Clear your brain fog - how to stop overthinking
You can also listen to this blogpost here (click)!
If you tend to get stuck in your own head from time to time as well, then let me share with you some hacks that will help you to get out of your head instead completely redesigning your whole life at 3 am only to have forgotten everything you planned out to do the next morning and feeling exhausted because of the lack of sleep.
First up, let’s get crystal clear on what I mean by overthinking and how you start noticing that you fall into that trap.
The easiest way to describe overthinking is if you find yourself ruminating and ruminating again and again over the same thing, playing through extensive scenarios in your mind, rummaging about old memories or what Izzy said during lunch because her tone of voice was slightly different. It’s when you get so stuck in your thoughts and mind that you end up almost frozen in time and space. And this is a form of procrastination as it leads to decision fatigue and lack of actual action taking so it slows down your progress and delays potential results.
This not only can impact your work or lead to stagnation in your business, but it also may influence your colleagues and employees if you work in a corporate environment where things can be changing quickly on a daily basis.
If you’re unsure whether you’re an overthinker or maybe actually have a different self-sabotaging personality type, then I highly recommend taking my free quiz - it’s only a couple of question but will give you useful insight into how your mindblock yourself from your full potential.
Of course there are situations where you will want to spend time thinking about it and where it is absolutely crucial that you don’t just jump to quick conclusions or take actions that you might later regret because you haven't thought it through.
This leads me to hack number one: have designated thinking time to really go deep into a subject, weigh up all the options, consult different resources and then make an informed decision. The key here is to set yourself a time limit by which you will want to come to a conclusion to stop you from going completely down the rabbit hole and not finding your way back out again.
There are two ways in which I do this practice myself: First, if I know the task at hand requires not too much time, for example writing an email, instagram post caption or also when something bad happened where I know it could trigger me into overthinking, I will give myself a time limit in which I can free flow think about as much as I like, with the condition that after this time I either need to have come to a decision, take action or let go of the thought completely.
This has helped me tremendously to not get stuck between the lanes, not knowing what to do but also helped me to let go of any thoughts or situations that aren’t of service to me. I could have gotten sucked into a dark deep hole when I received a message that triggered me, or spend hours analysing my tone of voice or the mistakes I made in my last live.
The second way I practice this is when it comes to bigger decisions or projects that require more time and research, for those things I will give myself and end date with maximum one week to come to an answer. In this time I can research the topic, consult friends and experts and sleep over it before coming to a conclusion. Then at the end of that time period, I will make my final decision.
Now obviously sometimes we might still get caught up in the overthinking spirale, whether it kicks in when you actually want to go sleep, or when you repeat the same thing to your friend for the10th time or you awoke from an hourlong stare into the nothingness of your screen after reading an email.
So what do we do in the moment?
The easiest way to not only break out of a thinking loop but also fully get out of your mind and back into the present moment is through movement.
Yes, you heard that right. It’s literally moving your body so you can disconnect from your smart brain that has been working its ass off.
Whether that might be to go for a walk preferably outside in nature and maybe putting a podcast on, dancing to your favourite song, regulating your nervous system through shaking your body or a proper long workout.
Whatever it is that you can do in that moment to reconnect you with your body and most importantly disrupt the current thought process.
When I catch myself being too caught up in thinking I simply get up, walk around the house, say hi to my boyfriend and or cuddle one of our cats. The act of standing up and focusing on my surroundings for a while is a great way to disrupt myself and provides some needed space from the topic. It’s like taking an actual step back to clear your mind so you can look at it from a different perspective.
A slightly different way of doing this would be through a meditation in which you check in with your senses just for a couple of minutes. My favourite exercise here is the 54321 exercise. It’s the one I have been doing myself for years and that I have been teaching colleagues, friends and of course clients as an easy-peasy tool to get back into the present moment.
And here’s how it works:
First up, in your mind you list 5 things you can see, for example my screen, a coffee mug, headphones, my notebook and the subtle pink light illuminating the room.
Then you list 4 things you can physically feel. Some also like to include actual emotions which works too, but for now we focus on actual sensation in the body which can include the chair underneath my bum, my glasses on my nose, the warmth of my cat on my lap, my hair tickling the back of my neck.
Next up we have 3 things you can hear right now, so that might be an airplane passing by, my boyfriend typing in the other room or the sound of the dishwasher in the kitchen.
Then we list 2 things we can smell like the freshly brewed coffee or the pinetree candle and last but not least one thing you can taste - which might be mint from a chewing gum.
Try it for yourself right now, and then keep on reading for some more tips.
These next tips I would consider more of a form of thought management, as they aren’t necessarily ways to disrupt the thought process but to provide some ease to your mind instead.
This one is especially for my fellow late-night thinkers whose brains go off with all the great ideas as soon as their heads hit the pillow.
To not loose any of that good stuff, either have a journal at hand that you can write every down into OR include a little bit of journaling into your bedtime routine so you can get everything out of your mind and onto paper. This will help you to find peace in the moment because you have it captured and you can come back to it in your next allocated thinking slot to ponder on and expand or act upon it if needed.
If writing is not your thing, try voicenotes to yourself or speech-to-text there is a way for everyone.
I personally use either a journal or my notes app on the phone to write everything down and if I think of it at that time I also mark some of the things as either To Dos, Ideas or Not to forgets, which then helps me when I come back to it to know what needs action and what doesn’t.
And this already brings me to the last hack: meditating regularly, ideally daily.
Through practising meditation you learn to let your thoughts pass by and reconnect with your breath or maybe a mantra even. This doesn’t mean you silence your brain completely, in fact this will be pretty much impossible, especially if you just start out on this practice. What it does mean is that you sit still, and whenever you catch yourself drifting off with your thoughts, you refocus on your breath, and how it feels when the air enters your lungs and exits it again.
And it doesn’t matter how often you drift off or not. In fact, the more you catch yourself the more aware you get and the more you can practice coming back into the present moment.
Not only will meditating help you to gain mental focus and clarity as you learn to reduce the noise of your thoughts, you also develop awareness of your emotions. This self-awareness enables you to observe thoughts without being overwhelmed by them, fostering emotional balance and preventing spirals of overthinking. And of course Meditation activates the body's relaxation response and lowers your stress levels. As stress diminishes, the tendency to engage in repetitive and anxious thoughts decreases, leading to a more peaceful and centered mindset.
Now don’t panic and think you have to from now on sit down for an hour every day meditate. Absolutely not. You can start with 3-5 minutes every morning, or during breaks in your day to day life. Of course the more you practice the better you get and then you also might want to increase the time or try out different styles of meditation like visualisation meditations or metta meditation.
If you want to give it a go, here’s a free 2 minute meditation that you can download and try for yourself or send me a message if you fancy a longer one and I will send you a recording of a guided meditation.
To sum it up, in order to either break out of the overthinking spiral and regain focus, or to manage your thoughts better you can do the following:
Have designated thinking time in which you allow yourself to think deeply about a topic. Remember, that this is most effective if you either get to a decision at the end of it, an action or you may even decide to let go of the thought.
Disrupt yourself and get out of your head through movement and getting into your body, this can either be going for a walk in nature, dancing, working out, shaking your peach or reconnecting with your senses with the 54321 exercise for example
Write it down so it’s captured somewhere and you can go back to the task you were just focusing on
Include meditating into your daily routines, stating with a couple minutes every day to practice self-awareness, quieten your mind and creating mental space.
Choose any one of these that speaks to you the most and try it out for yourself the next time you catch yourself overthinking or if you know you are prone to getting lost in thought try some of the ones that are more of a management or preventive nature like taking notes and journaling.
Have you been overthinking whether to work with me? Well, that’s why I offer the coaching booster, a one-off session to try out if coaching is for you and if you decide to work with me longer afterwards, you get the initial investment as a discount of your chosen program!
