4 Tips For Reducing Anxiety & Stress Caused By Overthinking

When you have a lot on your plate, it can be difficult to stop yourself from overthinking. In a world where we are constantly bombarded by information 24/7, avoiding it can be nearly impossible. Overthinking not only exhausts you, but it can also lead to some pretty serious anxiety and stress. 

A lot of advice you see to reduce your anxiety and stress is to stop overthinking simply. Realistically, that is not the most practical or helpful advice. If we have to overthink, we need to equip ourselves with coping mechanisms for the stress and anxiety that will undoubtedly arise from it. 

Here are 4 practical tips for reducing anxiety and stress caused by overthinking.

1. Write Down How You Are Feeling

Physically writing your feelings down can help you feel like you are releasing them from your mind and body. When your pen hits the paper, your energy flows onto the page, and you can put all those anxious thoughts somewhere other than in your head. Letting your emotions out can help free you from them. 

Once you write your feelings down, try not to look at them for a few hours or even 24 hours if possible. When you give yourself time to get those emotions out and then calm down, you can go back to them with a clear mind to process them. This is also a helpful tactic for when you need to respond to an email or text. Often if we say the first thing that comes to mind when we are upset, we will end up saying something we might regret. Giving space for all of your feelings—good and bad—will allow you to discern how you feel about a situation better, resulting in a more well-thought-out response. 

Writing your emotions down is one of the best ways to release them from your mind and body. 

2. Give Yourself Time to Feel What You’re Feeling

It might sound counterproductive to carve out time to stress about something, but solely trying to avoid your feelings won’t get rid of them. You can only avoid your emotions before they reach their boiling point. If you tell yourself that you will take the next thirty minutes to worry and stress, you must move on after that. This way you aren’t suppressing your emotions, but you aren’t letting them consume you.

Maybe you spend thirty minutes crying to your favorite sad music, or you spend thirty minutes thinking about every single thing you’re stressed about. Take the time to express your negative emotions, but do not make a home in them. We get anxious and stressed when we can’t stop thinking about something, so you have to help yourself learn how to give space to your negative emotions without dwelling on them. 

3. Take Deep Breaths

This might sound cliché, but taking time to stop everything you are doing and just breathing truly does help calm you. I tend to try to push myself through difficult, stressful times, and I have found over the years that doing so is not beneficial. You can only push yourself so long before you’ll break; eventually, your body will force you to rest. Things will be much easier to work through if you allow yourself the rest time before it gets to that point.

When your thoughts race and everything becomes too overwhelming, stop what you are doing and breathe. Even if you can only stop for a couple of minutes, those few minutes of rest and mindfulness will work wonders for you. I’ve found this especially helpful at night when I am trying to fall asleep and my mind goes into overdrive. 

Focus on your breathing, and you’ll be able to calm and center yourself. 

4. Turn Off & Tune Out

Our phones and various electronic devices are attached to us 24/7, which is incredibly overwhelming. How can we ever stop overthinking if we are being bombarded by images, sounds, and text? 

If you’re able to fully turn your phone off for a designated amount of time each day, you’ll give yourself a peaceful time to look forward to every day. If you decide that from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. every night you’ll turn your phone off, you’ll train your mind to know that it will have the rest time it needs.

Not all of us can fully turn our phones off. So maybe you can silence certain notifications or use an app that only allows you to be on certain apps and websites for the allotted time. Every little decision and choice counts and even one hour where you don’t let yourself go on Instagram can do wonders for helping you relax and clear your head.

Above all else, practice self-compassion. You will have days when your stress and anxiety will get the best of you and that is okay. You’re human. You are going to have bad days. Always remind yourself that every day won’t be bad and every negative thought won’t become a reality. Always trust in that. 

Featured image via Rae Angela on Pexels