how to stop overthinking

How To Stop Overthinking – 10 Tips To Stop Worrying About Everything

Overthinking can lead to excess stress and anxiety, it’s something a lot of us suffer from. Whilst it may sound like something useful on the face of it, it can actually bring a lot of misery to our lives. How do you stop overthinking though? That’s the question.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at how to stop overthinking with 10 tips you can practice.

1. Set your day up the right way

If you want to reduce stress and stop overthinking then setting your day up the right way is essential. You can minimize the amount of stress in your day simply by managing your days better.

Getting in a healthy breakfast and some exercise whilst avoiding absorbing negative information in the morning if possible will do you wonders. Another tip is to break the day’s tasks down into manageable chunks which allow for regular breaks.

2. Accept that there are things out of your control

Do you ever find that you keep worrying about things you literally can’t have any impact over? It’s wasted time and added stress that you don’t need in your life.

An example of this would be worrying about your grades after you’ve completed the tests. You can’t change the result anymore so there’s no point worrying over it for now.

3. Work Out

When you find you just need a break from things this is a great way of reducing stress and worry as you shift your mindset into an area you have more control over.

4. Spend more time with people who don’t suffer from overthinking

You learn a lot and pick up on the actions of those around you. By spending more time around people who don’t overthink, you’ll become more confident yourself over time. It’s not just people though, reading the right books, following forums and changing up the podcasts you listen to can all make a difference.

5. Think about the bigger picture

Sometimes we can find ourselves overthinking minor things in our lives. Take a moment to stop and think if this will really matter in the coming weeks, months or years. This simple tip can quickly help you to realise that something may not be worth worrying over at all.

6. When it comes to small things, ask yourself “what’s the worst that could happen?”

In reality the worst thing that could happen isn’t really that bad. By actually taking a moment to think what the worst thing that could happen is, you’ll stop overthinking and imagining things that aren’t even possible.

7. Set yourself a time-limit for decision making

People can get so lost in the decision making process worrying about what they should do, to the point where they miss out on opportunities in their life.

Practice becoming better at decision making. If it’s a small decision like which of two jobs to take on first, you only need 30 seconds max to come to a conclusion. For bigger decisions, try giving yourself a maximum of 30 minutes.

This can greatly reduce the amount of time you spend stressed overthinking things that you don’t need to commit so much time to.

8. Plenty of quality sleep is essential

Far too often people overlook the difference a healthy sleep pattern can make to their life. Of course it’s understandable that with overthinking often comes terrible sleep as we lay in bed worrying about things.

Trying to force yourself to sleep when you’re not ready to sleep is only going to encourage these racing thoughts. Try reading a book for 30 minutes before bed as you wind down for the night. This will help to fill your mind with completely unrelated thoughts to your normal worrying, allowing you to fall asleep with much more ease.

9. Use music

You may notice that when you’re listening to music, you’re much more ‘in the moment’ then normal. Listening to music can take us out of our normal thought making process and help us to be more self-aware. This will make it much easier to identify overthinking habits.

10. Practice gratitude

There are massive benefits to switching your outlook to focusing on what you’re grateful to already have in life instead of what you want. An attitude of gratitude can improve self-esteem and general mental health.

Some people find that keeping a journal of things they’re grateful for has proven very helpful for moments when they’re feeling overwhelmed. They’re able to go back to their journal and look back at the things they’re grateful for, this helps to put the situation into perspective and makes things much more manageable.

Please feel free to share your opinions about today’s article in the comments section below.

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