Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present (The Path to Calm Book 1)

by Nick Trenton

An alternative is to put limits on the duration of worry. So, you get up in your bed and tell yourself, “Right, you want to worry? Okay, let’s worry. But we are only doing this for five minutes, and then we’re going to sleep.” Set a timer, worry your heart out, and ...

To practice this technique needs preparation and practice. Set a time everyday when you purposefully worry. Pick a time when you won’t be disturbed, and when you’re likely to be in your best frame of mind. Experiment a little and don’t be afraid to try a few different things before it feels right.

There may be times where you feel that your anxiety is reaching a fever pitch or that it’s on the verge of spiralling out of your control. In such cases, you can rely on

some tried and tested techniques to reduce your stress levels. The first of these techniques is autogenic training. Through this, we aim to gain control over our thoughts and emotions through six different exercises. To practice the first technique, find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Then, give yourself certain verbal cues like “I am completely calm” while breathing slowly and steadily. Feel the sensations in various parts of your body as you intermittently repeat the phrase to yourself. Though this technique might take some time to master, it’s simple and can be done anywhere, anytime. The second technique is called guided imagery. Essentially, you find a comfortable position and think of a place which engages all your different senses like smell, sound, etc., in pleasantly stimulating ways. This can be any place, it just needs to be one that inspires relaxation. Picture it in as much detail as you can by making full use of your imagination. Thirdly, we have progressive muscle relaxation. This technique relies on the theory that physical relaxation leads to mental relaxation. So, the goal is to physically relax your muscles by first tensing them up. Again, sit in a comfortable position and go from head to toe or vice versa and tense different parts of your body before relaxing and moving on. Finally, worry postponement is a very direct and effective way of interrupting anxiety spirals. When you recognize yourself beginning to feel anxious, deliberately schedule ...

Mind, body and emotions are all connected, and mutually influence one another. But you’ve probably noticed that when it comes to anxiety, the mind plays the most significant role. It’s the way that we think, our mental structures, and our inner cognitive interpretation of the world that most shapes our experience of it. Understanding this, cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, attempts to get to the root of our mind’s perception of the world, and allows people to generate more helpful, adaptive thoughts.

Clarify the belief. State clearly what your thought is, and write it down, as well as the associated emotion and its intensity. In this example, “Everyone hates me.” Create a hypothesis, which contains a potential alternative, i.e. “some people don’t hate me.” Create an experiment to test this hypothesis. What would you need to do to genuinely put this belief to the test? Perhaps you could look for instances in the past in which people have told you they liked you, or you could observe the behavior of those around you in a period of a week to see how they behave to you—and see whether this is compatible with an attitude of “hate.” Run the experiment as open-mindedly as you can, and write down your observations. Perhaps you notice that many people deliberately reach out to you during the week to ask to spend time with you, and go out of their way to be around you. Analyze these results. What conclusion can you make? Does the original belief of “everyone hates me” stand up to scrutiny? Notice, also, the change in feeling you have when you change the belief.

Make adjustments to this belief, and when you’re unsure, come back to your experiment and remind yourself that you have logically and practically proven to yourself otherwise. Remember the feelings associated with the alternative belief.

There are several different types of behavioral experiments that you can opt for. The one mentioned above is called a “direct hypothesis testing experiment.” However, some things that we might overthink about do not lend themselves to forming hypotheses as easily as this method of experimentation. Other times, fears and negative thoughts are not as easy to test. For example, a lonely person who keeps wondering whether anyone would care if something were to happen to them cannot (and should not) test this by, say, harming himself to see if anyone becomes concerned.

mindset. The first is to focus on what you can control and not on what you can’t. If you can control something, do it. But if you can’t, there’s no use worrying about it. In the end, there’s nothing you can do and the best strategy here is to simply accept that and move on. The second is to focus on what you can do, and not on what you can’t. This is similar to the first, but more specific. What are specific things you can and can’t do in certain situations? The third attitude is to concentrate on what you have, and not on what you don’t. We often forget to appreciate all the good things we have at our disposal while focusing overwhelmingly on what’s missing. However, we can correct this by consciously thinking of the good things in our life. Similarly, home in on what you need and not what you want, because the things you want will never end and will never be entirely achievable. This will help you focus on things that are absolutely necessary. Lastly, live in the present, not the past or the future, because what ifs are the best way to fall prey to overthinking. Rumination is anxious, unproductive overthinking. Like other types of anxiety, it can be addressed with awareness and psychological distance. Label thoughts as thoughts and personify or externalize old stories, and get into the habit of asking whether what you’re doing is genuine problem solving or just rumination.