Tag: overthinking

Don’t overthink it

By: Alejandro Rodriguez
There is something everyone does that can kill motivation and turn any situation into a nightmare. What is it? “overthinking,” this can cause serious anxiety for some people which can prevent them from truly living in the moment. In my experience I have found that the root of my overthinking has always come from fear of what “MIGHT” happen, which means that our mind tends to create fictional worst case scenarios. I have learned that overthinking is wired in to our brains and is part of out basic instincts. In times when the human used quick thinking as a survival tactic overthinking helped with staying aware of what might happen in a certain survival situation. At this point the question is why do we still do it if we don’t rely on our instincts for survival? Well, the speed that societies have evolved and become more modern has been so fast that our brains are still trying to catch up and become aware to the fact that we no longer have situations in which we have to survive based on instincts.
For me it is something something that I have needed to overcome and along the way have found a few techniques that help me.

  1. Write it down- dissect the situation is the problem real or just something that has been blow out of proportion
  2. Talk it out- talk about the situation and get different perspectives on the topic
  3. Meditation: meditation is a great tool that helps refresh your mind so that you can look at whatever you’re overthinking about with a fresh mind
  4. Exercise: working out just like meditation helps me clear my mind because for one hour I am only thinking about my workout session.
  5. Look at the positive side: what good can come out of this situation, I feel like when we overthink about something we tend focus on the negative what ifs instead of the positive ones, most of the time the outcomes are really not even close to what we imagined them to be.
  6. Read a chapter of your favorite book: I find this one to be very helpful because not only do you read a good book but you allow yourself to temporarily think about something else, it’s like taking a break from hard labor in order to recharge.