Thoughts over thoughts over thoughts, and then what? You keep on thinking about a certain thing and at the end, it hasn’t been resolved yet. These thoughts trigger a certain emotion in us that causes us to crash, ultimately dragging us down. This is overthinking! In a nutshell, it’s an enemy more than a friend. It throws us down rather than level us up. It’s the inner voice in you that slaps all optimism and positivity, and has us do the pile on, accumulating all of our thoughts on top of one another. Overthinking either takes you to the past, or shuts down the present moment, making us anxious about the future.
Overthinking takes its toll on us, from effecting our behavior to making us more sensitive, but most importantly, sweats a battle inside us. At some point we’ll need to stop this overactivity of the brain that drains us everyday! We’ve contacted the beautiful Mars Venus Life coach Cherry Refaat to inform and advice us with some tips and tricks on how to control our own overthinking, and put it to an end once and for all.
Cherry Refaat’s hacks on how to control your own overthinking
According to Cherry Refaat, in order to control or stop your own overthinking, we need to go through two dimensions. One is to stop, and the other is to start!
How to stop:
- Declutter what’s in your head, move this brain activity into a journal, write down your thoughts, and let them out.
- Create your own worry window, meaning that yes you should worry, but only in a certain time frame. Don’t allow that worry to take much more time and space than it actually needs.
What to start:
- Practice mindfulness and meditation. These two practices will help you remain in the present moment rather than thinking about what the future holds for us, and how the past has affected us.
- Exercise, and by exercise we don’t necessarily mean working out. Maybe just park farther from your location to walk a little more and whatever exercise you do, it will help you deflate the stress in you.
- Apply the basic needs. Sleep and eat well.
Before we get into some other tips from Cherry Refaat, here’s an additional small tip from her to both men and women that actually work. First of all, a big shoutout to all women and ladies out there! Whenever you feel that your overthinking is getting to you and you can’t stop, just connect with a friend, and the relaxation process will start to take hold. Now, to all men and boys out there, try to disconnect from what’s around you. Even if it’s from just watching a football match, this is actually considered ‘disconnecting.’
“Whatever you think, think the opposite they say,” right? Instead of always following this quote, just ask yourself a few questions whenever you feel that the overthinking is destroying you. According to Cherry Refaat, these few questions will actually help you at the precise moment when overthinking.
Ask yourself:
- Is it helping you to move on and do something productive?
- How true is this thought?
- What’s the hidden message behind this overthinking? Do you need to work on something and be better at it maybe?
We need to take responsibility over our thoughts, and overthinking does not benefit us in any way. Quite the contrary, it drains us, and prevents us in seeing the good in the thought itself. There’s always a small amount of positivity in anything we see, feel or think. We just need to grasp the thought, and think the opposite. Always remember “what’s yours will find you!”
