Methods to Stop Overthinking Found by an Economics Student

Have you ever found yourself stuck in some kind of thoughts or have you ever realised you are thinking excessively on something before doing it? Since we are humans, thinking is a boon gifted to us but if we don’t use it in the right way, it might become very difficult to pull yourself out of this deceptive loop.

I recently found myself stuck in the same kind of situation where I was given assignments to do for my major subject. I was thinking about my topics to an extent that it shaped into overthinking and it became hard for me to overcome this situation because I was unable to complete my tasks. I looked around for some solutions on the internet and discussed with one of my friends about this situation and found out some useful methods to punch down this condition. Some methods mentioned here are originated by my discussions with friends and some are adopted, so have a look to help yourself out of this situation like I did.

REASON :

Major reason this may happen is because there is a mental condition that our mind wants to be free from all kinds of confusions and tensions and if you are keen enough then it also wants to find out each and every answer of the questions you have. So it starts to find a way and in this process, it starts to relocate itself here and there in many dimensions to find out answers. This can cause the state of overthinking and you may lose track of your time and lack it for rest of your important tasks for the day.

METHODS TO OVERCOME THIS CONDITION :

SEE WHAT’S PRESENT : If you want to overcome this situation, at first you have to identify what are important tasks to do at a particular time and write them down. This increases your focus doing them first and ignoring everything else that is not important at that time. There is also a psychological condition where if you write something down before doing it, it increases the chances of that thing being done by you. There are a lot of articles based on this psychological phenomenon. This method would help you to avoid overthinking and to get scheduled work done. So try being in the present and acknowledging important tasks and you can do so by the above mentioned method (to write down tasks).

REALIZING TO STOP BEFORE DIVING DEEP : It occurs a lot where you are going to start a task or choose a topic to study or begin to make a presentation, you go deep in your thoughts about thinking the way of doing it and then you lose your track and just then this overthinking stuff starts to happen again with you. If you realize in many cases it does not leave you in a good situation at the end and of course consumes a lot of your time which could be used productively otherwise.

What you should understand that you are not going to do a PhD in each and every topic that comes to your mind. You should pull yourself back as you realize this is going to happen. I’m not telling you to stop thinking deep about anything as great ideas come out of our thoughts, I’m just suggesting to stop doing it for everything. If you want to think about a task or anything deeply, keep it for free hours of your day after completing your tasks or you can do so during your daily routine motor functions for example during brushing your teeth or bathing. Avoid it doing while eating as you should eat mindfully for better health. Thus stopping yourself from going deep into your thoughts may also help you avoid overthinking. The sense of realization of preventing yourself before you dive deep into ocean of thoughts will develop over time.

CUT DOWN UNNECESSARY THOUGHTS : The overthinking process happens a lot when you are going to sleep and unusual or irrelevant thoughts start to boom in your mind when you try to sleep, then it becomes almost impossible to stop those thoughts. What you should understand here that all the reflections coming to your mind are not attached to yourself but everything is just a part of your life not yours. Leave them as they are and affirm your mind you would deal such things in future but now only thing that matters is you and everything else should be cut down from your mind for right now. Practice it and within a short span of time you will notice an increase where you will be falling asleep as soon as you go to bed. It is tried and tested method which I, myself applied and it worked really well for me.

MEDITATE : Many people find it unrealistic that things like meditation can also help but if you see empirical evidences you would find almost everyone who tried it found it helpful including myself. There are a lot of ways to practice it and many people have already provided a lot of information on meditation and similar things and I don’t find myself educated enough about this topic to tell you methods of practicing it. I do it my own way and by gathering information from other prominent experts so you can also find your own way of doing it by seeking information about it from experts in the particular field. It increases the efficiency of your mind and also helps you to deal with the present. All of it can be achieved with just a practice of a few days and a larger impact can be seen after a few weeks.

I hope applying and practicing these methods can be helpful for you as it helped me. There may be a lot other methods to help yourself overcoming this but I only included those which are major and worked out for me really well. So help yourself with these if you find it helpful and leave your precious remarks in the comment section. Peace.