April 26, 2024 • 29 mins
How do you know when you're overthinking too much?
How can you break the cycle of overthinking?
Today, Jay will talk about the complexity of overthinking and how we can turn it around and look at things differently. Jay presents seven practical strategies to help listeners combat the grip of overthinking. These range from the psychological—to limit how many people's opinions we seek, preventing the confusion and indecision that too many perspectives can cause—to the physical, recommending activities that disengage the analytical brain and encourage mental reset, like exercise or simply moving around.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to use over thinking for problem-solving
How to manage alarmed responses
How to use physical movement for mental clarity
How to focus on positives and small wins
Don't let overthinking hold you back! Start implementing these strategies today and take control of your mental space.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
00:52 Has Overthinking Slowed You Down?
07:53 The Science Behind Overthinking
10:50 #1: Overthinking as a Problem-Solving Approach
14:24 #2: Don’t Ask Too Many People For Their Opinion
18:19 #3: Avoid Responding While You’re Feeling Alarmed
19:17 #4: Move Your Body When Your Mind Is Stuck
20:32 #5: Focus on the Good Thing and Small Wins
22:05 #6: Spontaneous Drawings Relieve Psychological Stress
24:23 #7: Go Back to Analog
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're feeling stuck, move your body. Study show that
working out naturally releases serotonin. And maybe right now you're
moving your body while your mind is moving, and that's great.
But if your mind is stuck, move your body. And
if your body is stuck, move your mind. The number
one health and wellness podcast, Jay Sheety Jay Sheddy Set. Hey, everyone,
(00:26):
welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen,
learn and grow. I'm your host, Jay Sheddy, and I
am so excited that you're here right now. You're investing
in yourself simply by showing up, and I want you
to acknowledge what a big win that is. That you're
prioritizing your mindset. You're prioritizing your growth simply by checking
(00:47):
in right now now. I'm sure that overthinking has slowed
you down, has wasted time, has wasted your energy for
years and years and years, and maybe you've been trying
to do a bunch of different things to help it.
I'm hoping that this episode is going to help you
(01:08):
learn why overthinking may not be as bad as you
think it is. I'm here also to help you with
tools and habits and practices that are going to help
you overcome the unhealthy sides of overthinking. I'm also going
to give you some great insights on taking action and
making shift and change in your life by more deeply
(01:32):
understanding what overthinking is, how it works, and why we
struggle with it so much. Remember, if you want to
break through something, you have to understand why it's breaking
you down. So let's dive into the research. A study
of two thousand people discovered that sixty eight percent of
(01:54):
adults admit to overthinking. Another study found that overthinking is
especially problematic for young to middle aged adults. Seventy three
percent of twenty three to thirty five year olds and
fifty two percent of those aged forty five to fifty
five overthink. Now, when you break this down further, women
(02:17):
is significantly more likely than men to fall into overthinking
and to be immobilized by it. Fifty seven percent of
women and forty three percent of men claim to be overthinkers.
So the first thing I want you to recognize is
I always do, is you're not alone. You're not alone
and the challenges so much of society has set us
(02:39):
up to be an overthinker. Now, if you think about
the kinds of things you overthink about, and I sat
down with my team. I was asking some of my
friends and family, and the top things that came up,
the less serious ones, were things like social plants. Do
I go or do I cancel? Right? How many of
you have ever sat there for the whole week trying
(03:01):
to figure it out? And you might be that person
who messages last minute and says, guys, it's canceled, it's over,
I'm not coming, I am coming, whatever it may be.
But social plans is a big, big one when it
comes to overthinking. Another one is our appearance. What are
we gonna wear? How do we look? Do we really
(03:21):
want to get that tattoo? Do we want to get
that new makeup product? Right? There's all these questions around
appearance that we overthink about. Now it starts to get
a bit more serious here as well. You have things
like leaving your job, breaking up, and notice how all
of these we can all vouch for the fact that
we've overthought about these things before and they seem like
(03:44):
valid things to think about. Finances is another huge one,
and then going back to the more daily ones, you've
got things like social cues and exchanges. You're worried about
something you said, or you're worried about something you didn't say.
You're worried about how you came across in an interaction
at work, and now you're worried that that person judges
(04:05):
you or assumes something about you that you don't believe
is true. Or maybe you texted someone and you didn't
get the tone quite right, you didn't think it through,
and now you're concerned that they think that you're not thoughtful,
you're not kind, you're not caring, Or you forgot to
reply someone messaged you a week ago and you completely
(04:26):
forgot that they message you, and all of a sudden,
you're worried about how you're being perceived. Notice how this
scale of circumstantial to existential overthinking exists. Circumstantial are situational
are things like social plans, appearances, social exchanges, emails and messaging,
(04:49):
and then on an existential level, you have things like
breaking up, leaving your job, moving country. And what we
find is that it's very na and very normal to
overthink about pretty much all of these things. And sometimes
the smaller the decision, the more we've replayed that thought,
(05:10):
and sometimes the bigger the decision, the more we try
and avoid that thought? Right, how many times have you
had it where you're just trying to avoid the fact
that you may want to leave your job because it
brings up too much discomfort or you know that you
keep thinking over and over again about a conversation you
had two weeks ago because of something you said. Now, again,
(05:35):
you're not alone. Another study found that around forty percent
of adults overthink how to get out of plans. How
many of you are sitting there trying to get out
of the plan right now, Here's what I'm going to
ask you to do. Here's what I'm going to nudge
you to do. Just make a decision and send that
message and then don't look at your phone. Just make
(05:57):
the decision. I promise you it won't make a massive
difference to your life either way. Now. The same study
also discovered that around a third of people worry that
coworkers misinterpret their office dialogue. Right, maybe it's a joke
you made, maybe it's a conversation you had. And what
(06:18):
I would say in that scenario is it's okay to
go up to someone and say, hey, I've been worried
that you may have misinterpreted how I did this. I
wanted to check in with how you feel about this.
It's really great to over communicate when we feel we've
been under effective in the past. That same study went
on to say that over thirty percent of us overthink
(06:41):
financial choices like how much to spend on a housewarming
gift or how to ask someone to repay the money
they borrowed. Right, how many of you have lent money
to someone and then you're scared to ask for it back.
It can be really perplexing to figure out when to
say something, what to say, and how to say something thing,
And therefore we just let it go. But then in
(07:03):
the back of our mind, we're wondering, gosh, that person
still owes me fifty dollars, twenty dollars, one hundred dollars,
whatever it may be to you. And then you say
things to yourself, right, we negotiate with ourself, Oh, it's
not that big a deal, it's okay. But all the
while we're building up a negative viewpoint of this individual,
and we're feeling a bit of angst and pain internally
(07:24):
as well. Again, in this scenario, if that's what you're
going through, my advice is messes that person. They probably
forgot anyway, even if it's uncomfortable for you, I promise
you it will allow you to free your mind. And
I think that's what we're trying to get to with overthinking,
is we need to get to a place where we
(07:45):
recognize that freeing our mind is better than the pressure
that we're forcing onto our mind. Now, I was reading
something from a Maha, which is a phenomenal website to
do with mental health, and I read something on there
about the science behind overthinking and I wanted to read
it to you. So listen to this carefully from Amaha
(08:07):
dot com. From an evolutionary standpoint, the brain functions to
encourage overthinking as a means of problem solving. Have you
ever thought about that for a second? Evolutionary standpoints suggest
that our brain functions to encourage overthinking. Brain chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin,
(08:29):
and cortisol participate in initiating and sustaining these cyclical loops
of thoughts. Simply put, dopamine is a chemical associated with
rewarded motivation, so actually reflecting and pondering can be really
really effective. Now, Adrenaline is a stimulator, Amaha says, Serotonin
(08:52):
is the feel good hormone and mood regulator, and quartisol
is the stress hormone. Dopamine promotes the notion of problem
solving and hence initiates the loop in an effort to
reward the brain. When you're striving to solve the problem,
adrenaline is released as a source of energy and you
(09:12):
become pumped. The mind loop is augmented by serotonin as
new options are emerging. Now, when the loop produces no
effects or solutions, serotonin is blocked and cortisol is released.
Cortisol causes a stress response, and unhealthy rumination is brought
on by this. So notice how we're actually being encouraged
(09:35):
problem solve, But when we can't think of a solution,
that's when serotonin is blocked, and that's when stress begins. Now,
I'm going to be talking to you in this episode
about how to actually make sure you get to some solutions,
So stay with me. Going back to Amaha, it goes
on to say that overthinking may present as rumination about
(09:59):
the past anxiety about the future. Two groups of neural
networks in the brain play an important role in regulating experience.
The default mode network DMN and the direct experience network DN.
When our attention wanders while we're engaged in a routine task,
(10:20):
the default network is activated. It engages in brooding, imagining,
and planning. It tends to shift thoughts or consider experiences
or reflections from the past or future. When you're not
considering the past or the future, the direct experience network
is active when you're completely mindful of the present moment.
(10:42):
You're living in the now, for instance, when you feel
the water striking you in the shower or the bristles
of your toothbrush on your teeth. So here's point one.
I don't want you to see overthinking as all that bad.
I think there's a part of us that's built a
(11:02):
negative relationship with overthinking. We see ourselves as, Oh, I'm
an overthinker, I'm a procrastinator, I'm someone who's just always
stuck in my head. We have this negative belief system.
We don't look at it as a problem solving approach.
We look at it as an anti problem solving approach. Right.
(11:25):
We think overthinking is wasting time, is ruining our options,
is letting us down, rather than actually going a couple
of steps back and recognizing, actually, if I see overthinking
as problem solving, then maybe I'll actually have the opportunity
to overcome the problem. Now, it is true that excessive
(11:49):
rumination or worry can have a negative impact on us.
So as much as we don't want to go that
far on one side, we don't want to be at
the other extreme where we're trying to come up with
decisions and make decisions immediately. Right, So, you don't want
to go from making no decision to making a decision
so fast that you haven't had time to think about it,
(12:10):
where you're not rewarding yourself. So why do we struggle
with problem solving. One of the biggest reasons we struggle
with problem solving is we're not exposed to enough insight
around that topic. Right. So, let's say you're someone who's
struggling with saying no to social plans. There's a great
book called The Art of Saying No by Damon Zahariadis
(12:34):
I hope I'm saying that name right. But the reason
why I'm recommending this book is I promise you that
if you were to dive into that book over a weekend,
you're actually going to strengthen your skill in saying no. Now,
that's the challenge right with social plans. We don't recognize
that learning to say no is a muscle. Learning to
say no is a skill. Learning to say no is
a habit, And because we don't have the skill set,
(12:56):
we can't get to a solution quick enough. We think
that there's some issue in our mind, there's some emotional reason,
but we haven't really given it the time of day.
And so developing the muscle, developing the skill set allows
you to be able to say no. Another reason we
see overthinking is bad and not as problem solving is
(13:17):
because we haven't strengthened our ability to problem solve. So
let's say you are struggling with whether you should stay
in your current job or not. A good problem solving
tactic would be to say, okay, well, if I stay
here for the next five years, what will my life
look like? And if I leave? Worst case scenario? What
will my life look like? If I stay here, what's
(13:39):
best case and worst case? If I leave, what's best
case and worst case. Notice how a problem solving paradigm,
a problem solving methodology, adds structure, and that's what we're
really looking for. Overthinking is no structure. Problem solving is
structured and So as soon as you start to add
(14:01):
structures and systems to the way you reflect, the way
you ponder, the way you think, you switch from overthinking
to problem solving. And that's what I'd encourage you to do.
So that's the first step. Don't see overthinking as this
negative bad thing, see it as a way of moving
into a direction of problem solving. This segment is sponsored
(14:27):
by State Farm. It's the start of a new quarter
and my favorite time to reflect and focus on the
good that has happened this year already. Focusing on the
good and celebrating small wins help me thrive mentally and
keep me from letting the bad days outweigh the good.
My team and I host weekly Gratitude for this purpose
(14:47):
and have seen a massive positive shift in our personal
and professional lives. An HBr report from twenty eleven titled
the Power of Small Wins looked at small wins in
twenty project teams in multiple companies and collected nearly twelve
thousand diary entries, and what they found was that while
(15:08):
most of the progress was categorized as minor steps forward,
these small winds produced outsized positive reactions. Here are some
examples of small wins for me, and I encourage you
to begin your list. I woke up this morning in
show's movement. My last podcast episode helped someone through a breakup.
My last quote I shared on Instagram helped them through
(15:30):
a tough time. I spent quality time with an old
friend that I hadn't seen in a while. My team
thanked me for a productive offside meeting. Some of the
ways that I help remind myself to celebrate the small
wins is through daily gratitude. If you've ever listened to
my podcast or read my books, you've most likely heard
me talk about the importance of gratitude. In my daily routine.
(15:52):
Each morning and each evening, I set a side time
to reflect and express gratitude. Often in these moments of gratitude,
I'll find myself of highlighting these small wins, whether it's
something that happened in my personal or professional life, or
an interaction with a random stranger. Getting in the habit
of this type of reflection each day allows us to
take a moment, slow down, and remind ourselves to celebrate
(16:15):
the winds in our life, no matter how big or small.
With State Farm, you can celebrate small wins too. The
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(16:36):
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Second step, don't ask too many people for their opinion.
One of the biggest mistakes we make today is we
(16:59):
go on to that What's thread, We go on to
our SMS chat, we go into our group chat, and
we ask everyone what they think we should do. Right.
Should I date this guy? Should I quit my job?
Do I think this party's worth it? Do I like
what I'm wearing here? Now? The truth is everyone's got
a different opinion, and now you're stuck with a bunch
(17:21):
of different opinions, and now you're dealing with the other
overthinking of well, if I listen to them and I
don't listen to them, but then they see me at
the party, they're going to think that I listen to
them and not them, and they already know that I
don't really agree with that person on everything. But then
it's going to write like we've all been there. Now
we're overthinking about something we already overthought about, So what
(17:43):
do we do instead? There are four types of people
in your life. The first is someone that you go
to because they care about you. For me, this is
my mom. If I'm thinking about my health, if I'm
thinking about my wellbeing, the person I go to for
advice apart from is my mom. She doesn't care whether
I've done a talk at this amazing place. She doesn't
(18:05):
care who my latest guest on the podcast is. She
cares if I've drunk enough water, eaten my meals on time,
and had enough sleep. So if I want someone to
give me advice from a personal perspective, I'm going to
go to the people that care about me. Now, if
I'm going to ask my mom a question about something else,
(18:26):
she may not have the right answer. She may tell
me to not fly across halfway across the world for
something amazing for the pod right, And so from a
care point of view, she's spot on. Now I have
someone else in my life for people that are competent
at certain things. Now, my mom is competent in a
lot of areas, But there's a lot of area She's
not the person who's the most competent. So if I'm
(18:47):
asking for advice on let's say you're asked let's say
you're asking for advice on your taxes, in your accounts.
Let's say you're asking for advice on what to wear.
How many terms have you asked someone and then go,
I don't like what they wear anyway. It's like you're
asking someone who you don't believe is competent in the
area of your question, but you still ask them, and
(19:08):
now you're overthinking it. Focus on asking people who are
competent and skilled in the area that you're struggling in,
not everyone in every area. If you're thinking about quitting
your job, if you speak to your friend who is
not going to quit their job, chances are they're going
to struggle to give you good advice. You want to
speak to someone who has quit their job about the
(19:30):
challenges of it, about the greatness of it, about why
they quit their job. Go to someone who's had that experience.
The third type of person in your life is someone
who's consistently been there. I think these are the people
that you reach out to when you're reflecting on yourself,
when you're reflecting on your qualities, your characteristics, your abilities.
(19:50):
Someone who's been there in your side for a long time,
they may have some good notes to share. And the
fourth person in your life is someone who's high character.
Maybe you've got a moral question, maybe you've got a
question about faith, spirituality, religion, Maybe you've got a question
about you know, a dilemma that you are having morally
or ethically. You have someone of character in your life.
(20:13):
So think about your overthinking in terms of who is
the best person who is best placed to actually help
me solve this versus how many people do I know
that I could possibly ask to try and almost do
an audience reaction, Right, you're almost trying to get a Well,
seven people think this and three people think this, But
(20:34):
actually I trust the three people's opinion more than the
seven people. Focus on care, competence, consistency, and character. The
third thing I think a lot of us overthink because
we are trying to respond in alarm mode or alert mode.
So you get an email that you're worried about responding to,
(20:59):
but you're trying to respond to it while you're worried, Right,
you get a message, and now you're in anxiety trying
to figure out what to respond because you're trying to
respond while you're alarmed. It's so important to step away,
to find stillness, to find peace. So you respond from
(21:21):
a place of peace. If you respond from a place
of peace, chances are what you put out there will
be much more steady, will be much more stable, and
will probably feel more aligned than if you just reacted.
Don't respond from a place of being alarmed or alerted now,
(21:42):
step number four. Often it can feel like your mind's
just stuck. We just talked about how quartzole gets released.
Serotonin is blocked, right, you're feeling stuck, and so if
you're feeling stuck, move your body. Move your body when
your mind feel stuck. Studies show that working out naturally
(22:05):
releases serotonin. So move your body when your mind is stuck.
I want you to remember that. And maybe right now
you're moving your body while your mind is moving, and
that's great, But if your mind is stuck, move your body.
And if your body is stuck, move your mind. I
want you to remember this. If your mind is stuck,
move your body, And if your body is stuck, move
(22:29):
your mind. When we change our mindset, we can change
our physicality, and when we change our physicality, we can
change our mindset. They both work together. The problem is
when we're stuck in our mind, we're putting all our
energy into changing our mind, or when we're feeling stuck
in our body, we're putting all of our energy into
(22:50):
changing our body. We have to realize we have to
use the alternate one to actually make a shift. Now,
number five, this one's huge. This one's a really really
important one. It's so important that we focus on the
good things and have gratitude for the little things, and
(23:11):
we recognize the power of small wins. A lot of
us overthink because we don't give ourselves the credit of
the little progress we're making, the power of the small
steps in the right direction. Maybe last year you would
have spent a month responding and overthinking figuring out if
(23:31):
you want to go to an event, and this time
you spent a week. That's progress. Maybe last year you
would have overthought a decision for a month, but this
time you've made a decision in three days. We have
to be grateful for the little things in our life.
The reason we overthink is because we're concerned we're going
to miss out. We're concerned that someone's going to think
(23:54):
something of us, we're missing out, and being specific about
gratitude we're missing out, and being specific about how the
gratitude and thankfulness for the little things can reduce our overthinking.
We start to go, Okay, well, I know that what
I said was I'm perfect, but my intention was right. Okay.
(24:17):
I know that I should have probably said no earlier,
but I had the courage to do it anyway. Honoring
those moments recognizing progress are so powerful. Now, this is
probably one of my favorite ones too. A lot of
the time, when our mind is stuck, we need to
(24:38):
feel movement, and I find that writing, doodling, and painting
can be brilliant. Now. I was reading a Harvard Research
health blog from Shrinny Pill, and in that he talks
about how spontaneous drawings may also relieve psychological distress, making
it easier to attend to things. Shriny Pill says we
(25:02):
like to make sense of our lives by making up
coherent stories, but sometimes there are gaps that cannot be
filled no matter how hard we try. He goes on
to say, doodles fill these gaps, possibly by activating the
brain's time travel machine, allowing it to find lost puzzle
(25:22):
pieces of memories, bringing them to the present, and making
the picture of our lives more whole again. With this
greater sense of self and meaning, we may be able
to feel more relaxed and concentrate more. This blog goes
on to say that although doodles may look like a scribble,
random words that make no sense, or a partial face
(25:45):
that suddenly becomes something extraterrestrial, they're not quite as random
as we might think. Dr Robert Burns, the former director
of the Institute for Human Development at the University of Seattle,
uses do to diagnose the emotional problems of its patients.
He believes that doodles can reveal what is going on
(26:08):
in the unconscious. He asserts that in the same way
that eg leads transmit brain activity to a piece of paper,
your hand also does the same. Many other doodle researchers
would agree. Now, I was blown away by this because
maybe you're one of those people who when you're on
the phone, you're doodling. Right when you're messaging in between people,
(26:29):
maybe you're writing things down. I think one of the
reasons why journaling has taken off. So much to help
with overdrinking is it's getting out of your head and
onto a page, even if it doesn't make sense, even
if it's lots of random things. I encourage you to
get out of your head and onto a page. Now.
One of the reasons why we overthink a lot is
(26:54):
we're living too digitally. And my encouragement here is go
back to analog. We are literally processing seventy four gigabytes
of information a day now. You may be thinking, Jay,
that doesn't sound like a lot. Well, remember a few
(27:14):
years ago that would have been the size of your
hard drive. Right. We were happy when one gig was
a memory card. Now we're talking about seventy four gigs
a day now. Just to give you a sense of
what that is, that's sixteen movies. Can you imagine processing
sixteen movies per day? Storylines, characters, emotions, energy, thoughts. I mean,
(27:43):
it is so much sixteen movies a day. Go back
to being analog. I've been practicing this new thing where
when I'm at work, I'm putting my phone away and
I'm simply obviously I'm on my laptop and I've disconnected
my SMSs and my WhatsApp from my laptop, so I
can't check it, and I found that just not having
(28:04):
that level of seventy four gigabytes coming at me in
a strong way. Imagine back in the day, you drove
down a road and you saw a billboard. Now you're
seeing billboards every three seconds on your phone. Like, just
think about that for a second. How much it's changed.
So we're asking our brains, in our minds to over consume.
We're overexposed, overwhelmed, no wonder, we're overthinking. Go back to analog,
(28:28):
Go back to analog, Hona, Thank you so much for
listening to today. I'm so grateful that we've got to
spend this time together. I hope that these seven steps
make a huge difference to you, and I hope that
you find your path to recognizing that overthinking can help
you problem solve. That overthinking will be reduced when we
(28:49):
start celebrating the small wins, the small steps, and being
grateful for the progress, and recognizing at the end of
the day that it is natural we're not alone if
we're overthinkings, and that we're living in a world that
encourages overthinking, but we can make better decisions. Thank you,
for listening. Remember I am always in your corner and
(29:10):
I'm forever rooting for you. Thank you. If you love
this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with doctor Julie Smith
on unblocking negative emotions and how to embrace difficult feelings.
You've just got to be motivated every day, and if
you're not, then what are you doing? And actually humans
don't work that way. Motivation. You have to treat it
(29:30):
like any other emotion. Some days it will be there,
some days it won't
If you're feeling stuck, move your body. Study show that
working out naturally releases serotonin. And maybe right now you're
moving your body while your mind is moving, and that's great.
But if your mind is stuck, move your body. And
if your body is stuck, move your mind. The number
one health and wellness podcast, Jay Sheety Jay Sheddy Set. Hey, everyone,
(00:26):
welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen,
learn and grow. I'm your host, Jay Sheddy, and I
am so excited that you're here right now. You're investing
in yourself simply by showing up, and I want you
to acknowledge what a big win that is. That you're
prioritizing your mindset. You're prioritizing your growth simply by checking
(00:47):
in right now now. I'm sure that overthinking has slowed
you down, has wasted time, has wasted your energy for
years and years and years, and maybe you've been trying
to do a bunch of different things to help it.
I'm hoping that this episode is going to help you
(01:08):
learn why overthinking may not be as bad as you
think it is. I'm here also to help you with
tools and habits and practices that are going to help
you overcome the unhealthy sides of overthinking. I'm also going
to give you some great insights on taking action and
making shift and change in your life by more deeply
(01:32):
understanding what overthinking is, how it works, and why we
struggle with it so much. Remember, if you want to
break through something, you have to understand why it's breaking
you down. So let's dive into the research. A study
of two thousand people discovered that sixty eight percent of
(01:54):
adults admit to overthinking. Another study found that overthinking is
especially problematic for young to middle aged adults. Seventy three
percent of twenty three to thirty five year olds and
fifty two percent of those aged forty five to fifty
five overthink. Now, when you break this down further, women
(02:17):
is significantly more likely than men to fall into overthinking
and to be immobilized by it. Fifty seven percent of
women and forty three percent of men claim to be overthinkers.
So the first thing I want you to recognize is
I always do, is you're not alone. You're not alone
and the challenges so much of society has set us
(02:39):
up to be an overthinker. Now, if you think about
the kinds of things you overthink about, and I sat
down with my team. I was asking some of my
friends and family, and the top things that came up,
the less serious ones, were things like social plants. Do
I go or do I cancel? Right? How many of
you have ever sat there for the whole week trying
(03:01):
to figure it out? And you might be that person
who messages last minute and says, guys, it's canceled, it's over,
I'm not coming, I am coming, whatever it may be.
But social plans is a big, big one when it
comes to overthinking. Another one is our appearance. What are
we gonna wear? How do we look? Do we really
(03:21):
want to get that tattoo? Do we want to get
that new makeup product? Right? There's all these questions around
appearance that we overthink about. Now it starts to get
a bit more serious here as well. You have things
like leaving your job, breaking up, and notice how all
of these we can all vouch for the fact that
we've overthought about these things before and they seem like
(03:44):
valid things to think about. Finances is another huge one,
and then going back to the more daily ones, you've
got things like social cues and exchanges. You're worried about
something you said, or you're worried about something you didn't say.
You're worried about how you came across in an interaction
at work, and now you're worried that that person judges
(04:05):
you or assumes something about you that you don't believe
is true. Or maybe you texted someone and you didn't
get the tone quite right, you didn't think it through,
and now you're concerned that they think that you're not thoughtful,
you're not kind, you're not caring, Or you forgot to
reply someone messaged you a week ago and you completely
(04:26):
forgot that they message you, and all of a sudden,
you're worried about how you're being perceived. Notice how this
scale of circumstantial to existential overthinking exists. Circumstantial are situational
are things like social plans, appearances, social exchanges, emails and messaging,
(04:49):
and then on an existential level, you have things like
breaking up, leaving your job, moving country. And what we
find is that it's very na and very normal to
overthink about pretty much all of these things. And sometimes
the smaller the decision, the more we've replayed that thought,
(05:10):
and sometimes the bigger the decision, the more we try
and avoid that thought? Right, how many times have you
had it where you're just trying to avoid the fact
that you may want to leave your job because it
brings up too much discomfort or you know that you
keep thinking over and over again about a conversation you
had two weeks ago because of something you said. Now, again,
(05:35):
you're not alone. Another study found that around forty percent
of adults overthink how to get out of plans. How
many of you are sitting there trying to get out
of the plan right now, Here's what I'm going to
ask you to do. Here's what I'm going to nudge
you to do. Just make a decision and send that
message and then don't look at your phone. Just make
(05:57):
the decision. I promise you it won't make a massive
difference to your life either way. Now. The same study
also discovered that around a third of people worry that
coworkers misinterpret their office dialogue. Right, maybe it's a joke
you made, maybe it's a conversation you had. And what
(06:18):
I would say in that scenario is it's okay to
go up to someone and say, hey, I've been worried
that you may have misinterpreted how I did this. I
wanted to check in with how you feel about this.
It's really great to over communicate when we feel we've
been under effective in the past. That same study went
on to say that over thirty percent of us overthink
(06:41):
financial choices like how much to spend on a housewarming
gift or how to ask someone to repay the money
they borrowed. Right, how many of you have lent money
to someone and then you're scared to ask for it back.
It can be really perplexing to figure out when to
say something, what to say, and how to say something thing,
And therefore we just let it go. But then in
(07:03):
the back of our mind, we're wondering, gosh, that person
still owes me fifty dollars, twenty dollars, one hundred dollars,
whatever it may be to you. And then you say
things to yourself, right, we negotiate with ourself, Oh, it's
not that big a deal, it's okay. But all the
while we're building up a negative viewpoint of this individual,
and we're feeling a bit of angst and pain internally
(07:24):
as well. Again, in this scenario, if that's what you're
going through, my advice is messes that person. They probably
forgot anyway, even if it's uncomfortable for you, I promise
you it will allow you to free your mind. And
I think that's what we're trying to get to with overthinking,
is we need to get to a place where we
(07:45):
recognize that freeing our mind is better than the pressure
that we're forcing onto our mind. Now, I was reading
something from a Maha, which is a phenomenal website to
do with mental health, and I read something on there
about the science behind overthinking and I wanted to read
it to you. So listen to this carefully from Amaha
(08:07):
dot com. From an evolutionary standpoint, the brain functions to
encourage overthinking as a means of problem solving. Have you
ever thought about that for a second? Evolutionary standpoints suggest
that our brain functions to encourage overthinking. Brain chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin,
(08:29):
and cortisol participate in initiating and sustaining these cyclical loops
of thoughts. Simply put, dopamine is a chemical associated with
rewarded motivation, so actually reflecting and pondering can be really
really effective. Now, Adrenaline is a stimulator, Amaha says, Serotonin
(08:52):
is the feel good hormone and mood regulator, and quartisol
is the stress hormone. Dopamine promotes the notion of problem
solving and hence initiates the loop in an effort to
reward the brain. When you're striving to solve the problem,
adrenaline is released as a source of energy and you
(09:12):
become pumped. The mind loop is augmented by serotonin as
new options are emerging. Now, when the loop produces no
effects or solutions, serotonin is blocked and cortisol is released.
Cortisol causes a stress response, and unhealthy rumination is brought
on by this. So notice how we're actually being encouraged
(09:35):
problem solve, But when we can't think of a solution,
that's when serotonin is blocked, and that's when stress begins. Now,
I'm going to be talking to you in this episode
about how to actually make sure you get to some solutions,
So stay with me. Going back to Amaha, it goes
on to say that overthinking may present as rumination about
(09:59):
the past anxiety about the future. Two groups of neural
networks in the brain play an important role in regulating experience.
The default mode network DMN and the direct experience network DN.
When our attention wanders while we're engaged in a routine task,
(10:20):
the default network is activated. It engages in brooding, imagining,
and planning. It tends to shift thoughts or consider experiences
or reflections from the past or future. When you're not
considering the past or the future, the direct experience network
is active when you're completely mindful of the present moment.
(10:42):
You're living in the now, for instance, when you feel
the water striking you in the shower or the bristles
of your toothbrush on your teeth. So here's point one.
I don't want you to see overthinking as all that bad.
I think there's a part of us that's built a
(11:02):
negative relationship with overthinking. We see ourselves as, Oh, I'm
an overthinker, I'm a procrastinator, I'm someone who's just always
stuck in my head. We have this negative belief system.
We don't look at it as a problem solving approach.
We look at it as an anti problem solving approach. Right.
(11:25):
We think overthinking is wasting time, is ruining our options,
is letting us down, rather than actually going a couple
of steps back and recognizing, actually, if I see overthinking
as problem solving, then maybe I'll actually have the opportunity
to overcome the problem. Now, it is true that excessive
(11:49):
rumination or worry can have a negative impact on us.
So as much as we don't want to go that
far on one side, we don't want to be at
the other extreme where we're trying to come up with
decisions and make decisions immediately. Right, So, you don't want
to go from making no decision to making a decision
so fast that you haven't had time to think about it,
(12:10):
where you're not rewarding yourself. So why do we struggle
with problem solving. One of the biggest reasons we struggle
with problem solving is we're not exposed to enough insight
around that topic. Right. So, let's say you're someone who's
struggling with saying no to social plans. There's a great
book called The Art of Saying No by Damon Zahariadis
(12:34):
I hope I'm saying that name right. But the reason
why I'm recommending this book is I promise you that
if you were to dive into that book over a weekend,
you're actually going to strengthen your skill in saying no. Now,
that's the challenge right with social plans. We don't recognize
that learning to say no is a muscle. Learning to
say no is a skill. Learning to say no is
a habit, And because we don't have the skill set,
(12:56):
we can't get to a solution quick enough. We think
that there's some issue in our mind, there's some emotional reason,
but we haven't really given it the time of day.
And so developing the muscle, developing the skill set allows
you to be able to say no. Another reason we
see overthinking is bad and not as problem solving is
(13:17):
because we haven't strengthened our ability to problem solve. So
let's say you are struggling with whether you should stay
in your current job or not. A good problem solving
tactic would be to say, okay, well, if I stay
here for the next five years, what will my life
look like? And if I leave? Worst case scenario? What
will my life look like? If I stay here, what's
(13:39):
best case and worst case? If I leave, what's best
case and worst case. Notice how a problem solving paradigm,
a problem solving methodology, adds structure, and that's what we're
really looking for. Overthinking is no structure. Problem solving is
structured and So as soon as you start to add
(14:01):
structures and systems to the way you reflect, the way
you ponder, the way you think, you switch from overthinking
to problem solving. And that's what I'd encourage you to do.
So that's the first step. Don't see overthinking as this
negative bad thing, see it as a way of moving
into a direction of problem solving. This segment is sponsored
(14:27):
by State Farm. It's the start of a new quarter
and my favorite time to reflect and focus on the
good that has happened this year already. Focusing on the
good and celebrating small wins help me thrive mentally and
keep me from letting the bad days outweigh the good.
My team and I host weekly Gratitude for this purpose
(14:47):
and have seen a massive positive shift in our personal
and professional lives. An HBr report from twenty eleven titled
the Power of Small Wins looked at small wins in
twenty project teams in multiple companies and collected nearly twelve
thousand diary entries, and what they found was that while
(15:08):
most of the progress was categorized as minor steps forward,
these small winds produced outsized positive reactions. Here are some
examples of small wins for me, and I encourage you
to begin your list. I woke up this morning in
show's movement. My last podcast episode helped someone through a breakup.
My last quote I shared on Instagram helped them through
(15:30):
a tough time. I spent quality time with an old
friend that I hadn't seen in a while. My team
thanked me for a productive offside meeting. Some of the
ways that I help remind myself to celebrate the small
wins is through daily gratitude. If you've ever listened to
my podcast or read my books, you've most likely heard
me talk about the importance of gratitude. In my daily routine.
(15:52):
Each morning and each evening, I set a side time
to reflect and express gratitude. Often in these moments of gratitude,
I'll find myself of highlighting these small wins, whether it's
something that happened in my personal or professional life, or
an interaction with a random stranger. Getting in the habit
of this type of reflection each day allows us to
take a moment, slow down, and remind ourselves to celebrate
(16:15):
the winds in our life, no matter how big or small.
With State Farm, you can celebrate small wins too. The
State Farm Personal Price Plan helps you create an affordable
price just for you. Talk to a state Farm agent
today to learn how you can bundle and save with
the Personal Price Plan. Like a good neighbor, state Farm
(16:36):
is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary
by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability,
amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.
Second step, don't ask too many people for their opinion.
One of the biggest mistakes we make today is we
(16:59):
go on to that What's thread, We go on to
our SMS chat, we go into our group chat, and
we ask everyone what they think we should do. Right.
Should I date this guy? Should I quit my job?
Do I think this party's worth it? Do I like
what I'm wearing here? Now? The truth is everyone's got
a different opinion, and now you're stuck with a bunch
(17:21):
of different opinions, and now you're dealing with the other
overthinking of well, if I listen to them and I
don't listen to them, but then they see me at
the party, they're going to think that I listen to
them and not them, and they already know that I
don't really agree with that person on everything. But then
it's going to write like we've all been there. Now
we're overthinking about something we already overthought about, So what
(17:43):
do we do instead? There are four types of people
in your life. The first is someone that you go
to because they care about you. For me, this is
my mom. If I'm thinking about my health, if I'm
thinking about my wellbeing, the person I go to for
advice apart from is my mom. She doesn't care whether
I've done a talk at this amazing place. She doesn't
(18:05):
care who my latest guest on the podcast is. She
cares if I've drunk enough water, eaten my meals on time,
and had enough sleep. So if I want someone to
give me advice from a personal perspective, I'm going to
go to the people that care about me. Now, if
I'm going to ask my mom a question about something else,
(18:26):
she may not have the right answer. She may tell
me to not fly across halfway across the world for
something amazing for the pod right, And so from a
care point of view, she's spot on. Now I have
someone else in my life for people that are competent
at certain things. Now, my mom is competent in a
lot of areas, But there's a lot of area She's
not the person who's the most competent. So if I'm
(18:47):
asking for advice on let's say you're asked let's say
you're asking for advice on your taxes, in your accounts.
Let's say you're asking for advice on what to wear.
How many terms have you asked someone and then go,
I don't like what they wear anyway. It's like you're
asking someone who you don't believe is competent in the
area of your question, but you still ask them, and
(19:08):
now you're overthinking it. Focus on asking people who are
competent and skilled in the area that you're struggling in,
not everyone in every area. If you're thinking about quitting
your job, if you speak to your friend who is
not going to quit their job, chances are they're going
to struggle to give you good advice. You want to
speak to someone who has quit their job about the
(19:30):
challenges of it, about the greatness of it, about why
they quit their job. Go to someone who's had that experience.
The third type of person in your life is someone
who's consistently been there. I think these are the people
that you reach out to when you're reflecting on yourself,
when you're reflecting on your qualities, your characteristics, your abilities.
(19:50):
Someone who's been there in your side for a long time,
they may have some good notes to share. And the
fourth person in your life is someone who's high character.
Maybe you've got a moral question, maybe you've got a
question about faith, spirituality, religion, Maybe you've got a question
about you know, a dilemma that you are having morally
or ethically. You have someone of character in your life.
(20:13):
So think about your overthinking in terms of who is
the best person who is best placed to actually help
me solve this versus how many people do I know
that I could possibly ask to try and almost do
an audience reaction, Right, you're almost trying to get a Well,
seven people think this and three people think this, But
(20:34):
actually I trust the three people's opinion more than the
seven people. Focus on care, competence, consistency, and character. The
third thing I think a lot of us overthink because
we are trying to respond in alarm mode or alert mode.
So you get an email that you're worried about responding to,
(20:59):
but you're trying to respond to it while you're worried, Right,
you get a message, and now you're in anxiety trying
to figure out what to respond because you're trying to
respond while you're alarmed. It's so important to step away,
to find stillness, to find peace. So you respond from
(21:21):
a place of peace. If you respond from a place
of peace, chances are what you put out there will
be much more steady, will be much more stable, and
will probably feel more aligned than if you just reacted.
Don't respond from a place of being alarmed or alerted now,
(21:42):
step number four. Often it can feel like your mind's
just stuck. We just talked about how quartzole gets released.
Serotonin is blocked, right, you're feeling stuck, and so if
you're feeling stuck, move your body. Move your body when
your mind feel stuck. Studies show that working out naturally
(22:05):
releases serotonin. So move your body when your mind is stuck.
I want you to remember that. And maybe right now
you're moving your body while your mind is moving, and
that's great, But if your mind is stuck, move your body.
And if your body is stuck, move your mind. I
want you to remember this. If your mind is stuck,
move your body, And if your body is stuck, move
(22:29):
your mind. When we change our mindset, we can change
our physicality, and when we change our physicality, we can
change our mindset. They both work together. The problem is
when we're stuck in our mind, we're putting all our
energy into changing our mind, or when we're feeling stuck
in our body, we're putting all of our energy into
(22:50):
changing our body. We have to realize we have to
use the alternate one to actually make a shift. Now,
number five, this one's huge. This one's a really really
important one. It's so important that we focus on the
good things and have gratitude for the little things, and
(23:11):
we recognize the power of small wins. A lot of
us overthink because we don't give ourselves the credit of
the little progress we're making, the power of the small
steps in the right direction. Maybe last year you would
have spent a month responding and overthinking figuring out if
(23:31):
you want to go to an event, and this time
you spent a week. That's progress. Maybe last year you
would have overthought a decision for a month, but this
time you've made a decision in three days. We have
to be grateful for the little things in our life.
The reason we overthink is because we're concerned we're going
to miss out. We're concerned that someone's going to think
(23:54):
something of us, we're missing out, and being specific about
gratitude we're missing out, and being specific about how the
gratitude and thankfulness for the little things can reduce our overthinking.
We start to go, Okay, well, I know that what
I said was I'm perfect, but my intention was right. Okay.
(24:17):
I know that I should have probably said no earlier,
but I had the courage to do it anyway. Honoring
those moments recognizing progress are so powerful. Now, this is
probably one of my favorite ones too. A lot of
the time, when our mind is stuck, we need to
(24:38):
feel movement, and I find that writing, doodling, and painting
can be brilliant. Now. I was reading a Harvard Research
health blog from Shrinny Pill, and in that he talks
about how spontaneous drawings may also relieve psychological distress, making
it easier to attend to things. Shriny Pill says we
(25:02):
like to make sense of our lives by making up
coherent stories, but sometimes there are gaps that cannot be
filled no matter how hard we try. He goes on
to say, doodles fill these gaps, possibly by activating the
brain's time travel machine, allowing it to find lost puzzle
(25:22):
pieces of memories, bringing them to the present, and making
the picture of our lives more whole again. With this
greater sense of self and meaning, we may be able
to feel more relaxed and concentrate more. This blog goes
on to say that although doodles may look like a scribble,
random words that make no sense, or a partial face
(25:45):
that suddenly becomes something extraterrestrial, they're not quite as random
as we might think. Dr Robert Burns, the former director
of the Institute for Human Development at the University of Seattle,
uses do to diagnose the emotional problems of its patients.
He believes that doodles can reveal what is going on
(26:08):
in the unconscious. He asserts that in the same way
that eg leads transmit brain activity to a piece of paper,
your hand also does the same. Many other doodle researchers
would agree. Now, I was blown away by this because
maybe you're one of those people who when you're on
the phone, you're doodling. Right when you're messaging in between people,
(26:29):
maybe you're writing things down. I think one of the
reasons why journaling has taken off. So much to help
with overdrinking is it's getting out of your head and
onto a page, even if it doesn't make sense, even
if it's lots of random things. I encourage you to
get out of your head and onto a page. Now.
One of the reasons why we overthink a lot is
(26:54):
we're living too digitally. And my encouragement here is go
back to analog. We are literally processing seventy four gigabytes
of information a day now. You may be thinking, Jay,
that doesn't sound like a lot. Well, remember a few
(27:14):
years ago that would have been the size of your
hard drive. Right. We were happy when one gig was
a memory card. Now we're talking about seventy four gigs
a day now. Just to give you a sense of
what that is, that's sixteen movies. Can you imagine processing
sixteen movies per day? Storylines, characters, emotions, energy, thoughts. I mean,
(27:43):
it is so much sixteen movies a day. Go back
to being analog. I've been practicing this new thing where
when I'm at work, I'm putting my phone away and
I'm simply obviously I'm on my laptop and I've disconnected
my SMSs and my WhatsApp from my laptop, so I
can't check it, and I found that just not having
(28:04):
that level of seventy four gigabytes coming at me in
a strong way. Imagine back in the day, you drove
down a road and you saw a billboard. Now you're
seeing billboards every three seconds on your phone. Like, just
think about that for a second. How much it's changed.
So we're asking our brains, in our minds to over consume.
We're overexposed, overwhelmed, no wonder, we're overthinking. Go back to analog,
(28:28):
Go back to analog, Hona, Thank you so much for
listening to today. I'm so grateful that we've got to
spend this time together. I hope that these seven steps
make a huge difference to you, and I hope that
you find your path to recognizing that overthinking can help
you problem solve. That overthinking will be reduced when we
(28:49):
start celebrating the small wins, the small steps, and being
grateful for the progress, and recognizing at the end of
the day that it is natural we're not alone if
we're overthinkings, and that we're living in a world that
encourages overthinking, but we can make better decisions. Thank you,
for listening. Remember I am always in your corner and
(29:10):
I'm forever rooting for you. Thank you. If you love
this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with doctor Julie Smith
on unblocking negative emotions and how to embrace difficult feelings.
You've just got to be motivated every day, and if
you're not, then what are you doing? And actually humans
don't work that way. Motivation. You have to treat it
(29:30):
like any other emotion. Some days it will be there,
some days it won't
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