The Problems With Overthinking

Overthinking is perhaps something that is more common than many of us care to admit. Whether it’s small things like replaying a conversation in your head and imagining different outcomes, stressing about an event before it happens, or generally doubting yourself – it can stunt your personal development. Of course, this is not intentional, no one wants to overthink and no one wants to subconsciously limit their potential, but often this is in fact what happens. 

At a glance, overthinking can affect all spheres of life: relationships with family and friends, work, and academic achievement, but most of all it likely causes significant emotional distress to yourself too. But what does this actually mean? In this article, we will explore the problems that arise from allowing yourself to overthink unnecessarily.

What Overthinking Could Be Doing To You

Worsening Mental Health

Overthinking is clearly an emotional and psychological occurrence. In fact, many mental illnesses include aspects of overthinking, for example: anxiety, paranoia, ADHD, imposter syndrome, etc. Essentially, if you find yourself severely overthinking, to the extent that you worry about your ability to complete normal day-to-day tasks, it could be a trigger or sign of a larger mental health issue. 

Over-Analyzing

If you stress about something before it happens, you force yourself to stress and go through it twice – before, and while it actually happens. This is entirely unnecessary, and completely exhausting, especially over time. You don’t need to divert brain power and focus on overanalyzing issues, because not only will you tire yourself out, but you will also decrease your problem-solving abilities in other areas where they are needed more. By overanalyzing and overthinking, small decisions will start to seem insurmountable, and it’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy – and a hard one to break too. 

Lack Of Sleep

We all know that if our minds are racing when we try to sleep, it just won’t happen. You can try to distract yourself by counting sheep or listening to music, but ultimately overthinkers are likely to really struggle to sleep. With the various anxious traits and tendency to overanalyze, the end of the waking day for you doesn’t mean your brain stops overthinking, unfortunately. By excessively worrying about what happened during the day, what went well, what didn’t, and what tomorrow will bring, you deny your mind peace and thus deny your body sleep. 

The Conclusion

These are just a few side effects of overthinking, albeit very significant ones. Together, these show that overthinking will leave you with diminished capacity to do the ordinary – let alone going above and beyond, stretching yourself and your potential. In many ways, you will also feel drained, lacking energy, and likely more cranky than usual, and no one wants to feel this way. Ironically, all of these problems which arise from overthinking can end up causing you to overthink more – thinking you’re failing, or that you aren’t sociable enough – and so breaking the habit can be very difficult. However, you will thank yourself so much by unlearning this habit and becoming a happier, freer, and more focused version of yourself. 

Overthinking doesn’t achieve or gain you anything – it will only inhibit your ability to solve actual problems that you are facing.