What’s the one aspect on your plate that you’ve been eliminating you make a decision on? Whether it’s a easy decision including selecting which duct-cleaning company to lease or a more complex one which include whether or not to just accept a brand new activity offer, sitting on a selection could make you sense such as you’re paralyzed. You inform your self, “that’s sufficient, just pick one and pass on.” But the second you are making a choice, thoughts of “am I doing the proper factor?” begin to flood in.
Amy Morin, psychotherapist and writer of 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do, says overthinking a decision isn’t handiest unproductive and hinders you from making any progress, it may also motive a few extreme health consequences, inclusive of accelerated anxiety and melancholy, negative quality of sleep, and unhealthy coping abilties which includes binge eating.
Morin dedicates a whole chapter of her e book to the problem of overthinking, and despite the fact that she says women generally tend to overthink decisions more than men do, ruminating on a decision has the equal negative impacts on each genders.
Try these strategies to avoid the negative results of overthinking:
Put a Deadline on Your Thoughts
To avoid over-ruminating approximately a decision, supply yourself a time frame to think about it. By telling yourself, “I’m going to make this decision with the aid of 2 p.M. These days and something I determine goes to be first-class” means you’re giving yourself permission to consider it, however no longer permitting it to take over different parts of your day.
Morin suggests asking your self what an inexpensive amount of time is to be considering this issue. If it’s a small problem which include what paint shade to color your office, perhaps a cut-off date of 10 minutes is sufficient; while a bigger choice consisting of whether or not to simply accept a brand new task offer in any other town may additionally warrant more than one days of notion.
Schedule Your Thinking Time
One of the problems overthinkers often face is thinking about their issues all day long, or at inopportune instances, consisting of for the duration of an vital assembly. To avoid this, Morin suggests scheduling a specific time wherein you deliver your self the liberty to think about the difficulty you want to make a decision about. If thoughts approximately the issue creep into your brain before your scheduled questioning time, telling your self “No, I’m going to consider that after dinner, not all through this meeting” will let you to push those thoughts away, knowing you’ll come again to it later.
Know the Difference Between Problem Solving and Worrying
While for most folks, overthinking stems from a fear of the results of taking motion A or B, Morin says individuals who are chronic overthinkers regularly believe that they are able to clear up a problem by using continuing to pound away, considering it. But worrying, Morin says, isn’t always the same as actively fixing a hassle. While dwelling on a trouble, wondering “this is horrible, I can’t take care of this” or rehashing matters that befell within the past are an unproductive use of some time, considering what steps you may take to improve the situation or actively contemplating a strategy to the hassle are useful towards shifting ahead. Becoming aware of while your questioning is unhelpful and while it’s actively trouble solving permit you to to make sure a while spent wondering isn’t just including on your pressure.
Take a Break
You recognize the expression “napping on a problem,” nicely, that’s because once in a while we’re better at fixing a hassle while we’re no longer thinking about it. “Sometimes we make higher choices when we let those ideas percolate in our mind,” says Morin. Letting the inactive parts of your mind paintings thru the hassle can permit the solution come to you whilst you’re now not looking forward to it.
When you find yourself overthinking about a hassle, try to alternate the channel for your mind by using moving on to another concern or converting your physical area by means of going for a stroll, or moving your laptop to a convention room to paintings on some thing else.