How to stop overthinking—and calm your mind

You leave a dinner party and can’t stop mentally replaying that one interaction you had—did you offend this person?

You finally get into bed to relax and shut off your brain, only to immediately start wondering whether you made the right judgment call at work earlier in the day.

You regularly run over the same thoughts, worries, or fears over and over again until you’re completely filled with distress.

Sounds familiar? Then you might be an overthinker. Everyone overthinks from time to time, but if it’s a pattern, you might be overly stressed, anxious, and frequently paralyzed with indecision. Research has shown that in some cases, overthinking can be caused by—and contribute to—larger mental health issues, including anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Let’s explore what qualifies as overthinking, common causes, and how to calm your mind and get off the mental hamster wheel.

What is overthinking?

Overthinking is when you ruminate or turn something over and over in your head beyond the point of what is reasonable, explains Dr. Patrick McGrath, PhD, Chief Clinical Officer at NOCD. Overthinking involves dwelling on the same thoughts—whether about past mistakes, present conundrums, or future outcomes. 

“Overthinking is often an attempt to solve something that feels uncertain, or to gain back control over something,” explains Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT. “You may engage in overthinking to make this feeling go away, or to distract yourself from it.” In other words, it’s a coping mechanism for dealing with uncomfortable emotions like guilt, shame, hopelessness, or fear (often a fear of the unknown).

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Common signs you are overthinking

• Constantly second-guessing decisions you’ve made
• Seeking reassurance from others or confirmation that you did the “right” thing
• Catastrophizing, or imagining all the ways a future situation might go wrong
• Spending an excessive amount of time thinking about situations that are objectively minor
• Replaying events from the past over and over in your head to dissect how they unfolded
• Feeling mentally exhausted by your tendency to jump to negative conclusions—for example, pondering all the reasons your friend might hate you when they don’t reply to your text right away
• Struggling to let things go, such as something your partner said during an argument or critical feedback from your boss at work

• Mind reading, or assuming what someone else is thinking without much proof to support your assumptions
• Personalizing, or believing that negative situations or outcomes are somehow either your fault or about you in some way

What causes overthinking? 

There are many reasons why you might have a tendency to overthink. According to Dr. McGrath, factors that can cause or contribute to overthinking include:

• Parental or caregiver modeling. Some research suggests that anxious behaviors, like overthinking, can be learned. So if you grew up with a parent or caregiver who had a tendency to constantly overthink, you may have picked up the same habit.

• Traumatic life experiences. Overthinking can be a trauma response. Your brain can get stuck in a constant state of scanning for potential threats and imagining worst case scenarios (in an effort to avoid any perceived danger).

• Perfectionism. Tying to get things “just right” can lead you to overthink the choices you make and dwell on potential mistakes.

• Anxiety. Overthinking leads you to focus excessively on potential negative outcomes, which increases anxiety. But there’s also a reverse phenomenon at play—as anxiety can also lead to overthinking as your mind tries to find some sense of control amid uncertainty. 

• Positive reinforcement. When a particular behavior—like overthinking—leads to a positive outcome, you may be more likely to repeat it in the future. For instance, if you tell yourself that “overthinking is what led me to obsessively check over my work—which led to a promotion,” your brain might get the message that the habit is helpful.

Is overthinking the same as rumination?

Overthinking and rumination are often used interchangeably. Rumination can be considered a type of overthinking. 

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), rumination is an “obsessional thinking involving excessive, repetitive thoughts or themes that interfere with other forms of mental activity.” The APA also points out that rumination is commonly linked with mental health issues like OCD and anxiety disorders.

If you’re wondering: What does rumination have to do with OCD? Well, people with OCD experience two main symptoms: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts, urges, and sensations that cause significant distress or anxiety, while compulsions are behaviors that people engage in to try to reduce the distress brought on by obsessions.. 

When the obsession takes hold, it can often be hard to think about anything else. So people with OCD might actually ruminate about their obsessions. In fact, rumination can become a mental compulsion itself—meaning that ruminating is done in an effort to escape the anxiety.

“For people with OCD, rumination can look like engaging with an intrusive thought in an effort to figure it out,” says Stacy Quick, LPC, an OCD specialist. “You attempt to make sense of the intrusive thought or try to rationalize it. It may even look like trying to ‘reverse the thought’ or move on from it with a feeling of assurance.”

When is overthinking or ruminating a mental health issue?

It’s worth repeating that everyone overthinks from time to time. So how do you know when it’s become a mental health issue? According to Quinlan, your overthinking may signal a deeper mental health issue if it’s:

• Causing distress
• Reducing your quality of life
• Taking up a significant amount of time
• Unproductive—in other words, not guiding you toward any helpful new information or decisions
• Uninvited, unwanted, and difficult to disengage from
• Negatively affecting your relationships, work life, or ability to care for yourself

How to stop overthinking: expert-backed strategies

Whether or not your overthinking is related to a mental health disorder, know that there is help available. 

If you’re experiencing overthinking that you don’t suspect is linked to underlying anxiety, depression, OCD, or another mental health issue, it can be helpful to start by observing the habit, says Quinlan. Keep a journal and log any episodes of overthinking so you can spot patterns that emerge. 

Some things to take note of: Are there specific triggers that drive you to overthink? Are you more likely to overthink when you’re stressed at work, in certain kinds of social situations, or when you haven’t had enough sleep? Once you have more information on what might be perpetuating your tendency to overthink, you’ll be better prepared to address it. 

Studies have found that practicing mindfulness can also be effective for reducing overthinking and rumination. The idea is that by acknowledging your thoughts in a non-judgemental way, rather than getting carried away by them or trying to suppress them, those thoughts have less power over you. Quinlan adds that because mindfulness helps ground you in the present moment, you’re less likely to become consumed with overthinking past events or future possibilities.

A mental health provider can also help you identify the root cause of your overthinking and suggest strategies to reign in your negative thoughts. One approach that is often recommended is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). According to Quinlan, CBT is aimed at recognizing and challenging unhelpful, negative ways of thinking.

For example, let’s say you come home from a party and begin spiraling into thoughts about why one of your friends didn’t talk to you very much. While overthinking this scenario, you come to the conclusion that your friend must be annoyed at you and begin making a mental list of all the ways you may have wronged them. A CBT therapist  might ask you to consider other possibilities about why they didn’t talk to you. For instance, your friend might have seen you chatting with other people throughout the night and wanted to avoid interrupting. Or they may have decided to wait and catch up after the (loud) party, at a time when they could have a more intimate conversation with you.

CBT can be very effective, but it doesn’t work for all forms of rumination and overthinking. If your rumination is linked to OCD, CBT can actually backfire and make things worse. But the good news is that there’s another type of behavioral therapy—exposure and response prevention (ERP)—which is unlike general CBT or talk therapy, and it works very well for rumination and overthinking that’s related to OCD or anxiety disorders.

ERP therapy for overthinking

If your overthinking is severe and your therapist deems it an OCD-related mental compulsion, ERP is an evidence-based therapy that will help you find relief. 

The ”exposure” part of ERP refers to intentionally exposing yourself to thoughts or triggers that induce anxiety or distress. (Exposures typically begin with easier exercises at the beginning, until you work up to more challenging ones during the course of treatment.) The response prevention element refers to introducing new ways to deal with the distress — tactics that move you away from the compulsion (which, in this case, is the mental rumination). 

To look at a concrete example: Someone with OCD might obsess about their relationships (there’s actually an OCD subtype called Relationship OCD) and experience intrusive thoughts that their partner will leave them. With ERP, a response prevention technique might be simply to “postpone your worry time.” Essentially, this conscious, committed choice to not indulge the mental rumination at any and every moment begins to take the power away from your OCD thoughts.

Of course, everyone’s exposures are different. Dr. McGrath recalls a client who constantly thought about all the cruel names his brother called him during childhood—he couldn’t seem to let go of them. Dr. McGrath suggested he record and listen to all those names over and over again. Before long, those names lost their meaning. “After a while, it just becomes background noise,” says Dr. McGrath. “It doesn’t affect you the same way.” The client told Dr. McGrath, “I can’t believe these 20 words ruined my life.”

Even if your overthinking isn’t linked to diagnosed OCD or an anxiety disorder, Dr. McGrath says ERP may still benefit you. Over time—with the right professional help—you can free yourself from overthinking, stop analyzing life, and start truly enjoying it.