5 Ways to Stop Overthinking

Overthinking and rumination can be absolutely exhausting,

taking a toll on your body and those around you.

When you spend hours or days worrying about what could

go wrong or replaying what you said,

your brain is actually trying to protect you.

Even if it doesn’t feel that way, it’s working to help you.

Here are five practical tools to help you stop overthinking

and find peace of mind.

Keep in mind that not every tool will work for everyone, so try them out and see which ones fit you best.

Respond to Your Negative Automatic Thoughts

When you overthink, your brain floods you with negative,

“what if” thoughts.

A highly effective technique is to learn how

to respond to them honestly.

• Turn “what if” into a certainty: Change “what if something bad happens?” to “something bad will happen.”
• Dispute the thought: Ask yourself if the thought is 100% true. If there is a grain of truth, acknowledge it, but dispute the part that isn’t true.
• Practice a realistic response: You might say, “Yes, something could go wrong, but I have tools to do a reasonably good job, and it’s okay to feel anxious.”
• Role-play: Practice your responses out loud with a friend, therapist, or by writing them down in a journal. Over time, your brain will start to dispute these anxious thoughts automatically.

Accept That Some Problems Don’t Have a Solution

Your brain is a problem-solving machine.

When an issue feels unresolved, your brain circles back

to it repeatedly, believing that more thinking

will eventually lead to an answer or closure.

• The goal is to learn to accept that some problems genuinely don’t have a solution, at least not right now.
• Say to yourself, “I don’t know the answer to this right now, and that’s okay.”
• Acceptance is a practice that you build little by little. You can actively ask yourself, “Can I accept this?” and let yourself answer “yes.”

Lean Into Uncertainty and Unpleasant Emotions

A large part of your brain is designed to avoid emotional

and physical pain.

Overthinking is an attempt to solve the “problem”

of an unpleasant feeling,

such as anxiety, embarrassment, or disappointment.

• Notice what your anxiety is guarding against. If you are afraid of feeling embarrassed, name the feeling.
• Practice acceptance by telling yourself, “It’s okay for me to feel embarrassed. I don’t enjoy it, but it’s okay to feel it.”
• Once you allow yourself to accept the underlying feeling, the anxiety and overthinking can ease up because they no longer have to work so hard to protect you from an emotion you have already made peace with.
• Remember, living with constant worry to avoid disappointment is a false promise; letting your guard down occasionally allows you to actually enjoy your life.

Detach From Your Thoughts

Often, it isn’t the thought itself that causes distress,

but how much we believe it and attach to it.

Detaching means learning to observe a thought

rather than immediately treating it as a fact.

• Create distance: Frame the thought objectively by saying, “My brain is having the thought that I’m not good enough.” This creates separation.
• Play with visual formatting: Write the thought out in a bubbly, colorful, or cartoonish font. Making it visually playful strips away its emotional intensity.
• Use the “Silly Voices” technique: Imagine a cartoon character (like Patrick from SpongeBob or Mickey Mouse) singing or delivering the thought to you.
• Recognize thoughts as passing mental events, not instructions or facts you must obey.

Move From Thinking Into Action

When you overthink, your body becomes activated and anxious.

One of the most effective ways to manage this built-up energy

is to give your body a physical outlet.

• Exercise: Activities that raise your heart rate—like jogging, cardio, or Pilates—allow your body to use up the nervous energy. As your heart rate settles afterward, your mind will naturally settle too.
• Engage in absorbing activities: Dive into something you genuinely enjoy, such as a great novel. Meaningful intellectual engagement pushes intrusive thoughts into the background.
• Connect with safe people: Spending time with people who make you feel secure naturally brings your nervous system into a calmer, more relaxed state.