How to Stop Overthinking Without Trying to Switch Your Mind Off

Years ago, on a train to Ljubljana, where I was doing my doctoral studies, I realised I had left my phone at home in Osijek. I felt as if part of my body was missing. How would I call home when I arrived? What if this person called, or that one? I would be away for four days, which suddenly seemed a very long time.

Nothing terrible happened. I contacted the people I needed to, briefly, by email, and I felt something I hadn't expected: somewhat liberated. That train was overthinking in miniature: a head full of what-ifs, and a reality that turned out to be far kinder.

In my book Courage on the Journey of Happiness, the challenge I called Daily Relaxation of the Mind opens with a simple warning: take charge of your mind, or it will take charge of you. That doesn't mean switching your thoughts off. Nobody can. It means learning to step out of the loop.

What is overthinking?

Overthinking is thinking that goes round in circles instead of moving forward. Looking back, it is rumination: replaying what happened and asking why, again and again. Looking ahead, it is worry: rehearsing what might go wrong. Useful thinking ends in a decision, a plan or a lesson. Overthinking ends where it started, only more tired.

Signs you're overthinking

You might recognise yourself in a few of these:

• you replay a conversation for days, rewriting what you should have said
• you read one short message ten times, looking for what it really meant
• you keep asking yourself “why?” but never arrive at an answer
• you lie awake rehearsing tomorrow's what-ifs
• you think about a decision for so long that not deciding becomes the decision

Why do I overthink everything?

Because your mind is trying to protect you. It believes that if it thinks long enough, it will find certainty: that you won't make a mistake, that nobody is upset with you. Certainty rarely comes, so the mind keeps searching.

Many women carry an extra layer. We were taught to anticipate everyone's reactions, so replaying a conversation is often a way of checking that everyone still approves of us; if that sounds familiar, read how to stop people pleasing too. Constant news and notifications don't help either; as I wrote in my book, to hear your inner voice, you have to silence all the others.

Make friends with your monkey mind

In the book I call it the monkey mind: a restless chatterer that never stops babbling. Many people believe that calming the mind means emptying it, so they try far too hard. But it is hard, perhaps impossible, to block thoughts and feelings, and in a way we need them.

So the aim is not to silence the monkey but to make friends with it, and, as I wrote, not just by handing it a banana. You give it a simple job: watching your breath. Thoughts will keep appearing in the background; you don't have to follow them. Even one or two conscious breaths count, so you can do this anywhere: on a walk, over a cup of tea, even in a meeting.

The mind gives us an opinion, and we can decide for ourselves whether to listen to it or not.

What happiness research says about overthinking

As an economist who has spent many years studying happiness, I find it reassuring that the research points one way: what hurts is not thinking itself, but how we think. Psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema built a theory around rumination: repetitively and passively focusing on your distress and on its possible causes and consequences. Reviewing the evidence with Blair Wisco and Sonja Lyubomirsky, she concluded that rumination deepens low mood, feeds negative thinking, makes problem solving harder and can wear away support from others¹. An analysis of 59 studies found that women ruminate a little more than men, though the difference was small².

Not all repeated thinking is harmful. Psychologist Edward Watkins reviewed the research and found that going over things can be constructive, helping us plan and recover from upsetting events, or unconstructive. One key difference: abstract thinking about causes and meanings, the “why” of things, was more often unhelpful, while concrete thinking about the specific “how” tended to help³.

Forcing thoughts out rarely works. In a famous experiment, Daniel Wegner and his colleagues asked people not to think of a white bear for five minutes. They couldn't, and afterwards they thought about the bear even more than people allowed to think about it from the start. Given one specific thought to focus on instead, people showed a weaker rebound⁴. The monkey needs a job, not a fight.

Distance helps too. Ethan Kross and his colleagues found that when people reflected on a stressful task, such as giving a speech, using their own name or “you” instead of “I”, they felt less distressed, performed better and went over it less afterwards⁵. And worry can be given a place. In 1983, Thomas Borkovec and his colleagues asked self-described worriers to limit their worrying to a set time and place each day; after four weeks, their daily worry had fallen significantly compared with people given no instructions⁶. None of this is a quick fix, and many effects are modest, but the message is hopeful: you need a different relationship with your mind, not a quieter one.

How to stop overthinking: seven gentle steps

You won't stop overthinking by thinking harder about it, only with small, repeated moves that interrupt the loop.

1. Name the loop. When you notice you're going over the same ground, say it: I'm overthinking again. Am I any closer to a decision than five minutes ago? If not, it is a loop, not a solution.
2. Turn “why” into “what now”. “Why did I say that? Why am I like this?” keeps you circling. “What is one small thing I can do about this today?” moves you forward. If the honest answer is nothing, that is an answer too.
3. Talk to yourself like a friend. Use your own name or “you”: “You're tired, and this can wait until morning.” That small shift creates enough distance to see clearly.
4. Give your worries an appointment. Choose a fixed time and place each day, perhaps twenty minutes in the late afternoon, never just before bed. When a worry turns up outside that time, jot it down and tell it: later. At the appointment, read the list and plan what you can.
5. Write it out of your head. Set a timer for fifteen minutes and write whatever is going round, without editing. This is the idea behind psychologist James Pennebaker's research on writing about emotional experiences⁷; a review of 146 studies found a real but small benefit on average⁸.
6. Give the monkey one breath. When the loop starts, move your attention to a single breath in and out. Let thoughts chatter in the background. You don't have to win an argument with your mind, only stop following it for a moment.
7. Choose what you feed your mind. As I wrote in my book, I read the news only when I want to, as much as I want to and what I want to, and I set up my social media to show me mostly inspiring content. Start with one thing: take your phone out of the bedroom at night.

And if your thoughts become constant and start to disturb your sleep, your work or your relationships for weeks, please talk to a doctor or a mental health professional.

How to overcome overthinking after a conversation

Perhaps the most familiar loop is the replay. You leave a meeting, a family lunch or a phone call, and for days your mind runs the tape, rewriting your words and searching faces for disapproval. It helps to know that others notice far less than you think. In one study, people in a group discussion overestimated how much their own comments, good and bad, had stood out to the others. Psychologists Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Medvec and Kenneth Savitsky call this the spotlight effect⁹.

So when the tape starts, ask two questions. Did I mean well? Is there something concrete to put right? If there is, do it: a short message such as “I've been thinking about what I said yesterday, and I'd like to explain” ends more loops than a week of replaying. If there isn't, the replay brings no new information; it is just the monkey chattering. The same goes for a mistake at work: repair what you can, take the lesson, let the rest go.

A quieter mind isn't a gift some people are born with. It is a skill that grows with practice, especially when you are living a life that feels like your own, which is what my programme Permission for Life is about. If your mind keeps pulling you out of the moment, read how to live in the present moment next. It starts with one loop you choose not to follow.