Overthinking!

Nothing new right?

How, in such a subtle way, it became a part of our life. Have you ever wondered why you think so much?

You analyze and reanalyze situations over and over as if you can control your life, surroundings, and people. Whether you think once or umpteenth times, the outcome will only get worse.

Be it about people, your work, or your life as a whole, the rule is the same and simple.

Think through it once, and then, do not bother to bring it in front of the canvas of your brain.

You might say, it is easier said than done. To that, here I am with practical ways that 99% guarantee your success in defeating your overthinking patterns.

You might ask ‘Why 99%?’, well because I’m a human, and humans can be wrong without even realizing it sometimes. Hence, Lo Stilista would not like to misguide you on anything.

Hence, 99%, but isn’t it also enough for you to try these techniques?

Therefore, here are 11 ways you can kick overthinking out of your brain.

(Make sure to read the whole paragraph since headings won’t speak much for you here.)

1. Distract yourself:

Yes, it is easier said than done, but you must keep trying to do so. This will be tougher than it sounds, trust me. But, also know that it gets way easier with every push you give yourself to do so. Don’t you see a mother while giving birth to a baby? Don’t you think it’s hard? But what she does is, she pushes and pushes constantly, and ends up giving birth to a newborn. Distract yourself, push yourself to distract, and the more you practice, you’ll find that you are that newborn baby for whom distraction from overthinking is a child’s play.

You might say, does distracting oneself solve the problem? No, but there are 90% of the situations in our lives that need not much thinking and yet we do it. Our brain is like a pen drive or any storage device with limited space, and if we keep it filled with unnecessary things, we are going to miss everything truly important to us. For example, your dreams! Hence, you must learn to distract yourself if you want to stop overthinking and achieve something in life.

2. Gratitude:

I’m not here asking you to enact the act of showing gratitude to God or the Universe. Be truly thankful inside. Look at your blessings. Many things are gifted to you by the Universe only if you notice. And not just about materialistic things, but also, everyday comfort, and comfortable situations. Notice how you’re being saved so many times when you could just end up in hell. How when you thought of something and surprisingly you found it. Nothing is a surprise, well, a pleasant surprise for sure, but not a surprising surprise. Therefore, notice these things when you’re amid your overthinking.

3. Go out:

Here comes a practical way to distract yourself. Go out, do not think whether it will do you good or not, or whether you feel like going out or not. Trust me, when you step out and go to a cafe or something, or a park, or any place that has people and where you can spend some time away from your home, you will see how your overthinking stopped for some time. When you explore new territories or new people, your brain starts to have fun in new surroundings and the moment you are distracted from your overthinking, solutions start to come to you.

4. Focus on learning:

When you’re thinking too much, open your laptop, open YouTube, and look at what is trending on your homepage. YouTube suggests you good videos and there is a sea out there of learning. Deep dive into it, you’d hardly notice that you escaped your overthinking pattern. Also, you can refer to many other platforms like attending events, reading, or any sort of learning that you can grasp out there.

5. Close your eyes and pray:

This is the first. You can’t do some things alone. You need help, and what can be the greatest help than the one that comes from God’s world? Do not do it passively, you MUST pray actively. When you fold your hands close your eyes, and speak to the higher power with your voice, the message gets clearer, to you and the higher power. Prayers work like magic. With every problem, there come thousands of solutions. We, as humans, can only feel one or two. So, give the problem to the almighty and relax thinking that the job is done.

6. Meditate:

Meditation also helps in calming oneself down. There are a few ways you can meditate, but choose the path that suits you. Meditation is personal and no one’s technique is accurate enough to apply to everyone. One of those techniques can be,

• Sit, or lie down, close your eyes, and observe your breathing. Observe its entire journey from your nose to your abdomen and back. Do observe it when it passes through your throat, chest, and waist area. Remember, I told you ‘the entire journey’, and not just the final destinations which many people confused it with.
• If you can not be calm enough in the beginning to try out this method, you can try guided meditations. You just have to plug in your headphones and begin. There are ample YouTube meditation videos that you can refer to. They come ad-free anyway.

7. Love yourself:

Seriously, you must do it. Who will love you if you won’t love yourself enough? Why do you have to bother yourself with something that is eating your mind too much? Take a break, like Ross did. Go engage yourself with new territories that might make you feel more loved. Do things that bring you joy, even if it is about spending some money on yourself. If you keep feeling lacking and won’t invest money in yourself, the Universe will always align with your feelings and continue the pattern of lack in your life. Investing money in yourself and your future is the greatest investment of all.

8. Cry if you want:

Yes, please, cry! Cry if you need to! But, do not hold it for much longer than required. Sometimes, with too much thinking, we overwhelm ourselves, and that’s when it starts to hurt. So cry, be alone in a room, and cry it out. It HAS to come out. If you don’t cry, you take it out on others and make blunders with your karma, which gives birth to further cycles of overthinking. So, cry it out, and don’t make others cry for your pain.

Also, sometimes you feel overwhelmed because of your anxiety as well. Fear and anticipation of something that might go wrong fills you with anxiety and all you want to do is cry or shout it out. If that is the case, you must check my article on ‘Signs of an anxiety attack – recognize and wipe it out’, which will help you understand your anxiety issues and will help you in erasing them from your life.

9. Accept your flaws:

Accept yourself completely as you are. You may have some flaws, but who isn’t? Words such as “flawless” have put you in a misunderstanding about a human. Humans are humans for a reason. They try new things, they evolve ALL THE TIME! How can they be flawless? Flaws make you, your ancestors had flaws that you corrected and so will your kids correct what was flawed in you. Look at the history, you’d see how so many things could be done right, but didn’t. Therefore, accept your flaws and stop overthinking about whether you can make things right or not. Let it go!

10. Start speaking your concerns to yourself loudly or Journal:

When you speak about your problems to yourself, you get clarity. With articulation comes clarity that tells you where the problem stands. When you think about something in mind, there are so many things that just slide by you. You feel you know it all, but you just do not know it. Sometimes, you wouldn’t even know what’s bothering you. And hence, you’d try to find reasons to justify your agitation. Do not do that to yourself. Speak to yourself loudly enough to be able to hear your exact problem or write it down in a journal. A journal helps in understanding and gaining clarity. Do not take words lightly, they have the power to heal and kill.

11. Boundaries with negativity or negative people:

We all have negative people in our lives. Who does not? We all are so-called toxic for someone, but there is a level of negativity that you can afford and a level that will destroy your life. Learn to understand the difference between both and take action accordingly. Sometimes, you have to distance yourself even from your closest ones. Not to blame them for your troubles, but to separate yourself from the pattern of overthinking. Once you have broken the patterns, you can go back and be less bothered. But, until you are wounded, you must learn to take precautions and set healthy boundaries that do not blame or hurt other people but respect your healing process.

These 11 techniques, if implemented, can bring peace to your life. It did to me, especially when I was drowning in the ocean of overthinking. If it worked on me, it might work on you as well.

11 is a good sign to begin this work on your life and head towards peace and happiness.

Have a peaceful life ahead!