Overthinking has gained popularity as a negative pattern of behavior. It consists in going over situations, over and over again, by trying to understand them from different angles. As a result, people get stuck into their problems with endless possibilities to solve them that never apply. It creates anxiety and other physical and emotional dysfunctions.
So, if you recognize this as part of your behavior, what can you do to stop overthinking? Just like many other problems, it starts with training and controlling your mind and thoughts. Some strategies might include the following:
- Meditation: When you meditate, you learn to let your thoughts and emotions in front of you without affecting you in any way. You can learn to be selective and put in and out whatever you want to think. Then, when you are in real situations, you can equally do the same things with the thoughts that suddenly appear in your mind.
- Take action: find some hobbies, activities, sports, passions, art, new friends, and this list could never end. Whatever keeps you out of your mind in a healthy way will benefit you to make you stop overthinking.
- Forget perfectionism: Commonly, people overthink trying to find the perfect solution for all their problems. But you need to get rid of that need because it is not necessary to find perfection to be happy.
Although thinking is usually considered a positive action, it is harmful when you do it excessively. It pulls you from the present time and sends you to the past or to a non-existent future. If you are an over thinker, it would not be strange that many of your problems come from that pattern. After all, you are living a parallel life that has nothing to do with reality. You might get anxious or depress for things that never happen in real life. So, check what you are missing when you are overthinking:
- You miss life: yes, life is what actually happens to you. If you are stuck in your thoughts, you are not living at all. Life consists of actions, good and bad experiences, feelings, human contact, daily activities, contact with nature, and similar. By thinking over and over again, you lose precious time that could invest in developing your life.
- You might get sick: yes, it might happen because thoughts can be positive and negative. More frequently, over thinkers tend to develop negative thoughts due to the excess of them. By trying to find different sides of one situation, it is easy to get anxious, depressed, angry, and many others. When you socialize and take action in your life, you get support from others, and don’t let space to develop negative thoughts.
HOW TO START GRACEFUL DAY?
The way we start our day defines the rest of it. The sooner you rectify your approach during the day, the sooner you will get chances to improve it and get the best of it. However, busy schedules, problems, and carelessness in the way to start the day can give you different results. So, to start it in the best way, you can do the following:
- : you can practice gratitude at any time of the day. But when you do it first thing in the morning, you surely obtain the benefits of it for the rest of the day. Since you haven´t done anything yet, you may focus your attention on thanking your overall health, breakfast, family, and all the good things you already have in life.
However, you can say thanks for the bad things and the opportunity they offer you to learn new lessons in your life, the people who challenge you to practice your patience, and similar. The big secret with gratitude is to be able to thank either good or bad things. That is what gives you a total understanding of life and what is beyond that.
- : you just need enough time to stretch and invigorate your body. You can do it with a short routine of 15-20 minutes a day. However, if you are a sporty person, then you can complete your daily training at this time. Also, you may vary the times by interspersing short and longer periods.
- : you can take some minutes to reconnect yourself with your purpose and the things that matter most to you. It can be professional or personal goals, your romantic relationship, your family, and any other issue you consider appropriate to reconnect you with life. This method helps you to face life during the day with a much better approach. To do this, you can practice meditation, pray, contemplate beautiful views, and more.
- : morning hours are perfect to learn new things. So, why not take some minutes to learn things that help you grow? You can read, watch some video, listen to an audiobook, and similar. By practicing it for some minutes, your soul and mind get invigorated to cope with daily life.
Overall, to start a graceful day, you just need to find a way to nurture your soul, mind, and body in a way that improves your energy and productivity during the day. The points mentioned above are ideas on what you can use to do it. But you need to explore what makes you feel more connected with the world and helps you get a more graceful day.
Usually, the things we value the most are those that are aligned with our passions and purpose of life- Therefore, when you explore new methods, keep in mind that you should follow them to feel better.