If it seems as though your brain never stops churning and you are distracted by a constant flow of dialog, analyzing, fantasizing, or just plain broken streams of random thoughts, then you are over-thinking. There is too much noise going on in your head. Ironically, over-thinking can lead to gridlock. It can inhibit your ability to make correct decisions, or even cause you to freeze up and become unable to make decisions. The April 2003 issue of Psychology Today magazine explains that there are documented psychological reasons for over-thinking*, however to cure the problem it is not necessary to learn what these reasons are. In fact, immersing one's self in facts about over-thinking may only provide more grist for the thinking mill. Instead, the best way to deal with over-thinking is to cure it.
The Characteristics of Over-thinking
In the same Psychology Today article Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D.,professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, describes over-thinking like this: "When there is any pause in our daily activities, many of us are flooded with worries, thoughts and emotions that swirl out of control, sucking our emotions and energy down, down, down. We are suffering from an epidemic of over-thinking—caught in torrents of negative thoughts and emotions that overwhelm us and interfere with our functioning and well-being." *
Over-thinking manifests itself in many forms: fantasizing about negative scenarios in situations that have not yet happened, carrying on mental conversations in the second or third person, or with a mental construct of a person that you know and negative thoughts about yourself that repeat over and over.
Over-thinking can also be triggered by positive emotions or thoughts. For example, you may get a good idea for streamlining a process at your workplace. This will immediately trigger a flood of negative and self-defeating thoughts causing you to discount your idea as no good. You may wake up in the morning feeling really good, which causes you to analyze why you feel so good, thus triggering a flow of reasons why you shouldn't feel good. Perhaps your boss praises you for doing a great job on a project and you immediately assume that he has ulterior motives for his actions, which you must figure out.
Ineffective Treatments
Sometimes over-thinkers realize that they are thinking too much and try to drown out their thoughts by repeating the lyrics to a song over and over, or by fantasizing about a make-believe situation where they are appreciated and adored. Although this can provide a short period of respite, it too becomes monotonous and is ultimately just another form of over-thinking.
The result of over-thinking is either fear or hope. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of ridicule, fear of death or hope that things will turn out okay. In general, fear and hope are useless emotions. Lao-tzu, in chapter thirteen of the *Tao Te Ching says:
"What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?"
Giving Up Control
So, if hope and fear are useless emotions, then the thoughts that generate these emotions are also useless. Intellectually this makes sense, but in order for a chronic over-thinker to initiate the cure, she must take a leap of faith and believe that if she stops over-thinking everything will sort itself out on its own. It is a matter of giving up perceived control.
Curing Tool Number One: The Journal
There are tools available to reign in unruly thoughts. A personal journal is the core tool necessary to begin the process. With a journal, unruly thoughts can be captured and slowed down. There are two major advantages to using a journal to control over-thinking.
First, it allows one to see, in a concrete way, exactly what is going on in the mind. When a thought flitters around unchecked, it is fleeting. When it is captured on a piece of paper, it takes on significance and has weight. It becomes easy to make a good judgment of its validity.
Second, and even more importantly, writing down thoughts forces the mental processes to slow down, because writing is slower than thinking. For this reason, it may feel confining, at first, to write down thoughts in a journal, but with patience the thoughts will slow down on their own. This slowing effect lasts even after the writing has stopped.
Curing Tool Number Two: Binaural Beat Music
Another tool to use in conjunction with journal writing is called binaural beat music. According to the Monroe Institute website, binaural beat music carries a set of tones that vary in frequency by a specific amount. This creates a vibration, which stimulates and unites the left and right hemispheres of the brain*. Binaural beat music is called the lazy man's meditation by Centerpointe Reasearch Institute because it creates a state of mind similar to meditation, and makes it easy to clear the mind of thoughts.
Choosing a type of binaural beat music can be confusing because it has several classifications. According to Achievement in Mind website, binaural beat music comes in Alpha, Beta, Theta, and Delta flavors and each has a different purpose*. Instead of trying to figure it all out, download one of each and use the one that you respond best to. Headphones are necessary to get the full effect of binaural beat music. Take time to listen to the music at least once a day in a relaxed place where you will not be interrupted. As with journal writing, binaural beat music has a lasting effect. It keeps working even after you stop listening to it.
After a few weeks of listening to binaural beat music and writing in a journal, the thought processes will have distinctly slowed down and become more manageable. The binaural beat music and journal writing have, at this point, conditioned you to a meditative state. When you feel that this transition has occurred, it is time to add the last tool to the toolbox, regular meditation.
Curing Tool Number Three: Meditation
Begin meditating in a darkened room without any external stimuli such as music, speech, special lighting, etc... The goal of this meditation is to clear the mind of all thought. It takes practice. Don't be frustrated if you cannot achieve this state on the first few tries. Be patient and keep at it. Keep using your journal and binaural beat music separately from your meditation time. Eventually you will reach a state of complete mental silence in your meditation. When this is achieved you can stop using binaural beat music if you desire. Its purpose has been fulfilled when you can easily slip into a state of meditation unaided. It is a good idea to stick with the journal writing and make it a part of your life since it has uses that go well beyond curing over-thinking.
Sources
- Hara Estroff Marano, Trapped In Reflection, April 2003, Psychology Today
- The Monroe Institute, What Are Binaural Beats, January 7, 2009
- Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching, last update July 1995, translation by S. Mitchell
- Centerpointe Holosync, Awakening Level 1, the Lazy Man's way to Meditate, September 2008
- Achievement in Mind, Binaural Beat Music, February 27, 2007
Jeff Miller - Hi, I am Jeff Miller. I started journal writing in high school and was on the yearbook staff. After an enlistment in the U.S. Army I ...
Join the Conversation