Table of Contents
A. Overthinking🤔
Some of the common overthinking patterns are as follows.
1. Ruminating about the past.
Ex: I was so energetic in my teenage years, but now I don’t feel that energy.
The school was the best time of my life. How I miss my school days.
2. If I did this then that would have happened
One of our depression patients: “I wanted to purchase Appolo Tyres shares in 2004. I had 50L. But due to circumstances, I couldn’t. I lost so much money!”
3. Life is so unfair:
What have I done to deserve so much suffering? I have never hurt anyone. I have always wanted others to do well in life. Why me?
4. If I do this then that will happen
Ex: If I take antibiotics, then virus corona will not happen.
5. That(he/she) is bad because:
Anything to feel good from someone in comparison.
6. I stand by everyone, no one stands by me.
7. I will see you(him/her) and then make all the plots, scams, and schemes.
8. Engineering Guy Overthinking Syndrome
Remember that 2nd-year guy who gets infatuated by a girl, and never talks to her, but marries her, has a baby in his imagination? And then thinks no one can love her like him, and finally says “I just want her to be happy in life” when watches her on someone else’s bike.
Excessive overthinking is also a hallmark of Protagonist Syndrome. You can read more about the protagonist syndrome through our article whose link is provided in the “Additional Reading”
B. Thought Disorder(TD)
When you think a lot, your brain needs more glucose. It consumes all energy. The body gets nothing. You get tired. When the body sacrifices glucose it expects an outcome for the future. There is none, so you become depressed.
Anything that is not organized in any predictable way is called a disorder.
Overthinking not only is a chain of thoughts, but it never seems to get resolved because the thoughts are often uncorrelated and disorganized. When the information in the brain is stored in a cluttered form, this leads to thought disorder which results in Overthinking.
The key reasons for Thought Disorder are:
- Overconsumption of uncorrelated information(such as news, social media feed, WhatsApp status)
- Lack of deep reading in a subject. Thoughts are organized in the brain subject-wise. If one is reading some information bits about the keywords, then that leads to disorganized thoughts.
- A lot of imagination: When the imagination(going into the fantasy space or visualizing events that did not exist in reality but are imagined) makes the brain confused about what is reality and what is imagination. This overlap leads to thought disorder.
- Not setting subject relevance: I am not a musician or a music lover, so music is not relevant to me. New clinical research is more relevant to me. Macroeconomic trends follow that in relevance. But just because the Economy is relevant, financial documents are not(Which means balance sheets and daily ledger are not relevant to me). Not knowing what is irrelevant and not paying a deaf ear and a blind eye to irrelevance leads to a lack of indexing of information in the brain, leading to thought disorder.
- Lack of Journalling: We are exposed to almost pathological grades over information today. It is impossible even for a super duper intelligent human to keep track of all the various information that is fed to us by the internet. If one doesn’t write them down regularly, one would get into a thought disorder.
There are multiple other reasons and associated behavioral and lifestyle practices that may lead to thought disorder and overthinking.
C. Why Overthinking is Growing?
Today when I observe the narrations in the Indian families, I at times get exceedingly disturbed. Complain, Excuses, compare, deserve, “I will see”, “bitching”, stalking, mocking like no one really suffer that negativity?
I don’t even know if I will be alive by the time I complete this article, or if someone would be in the life-death situation whom we are serving. What overthinking? Do, do best, think philosophy, models of life, execute, and discuss.
Whenever you see an overthinking pattern in your family, interrupt, stop it, and if needed, with iron hands. You are just a bridge between your ancestors and children, and merely a bridge, and nothing else.
I am witnessing families crumbling, health deteriorating, and sleep diminishing with this overthinking disease. Everyone is strong, independent, talented, skilled, hardworking, and highly deserving till life kicks in for the first time on the bells. Then only overthinking bells ring.
You don’t have much time. Life passes by like a whisker. Live and do. Don’t be a loser to sit and think, and get tired so that nothing to do.
Remember, life is beautiful and grand even on the doors of a grave, and it is miserable even beneath the Pyramids and Tajmahals. DO.
One of the key reasons for overthinking beyond the thought disorder is taking us and life way too seriously and wanting everything to be perfect, in the quest becoming hyper-vigilant about the image and people’s perception
If people understood what the 1st lady of the USA understood almost a century back, the overthinking wouldn’t have spread like a virus the way it has.
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, Former 1st Lady, United States of America
D. Is peer pressure responsible for growing thought disorder?
Linkedin coaches and social media influencers have convinced people that everyone needs personal branding, and personal branding is all about blabbering about oneself.
Because the only school that teaches us something is life, and because when life starts teaching with its cane, even breathing becomes hard, and because all are already “educated by schools,” there is enough time for overthinking.
Doing is hard. And doing anything requires substantially higher mental capacity. So when people realize how irrelevant they are, and that they can not even move a fallen dry leaf, they create a fantasy through overthinking.
The protagonist syndrome!
E. Intervene Through Pattern Interrupt Mental Model💡
Now we know that there is a problem, and we know the reasons behind the problem, and we know that the problem is increasing by every day, rather than reducing. In Lyfas, we don’t crib and complain about the problem. We take small baby steps and actions to overcome the
Theory of Intervention
One of the key theories of overthinking is to demotivate your brain from doing so. The brain stops doing something when:
- The brain requires a tremendous amount of cognitive or executive functions(calculations and answering).
- When the brain has to take action and there is accountability.
Therefore if you prevent your brain to be of its own, wasting your time and energy into thinking whatever it wants to, and rather question the brain and ask it to look for answers, the brain has a distinct work to do. Also at the same time when you ask the brain to take action, it can not sit and overthink, as it has to get back to actual work.
Intervention(Mental Model Therapeutic)
Whatever you want to think must end with
a) HOW THAT MAKES YOUR FUTURE BETTER?
b) HOW WILL YOU EXECUTE?
Examples:
1. My boss destroyed my career. I hate him.
HOW DOES THAT MAKE A GOOD FUTURE?
( I will take revenge)
HOW?
I will drag him to court.
–Then do that today. Thought ends.
You see, overthinking is a mania that the brain adopts so that it can keep you busy in an imaginary world and you don’t have to do anything in the real world.
2. If I was careful, this wouldn’t have happened.
ALLRIGHT, HOW THAT IS BENEFICIAL FOR THE FUTURE?
(I will not do such a lapse in the future).
That’s all, thought ends.
3. One day world will recognize the power of my Idea, and I will be a billionaire.
Visualizes billions of dollars, millions of customers, helicopters, and everything.HOW IS THIS IDEA WILL BE BENEFICIAL FOR THE FUTURE?
What nonsense? That girl? She will identify my potential and I will have a good marriage.
-(Like Elon Musk, Bezos, and Bill Gates?)
-no, many will get jobs.
-HOW?
when someone funds the idea.
HOW WILL YOU EXECUTE THIS NOBLE SOLUTION?
I will find an investor, and the moment an investor funds the idea, I will start.
Alright, start searching for investors first and then start pitching.
That’s all thought ends, and execution begins.
F. Models Contributed by Readers
The following two models are contributed by Shrinivas Kulkarni
Shrinivas Thought Interrupt-Mouth Open(STIMO)
1. Just open your mouth – thoughts stop, similarly blink your eyes fast …. thoughts stop.
2. Keep on asking “what is my next thought …” in quick succession
3. Create a mental separation between thoughts and “yourself”. Watch thoughts as a disinterested observer.
4. Consume thoughts (literally like eating them off and then burp) instead of avoiding them or pushing them away.
Shrinivas Negative Thought Interrupt-Converse with Thoughts(SNETIC)
(to be used especially for recurring thought patterns – negative ones)
Talk to thoughts as a person – tell them – currently, you are busy with something else, ask them to come at a later time say tomorrow at 2 pm. Promise them that you will attend to them fully at that time. Watch what happens then.
Thank you a lot Shrinivas ji, for sharing your wisdom and knowledge with all of us which can be used in taking action.
G. Conclusion
“You suffer more in imagination than in reality”
-Seneca, Advisor of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelious(220 BCE)
You had no control over your birth, and you will have no control over the future. The only thing that is in your hand is to make sure that whatever you are doing at this moment, right now, is the best and there exists nothing better. That’s all.
Start questioning your thoughts, not life, not others, not outcome, not fate, luck, nothing. When you question, the brain stops because real thinking is hard. And there are obviously better things you can always do over overthinking.
