to be less intense and easier to manage.
3. Distinguish Between “Solveable” Issues vs. “Unsolveable” Worry
One of the primary ways in which excessive worry manifests itself is through the mixing of actual problems that can be solved through some form of action with imagined problems that cannot be addressed through action. A simple method to assist in distinguishing between these two types of concerns is to use the following question: “Can something be done within 24 hours?”
If the answer is yes, the problem can be turned into a plan of action. If the answer is no, the concern is likely mental chatter that needs to be contained.
A helpful method to distinguish between these two categories of problems is to use the following two columns:
- Solvable: define the next action, keep it small, schedule it
- Unsolvable: write it down, set a worry time, and return to the current task
By separating these two categories of problems, you can avoid spending an excessive amount of time mentally dwelling on issues that you cannot resolve and you can turn some of your worry into productive activity.
4. Establish Limits on Ruminative Thinking and Information Exposure
An additional factor that contributes to the development of excessive ruminative thinking is the constant exposure to new information through technology and other sources (e.g., social media, messaging, news). By establishing limits on access to new information and limiting the amount of time spent reviewing previously considered thoughts and ideas, you can significantly reduce the frequency of exposure to stimuli that contribute to excessive ruminative thinking.
Excessive ruminative thinking is also encouraged when there is no natural end to the thinking process. Establishing specific limits on the time and place of consideration of thoughts and ideas can provide a sense of closure to the thinking process and allow you to move forward.
Specific limits that have proven to be helpful include:
- A 10-minute “worry window” each day and after the 10 minutes, stop worrying about the topic
- Do not engage in topics that are potentially depressing or that would cause you to engage in excessive doom scrolling for at least 60 minutes prior to going to bed
- Develop a simple rule that states, “If I have thought about this topic twice, I will write it down once”
- Replace checking for reassurance (e.g., checking email or social media) with a single, pre-planned action
Establishing specific limits on the amount of time and the type of topics that you consider will not eliminate problems that you face, but it can help to minimize the amount of mental pressure that you place on yourself when dealing with problems that you are unable to solve.
Conclusion
Managing excessive daily worry and thinking requires developing a series of practical habits that can be used consistently to manage excessive thinking. Recognizing your worry, reducing the emotional power of your worry, physically calming your body, and separating “solvables” from “unsolvables” will provide you with the tools needed to manage your excessive daily worry and to transform excessive worry into a trigger for wise responses rather than a force that controls your daily life.