How To Stop Overthinking And Relax More
If you want to learn how to stop overthinking and how to relax. It helps to understand why we overthink and why it is so detrimental to our health and wellbeing. And why the ability to relax is so important.
Overthinking usually refers to the act of ruminating, focusing on something for too long or too many times. In many ways, rumination is a by-product of our over-busy modern lifestyle. Especially obsessing over the negative or possible aspects of a situation, which is exhausting, unproductive and at times depressing
Studies have shown that over-thinking, ruminating is linked to anxiety and stress in both childhood and adulthood. The overthinking analytical mind is a strategy the ego uses to help us to feel in control or safe.
It is a developed part of our innate survival response, the healthy analytical mind helps us find solutions from danger. But the unhealthy ruminative mind is in a constate state of anxiety and stress. And when people suffer from chronic anxiety and chronic stress, the mind and body stops being able to relax.
How To Stop Overthinking
People who tend to worry a lot, tend to live their life in a state of fear are more likely to engage in overthinking and rumination. But the reality is most anxiety and stress is triggered by ruminating over what could go wrong. Or over what we believe will cause us pain or suffering. Because of that fear we feel the need to control as many outcomes as we can.
But when we try to control everything we are not in the flow, not living in a natural harmonious state of being. We are living in a state of resistance which actually is the source of most suffering and dis-ease. So the overthinker is not living in the moment, not trusting the moment.
I was a highly anxious overthinking child, the eldest of many siblings. Being highly empathic I worried a lot about the needs of others. And that impacted my mental, emotional and physical wellbeing from a young age. It took me many years to learn how to stop overthinking and how to just be.
How To Help Clients And Students Have Less Ruminative Thoughts
I spent 30 years studying many different mind, body, emotional and spiritual techniques. Yet despite studying different types of therapies, healing, mind techniques, psychotherapy. I found for myself and clients the most simple approaches were often the most effective if approached in the right order, the right way.
We all deserve to live a more calm, content and stress-less life. And I have found the most effective way IS NOT trying to change all your thoughts. There is a theory we have 40, 000 negative thoughts each day . So that is a lot of thoughts you would need to change. If we approach it from one step beyond our mindset. It is far more effective when we teach others how to reduce their attachment to our thoughts. Reduce the engagement in overthinking and help them learn how to relax and be.
4 Ways To Reduce Overthinking
Embrace The Here And Now –
The easiest way to reduce overthinking is to embrace the present moment. Stop throughout your day and notice where your thoughts and where is your attention is? Is your attention on the activity that you are doing? Is your attention fully with the people you are engaging with? Or is it in thoughts of the past, thoughts of what you have to do later in the day? We have lost appreciation and value for this moment. It is too easy to miss all the blessings that we are being given in this present moment. And when the mind, the body, emotions, and spirit and not in the moment, disjointed and out of balance. We manifest dis-harmony, dis-ease.
Meditation tools, when taught the right way, can be powerful ways to bring you into the present moment. Here in the west we are so conditioned into spending so many hours of our day doing, thinking and analysing. That most people really struggle to stop, struggle to relax especially relax properly. Now meditation helps because it encourages more space, more freedom between our thoughts. Meditation helps us connect with our own inner peace, our own inner calm, and our own inner guidance. It helps us reconnect with the self and less distracted by thoughts that are not facts. Less pulled in by the external distortion and manipulation of the world and media around us.
Develop Self-Compassion –
We can all be too hard, demanding and uncompassionate towards ourselves. Especially about decisions, we have made in the past or even in our present situation. Because we are so over-identificated with who we think we are or are supposed to be. This leaves us more empty and confused, and more likely to fall into jobs and roles that do not fill our souls. Self-compassion can teach us how to giving ourselves the same compassion and understanding we give to those around us.
Know You Are Enough –
When you know you are more than enough, it’s easier to disengage with those self-sabotaging thoughts. Our biggest self-destruction is our beliefs around who we think we need or should be. We live in a distorted society that has convinced us, that our value lies in what we do, what we earn, what we look like. The roles, status, and power we have or take on, but none of this makes us more worthy or more valued. This is a huge distortion and so far from the truth. We are all born into this world enough, all with individual unique traits, gifts, skills, abilities and what may be perceived as disabilities. But none of them define our worth.
3 Ways How To Learn How To Relax
So many people go through their day without stopping and taking a moment to stop, relax or rest. Tea breaks, lunch and afternoon breaks at work are not just about having a meal or a drink. But are there to remove yourself from your busyness and stress. When we work through our breaks and only try and switch off and relax just before going to bed or going on holiday.
The mind and body can really struggle to relax, because it is overstimulated, over-stressed. The mind and body needs periods of calm to restore balance. So breaks throughout your day, breaks at work, breaks at home, at school and college are important. If we skip time out, our mind and body forgets how to relax. It becomes more conditioned to be in the stress response instead of the relaxed response.
Become Aware Of Your Physical Body –
It is important to be aware and listen to your body, become aware of the tension in your body. When we are so in our mind, in our thoughts we are detached from our body, our emotions. It is important to be fully present with that tension without adding a story a reason why you are so tense.
When we give our body that presence and attention it naturally starts to let go. You can learn how to listen and nurture your body with this soothing guided meditation. It is important to know when your body needs rest, relaxation, the right food, water…
Learn How To Relax And Sleep Deeply And Effectively –
The inability to relax is one of the biggest causes of physical disease, sleep problems chronic pain and tension. We are so mentally busy, so engaged in our thoughts we find it difficult to switch off or relax without any distractions.
Many people think relaxation is sitting in front of the television, or playing a game on their computer or smartphone. But these activities are not relaxing, they are distractions of the mind. That is why Relaxation Therapy is a powerful way to teach clients and students how to let go of long-term anxiety, chronic stress, and stress-related insomnia. Relaxation techniques re-teach the body how to not only relax and just be, but help reduce pain and tension.
Moving Into A State Of Being, Relaxing
As you can see how to stop overthinking and relax is very much about dis-engaging with unhealthy conditioning. It is about re-learning how to be, how to relax. A baby knows how to relax, knows how to be, knows how to appreciate the present moment. A baby usually comes into the world appreciated knowing it is enough.
Until that baby starts to become conditioned towards fear, pain, expectations, guilt, shame, other people’s ideas of what is right, wrong. A society’s idea of what is right, wrong, good, bad, expected and not expected. The more you learn how to be in the moment and detach from your conditioning and learn how to relax, relax deeply and effectively. Overthinking starts to dissolve, there is less overthinking, less anxiety, less stress and less depression.
