This year I've been really rethinking my relationship with alcohol and so I decided to commit to dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for dry January because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends, out for drinks, whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle goals.
I'm a big beer fan so I also love the taste of Heineken 00 plus being alcohol free, you can enjoy whenever refreshment calls.
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken .com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
Do you want to see into the future?
Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life?
Do you want to experience the frontiers of what makes us human?
On Tech Stuff we travel from the minds of Congo to the surface of Mars, from conversations with Nobel Prize winners to the depths of TikTok to ask burning questions about technology from high tech to low culture and everywhere in between.
Join us, listen to Tech Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast, it is great to have you here, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world.
Hi, my chronic overthinkers, all of my fellow anxious friends out there.
Welcome to this week's episode.
Today we are discussing the psychology of overthinking and chronic indecisiveness.
This has been raised by you guys again and again as a huge challenge and experience in your 20s and personally I can really relate.
I don't know why I have not done this topic before, especially considering my own personal experience.
Overthinking is such a maze that really feels impossible to get out of.
Our thoughts can be loud and so difficult to navigate and they can result in this spiral where we feel like we have been thinking about one small thing for hours and hours or we are absolutely paralyzed by indecision because what if we haven't considered all possible outcomes?
There is a psychological reason a lot of us find ourselves feeling this way and adopting I would say a maladaptive thinking style and with most things I think an explanation can be incredibly liberating.
I personally find it so infuriating when people talk about living in the moment or instruct you to just simply stop thinking about it.
It really overlooks so many of the deeper cognitive roots of this experience ranging from a fear of uncertainty to perfectionism, trauma, childhood learning and even comorbid mental health conditions like anxiety and ADHD.
It's not all within your control.
There are so many hidden elements of overthinking that we do not discuss and then of course there's the indecision.
We've spoken about the paradox of choice on the podcast before but essentially it's this theory that when we have a lot of options it actually becomes harder to make a decision compared to when we have fewer options because we become paralyzed almost by the possibilities.
That's particularly pertinent I would say for those of us in our 20s because we are just at the beginning of a long journey and range of life decisions and during this period I think we are typically presented with a lot of different options and paths.
You know what do I study at university?
If I want to go and travel for a few years, which of these job offers do I say yes to?
Do I move to this new city or do I settle down?
You know we don't want to box ourselves in but what I'm personally seeing more of anecdotally is a generation, you know my generation, our generation of people that are so overwhelmed by options that they actually remain quite stagnant because of that fear around making the wrong choice and I think
a lot of that can be explained by our tendency to overthink and if that sounds like you you are most certainly not alone.
I think although the experience of overthinking can feel incredibly isolating it is a hugely common experience and the good news is that you kind of have the power to reprogram your brain.
You can unlearn these patterns of thinking and that's really what I want to talk about today.
We're going to break down the mysteries of overthinking from the origins and the reasons why we overthink, why it may actually indicate a greater level of self -awareness, how it links to diagnosable mental health conditions and some of the leading theories and tips on how we can stop overthinking not through
rationality but through a bit of delusion and distraction.
I'm personally very much in need of this episode, I don't know about you and also before we get into it, special thank you to Nish, a wonderful listener from Sydney who came up to me whilst I was eating sushi at the food court, very glamorous but she actually helped pick this week's episode so we all
have her to thank for this topic.
I think without further ado let's get into the nitty -gritty around the psychology of overthinking and indecisiveness.
You know I love having a cheeky drink with friends post -work or a beer with dinner but this year I have committed to completing dry January to start the new year all fresh and to really kind of kick start the lifestyle I want to have for the next 12 months.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for this journey because it has 0 .0 % alcohol so I can still socialize, enjoy myself, get out there without feeling like I'm missing out plus it genuinely actually tastes very very delicious.
My fridge is now stocked with Heineken 00 and friends of mine will even join me for an evening or for an afternoon going alcohol -free.
If you are also taking part in dry January this year or just looking for your new favorite drink, Heineken 00 is it.
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken .com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life?
I'm Osviloshin, one of the new hosts of the long -running podcast Tech Stuff.
I'm slightly skeptical but obsessively intrigued.
And I'm Cara Price, the other new host and I'm ready to adopt early and often.
On Tech Stuff we travel all the way from the minds of Congo to the surface of Mars to the dark corners of TikTok to ask an attempt to answer burning questions about technology.
One of the kind of tricks for surviving Mars is to live there long enough so that people evolve into Martians.
Like data is a very rough proxy for a complex reality.
How is it possible that the world's new energy revolution can be based in this place where there's no electricity at night?
Oz and I will cut through the noise to bring you the best conversations and deep dives that will help you understand how tech is changing our world and what you need to know to survive the singularity.
So join us. Listen to Tech Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
As always, let's start with the basics.
What actually is overthinking?
Obviously we are constantly thinking at all times.
So it's not the quantity of thoughts that's the problem here, but actually the opposite.
It's when our thoughts lack nuance because we become fixated and stuck on one thing in particular.
Maybe that is a certain situation or a topic or a person or a hypothetical that we cannot stop returning to and which we analyze for excessive periods of time.
These kind of thoughts are what we would call maladaptive, meaning not appropriate because we can become obsessive and these cognitions begin to control us rather than the other way around.
If you feel like you can't relax, that your brain will not shut off even when you want it to, that's a massive indicator that you are someone who is an overthinker.
This pattern, it actually normally suggests that there is something beyond your control that is bothering you.
And by mulling it over and over again and examining it from every direction, we give ourselves a sense of agency over whatever we're thinking about.
Often though, you know, when this type of thinking becomes habitual, we are met with chronic indecisiveness, a key hallmark of overthinking is the inability to resolve a specific thought.
And so when we cannot move past our doubts or we cannot stop questioning our next move or ruminating on something that's happened, we naturally can't make progress.
And I think this results in a stalemate.
You know, you are going to struggle to move forward or make a decision if you're not actually clear on how you think about the situation or you're still stuck in that thought spiral.
I'll give you this example that I was thinking about, and that is thinking about your ex -partner, thinking about someone that you loved and everything that went wrong and all the what ifs and you're ruminating about past events and you're kind of somewhat frozen in those memories.
You can't make a decision about how you want to heal or move forward.
You can't begin to date new people or reclaim your own mental space and thoughts if you cannot break out of this loop.
I think another source of overthinking, particularly during our 20s, is this age old conundrum of would my life turn out better if I were to do things differently or make a certain set of decisions?
Like I spoke about earlier, we're really faced with an endless list of possibilities or options during this decade, but also a lack of hindsight to make sense of what we actually want.
And I think overthinking tricks us into thinking that what we're doing is somehow helpful and that if we constantly mull over and think about what we want or this situation, we'll somehow find some hidden solution that we hadn't actually found before.
And that's not always the case.
I think we often find ourselves in a state of what we call analysis paralysis, whereby the more we think about something, the harder it actually becomes to make a decision because we have too much information to process and too many variables to consider.
And as we know, contrary to popular belief, humans are actually better at making decisions when they have less information or choices to consider.
There's this other side to overthinking as well, which is worrying about how others perceive us.
If you find yourself in your head a lot like myself or, you know, when you're around people, you really can't break away from thinking about how they're perceiving you, it can really take away from those interactions and the quality of those relationships.
I think the approval of others is something that we all innately crave, but studies have shown that we consistently overestimate how much they're actually thinking about us.
I said this to my friend the other day, but no one is thinking about you as deeply as you're thinking about yourself.
We are very much self -centered, self -absorbed creatures.
And yet, I think we've all had those moments where we've changed a million times before a social event, because we are overthinking what others will think of us, or you've ruminated for hours on some tiny, tiny part of an otherwise pleasant interaction with someone, because you're so concerned with how
you came off. There's actually a name for this in psychology.
It's called Allodoxophobia, and it's essentially intense anxiety about the approval of others, and I would say it's highly correlated with overthinking.
The good news is, well, not really good news, but an element of this that I think might make us feel better is that if you are an overthinker, as much as it can be incredibly mentally exhausting and paralyzing, it may actually indicate that you're probably more self -aware and emotionally intelligent
compared to the average person.
Self -awareness, by definition, refers to the ability to observe your own thoughts and recognize how you are perceived by others, but also internally being able to identify what makes you an individual and the impact of your decisions.
The list is unsurprisingly linked to our emotional intelligence, and what that refers to is the ability to recognize the influence of your emotions and actions on others.
Thinking about an issue from different perspectives and reflecting on how a decision may affect others, especially your loved ones, it really allows for greater empathy.
You look internally and you're able to see correlations between how you act and how others respond.
So if you're someone who typically sits with your thoughts for, I would say, an uncomfortable period of time, the chances are that you, as a consequence, are much more in tune with how your decisions not only influence the people around you, hence that level of need for social approval, but also your
own internal self -perception and your future.
That I think is a beautiful quality, but it also comes with its burdens.
A question I actually get a lot is, can I be too self -aware?
And I think when we examine the relationship to overthinking, the answer is yes.
When we fall into the trap of over -analyzing everything, a few things occur.
Firstly, of course, that chronic indecisiveness, but also an inability to focus on our responsibilities, perhaps a failure to see the bigger picture, and that results in anxiety and at times panic, but also from the outside it can look like self -absorption.
I don't necessarily think that's the case because a lot of the time when we overthink we're mostly worried about others or the feelings of others, but when you do spend too much time inside your own thoughts, sometimes it can be hard to get that perspective you need to make the right decision or to
really see clearly what the situation is.
So why does this occur?
That's the million -dollar question, isn't it?
Well, psychology gives us a few answers, and the primary ones are this fear of uncertainty and an illusion of control, a fear of failure, and I think that's really linked to perfectionism and procrastination, and then also our childhood environment and the chaos that may have been our childhood, and things
like generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and ADHD.
This fear of uncertainty I think is perhaps one of the best explanations, in my opinion, for why we overthink.
Humans do not deal well with unknowns because unknowns present danger or risk that could potentially indicate situations that may jeopardize our survival.
It makes us really uncomfortable to not know the outcome, and they've actually proved this in a series of studies, looking at the impact of uncertainty on our brain and our body.
In these experiments, I think they were conducted in the late 90s, but I'll have to fact -check myself there.
In these experiments, they hooked participants up to a series of electrodes that could deliver like a slight electric shock.
It wasn't too painful, but it was definitely there.
They then either told participants when they would shock them, they gave them almost like a timeline, or they left it ambiguous.
So the shock could come at any time and the participant wouldn't know.
So the participants who experienced the unpredictability condition, so the second condition, they reported significantly more discomfort, more anxiety, and more pain despite the level of the shock being the same compared to those who knew when the shock was going to occur.
This basically demonstrated that uncertainty, unknowns, they can really intensify how threatening a situation feels, and can also result in the state of hypervigilance, where we cannot break out of just thinking about this one stimulus.
When is the shock going to happen?
What do I do to prepare for it?
Those people who knew that the shock was going to occur, they had the timeline, they had the roster, they were able to let their mind wander.
Whereas the other set of participants were so consumed with thoughts and anxiety, in other words, they really began to overthink their circumstances and what they were about to receive, what they could expect.
I think our reaction to uncertainty has an evolutionary process.
Our brain wants to ensure our survival and it wants to predict what is going to happen next because it allows us to prepare our body and our mind in in the most effective way possible.
So in uncertain situations, that planning is a lot harder.
And so our brain uses overthinking as a way to bring a sense of calm and control to the chaos.
When we face ambiguous situations, our brain wants to find the most possible outcome.
And so what it does is it sends our brain spiraling.
It sends us thinking about every single possible catastrophe.
When we think about that in the sense of our 20s, right, there are a lot of unknowns.
We are, depending on where you're at in your 20s, still quite young.
You know, some of us have only really been adults for like two years, if you're 20 at this point, maximum nine years.
So you're still really a child in regards to your 20s.
You don't really have any idea of what's coming for you.
That's kind of both the beauty and the chaos of this decade.
And so this constant analysis, this overthinking, it creates a sense of false control over our circumstances because we think that we can prevent negative outcomes by, you know, fortune telling them, by thinking this situation over.
I think keeping ourselves stuck in what I would call problem solving mode makes us feel like there is a solution if we just think hard enough and long enough about our circumstances.
It's this fairly common mental fallacy.
And the unconscious reasoning is essentially if I can imagine every possible outcome, if I can think about this a million and one ways over, no matter what the outcome is, I'll be prepared.
And yet we actually can't predict the outcome.
We can't predict the future.
And this heightened state of alertness and rumination means that we actually will probably make worse decisions or we won't make a decision at all.
I think moreover, overthinking also stems from a desire to avoid mistakes or failure.
By excessively dwelling on past experiences or hypothetical futures, we attempt to anticipate and prevent our potential errors.
And that leads to a perpetual cycle of overthinking.
None of us like feeling like a failure, especially when we have high expectations for ourselves or for the situation.
And we want to avoid that uncomfortable feeling and protect our self -esteem.
So our brain employs overthinking as a way to essentially predict what situations might present the opportunity to make a wrong decision and how we can prevent that failure.
I think we may also develop this fear in relation to other people and their experiences and hearing from them.
This is called informational learning in psychology.
You know, for example, your friend is doing this like really hard course that you have to do and they tell you how difficult it is and the fail rate for the final exam, etc, etc.
And what you may find is that you deliberately then avoid that course or that situation or find yourself overthinking how you're going to approach it because you are so bound up in your fear of failure.
Maybe this won't surprise you, but this is highly correlated to perfectionist tendencies.
If you listened to my episode on perfectionism and academic anxiety, you'll know this already, but often if we aren't convinced we can do something perfectly, we will avoid doing it altogether.
In other words, we procrastinate because we are so consumed by not meeting our standards or the standards that have been imposed on us.
Procrastination isn't about a lack of capability or ability.
It occurs because we don't feel mentally prepared to perform or complete a task and get the outcome that we want.
We become so overwhelmed by the idea that what we produce won't be perfect that we habitually avoid doing it.
If you've ever found yourself kind of staring at the blank page of an assignment, already anticipating what it would feel like to get a bad grade and really paralyzed by how to start, perfectionism might actually be the root of your overthinking.
As hard as it is to acknowledge, we are all going to fail throughout our lives, a million times over in a million different ways and also in ways that we could never anticipate, no matter how much your brain tries to trick you that you can avoid it by overthinking.
I think maturity comes from recognizing that although no amount of ruminating will protect you, whatever does happen, you get to decide how you respond.
A mindset I try and adopt is that every failure is actually just a lesson in disguise.
It's a scenic detour on which you get to learn so much more about yourself than if everything had kind of gone right.
And also, I think making the wrong decision is always better than making no decision at all because remaining stagnant, not doing anything, is one of the worst things we can really do in our twenties.
We have so many possibilities.
There's this study, I always cite it and I'm going to cite it again, but you are going to regret the choices you don't make more than the choices that you do over and over again.
They find this so it might not be the perfect decision.
Maybe it won't guarantee complete happiness, but at least you've made it.
The other origin of overthinking, I think is really important to discuss is childhood environment and our early learning experiences.
Most people who have developed a tendency to overthink and a subsequent difficulty with decision -making have acquired this habit in childhood, particularly if they were raised in an unpredictable environment.
As children, we are incredibly vulnerable and dependent on our caregivers for literally everything.
We also don't yet possess those coping mechanisms to deal with uncertainty in an appropriate manner.
So, for example, if you had parents who were perhaps unpredictable, maybe they dealt with addiction or they were constantly moving around or changing your routines, they weren't there for you, or in severe cases, maybe they were abusive.
As children, we use overthinking as a way to bring about a sense of control over our surroundings and to be prepared for what might be thrown at us.
This has the result of perhaps momentarily lessening our anxiety, but it actually contributes to using or developing a maladaptive thinking style.
The more we react to a situation by overthinking as a way to self -soothe in the presence of chaos and uncertainty, the more deeply ingrained this coping mechanism becomes.
And as we grow up, it becomes more difficult to replace this thinking style because as children we didn't really have the self -awareness to understand that it may be harmful and so it's maintained into adulthood.
I think with all disordered thinking or maladaptive habits such as this one, I think it is really valuable to assess what the childhood origins may have been.
Additionally, if as children we maybe felt like we didn't have much agency over our life, this may also make it difficult to make decisions and cause us to be paralyzed by over thinking because we don't feel confident enough in our own abilities and discernment.
I would love to see a study on that actually.
I think it would be so fascinating, such a fascinating research topic.
You know, the intersections between childhood blame and ownership over responsibility in adulthood.
There you go, a research title if anyone wants to do their thesis on that.
It's all yours. I think another psychological factor contributing to overthinking is a heightened state of self -awareness and self -consciousness which we spoke about before.
We possess an inherent tendency to evaluate and judge ourselves but we also have this tendency to seek the validation of others.
That makes us inherently self -critical and this self -critical mindset often fuels overthinking because we excessively scrutinize our actions and our decisions because we fear potential criticism or rejection.
Social comparison plays a role in overthinking, comparing ourselves to others, especially of course in the era of social media can create unrealistic expectations and then I think therefore constant need to measure up a constant kind of standard that we feel we need to meet and that we feel we need
to compare ourselves to, resulting in this overthinking and this spiral about our worth and our achievements.
Those are some of the high -level psychological explanations but we cannot, we cannot talk about overthinking without examining the relationship to diagnosable mental health conditions like generalized anxiety and ADHD so we are going to discuss that and so much more after this short break.
You know I love having a cheeky drink with friends post work or a beer with dinner but this year I have committed to completing Dry January to start the new year off fresh and to really kind of kick start the lifestyle I want to have for the next 12 months.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for this journey because it has 0 .0 % alcohol so I can still socialize, enjoy myself, get out there without feeling like I'm missing out plus it genuinely actually tastes very very delicious.
My fridge is now stocked with Heineken 00 and friends of mine will even join me for an evening or for an afternoon going alcohol free.
If you are also taking part in Dry January this year or just looking for your new favorite drink Heineken 00 is it?
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken .com you must be 21 plus to purchase, enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with Dry January.
And I'm ready to adopt early and often.
On Tech Stuff we travel all the way from the minds of Congo to the surface of Mars to the dark corners of TikTok to ask and attempt to answer burning questions about technology.
One of the kind of tricks for surviving Mars is to live there long enough so that people evolve into Martians.
Like data is a very rough proxy for a complex reality.
How is it possible that the world's new energy revolution can be based in this place where there's no electricity at night?
Oz and I will cut through the noise to bring you the best conversations and deep dives that will help you understand how tech is changing our world and what you need to know to survive the singularity.
So join us. Listen to Tech Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The act of overthinking can be linked to a number of psychological problems such as anxiety and depression.
Although it's kind of hard to know what happens first in most cases, this researcher put it really perfectly when they said it's a very quintessential chicken or egg kind of conundrum.
However, one of the primary symptoms of a generalized anxiety disorder is not only persistent anxiety but also overthinking and someone who plans for all possible worst -case scenarios.
When we get down to the biological reasons why this occurs, we can see I think more clearly where overthinking actually comes from and it's really not your fault.
A range of neurotransmitters are responsible for the typical symptoms of anxiety and with that overthinking.
For example, serotonin, glutamate, GABA, and the hormone norepinephrine, it's otherwise known as adrenaline, they all play a role in modulating our anxiety response.
So one study found that when levels of GABA in our brain are too low, it can trigger excessive worrying and excessive overthinking because GABA is what helps control the signals between the nerve cells in our brains.
So when these signals are not mediated, when they're not moderated by this neurotransmitter, our brain goes into overdrive.
There's nothing kind of stopping those neural pathways from constantly firing and that's when we really start to feel like our brain is on a bit of a hamster wheel, that we are not in control of our thoughts.
It's important to note here that overthinking is just one symptom and it's not a diagnosable disorder.
You cannot be diagnosed with overthinking.
It's just a cognitive process that is associated with a broader condition, that being anxiety that is characterized by this fear, by this excessive worry and hypervigilance.
But I think it's really worth examining whether the root of this thought pattern could be mitigated by managing your overall anxiety levels.
There is also this concept of depressive rumination, which is a form of overthinking where we feel almost comforted by dwelling on the past and what we regret, by going over our mistakes or our regrets again and again.
It's like kind of how waves turn glass into sand or smooth out hard surfaces.
Each time we examine a memory, it becomes more blunt and when we ruminate on it we lessen the emotional pain attached to it.
Also we think that might just be a myth because it may actually be the more we think about something it actually aggravates our anxiety response.
It makes it harder to let that memory pass and it elevates our distress.
I think it's a super fine line to walk.
You really do have to process what you go through, but when you find that you cannot stop returning to something that was cringe or embarrassing or something that was maybe even traumatic, there are some really major negative consequences to that.
That's why this kind of cognitive process is associated with a major depressive disorder.
In some instances, not all of course.
The other mental health condition I want to discuss is ADHD.
I will say I'm not an expert on this.
This was just a really fascinating article that I read and I think it's valuable to put forward, but whilst we I think most typically associate ADHD with hyperactivity and impulsivity, it also manifests an excessive ruminating and an inability to break out of a specific thought pattern.
Individuals with ADHD, they often report obsessive thoughts and difficulty regulating or bringing their thoughts under control.
Once again, it can be a primary symptom that may lead someone to seek an ADHD diagnosis.
It might be that first kind of red flag.
If you can't stop overthinking and you can't stop obsessively thinking about something, maybe it's a sign that you do need to seek professional help if that is the case.
Not all overthinking is generally indicative of a larger problem.
It is just a typical symptom for some people, so take it with a grain of salt and maybe go and see someone if you're finding that it's really interrupting your ability to function.
Now that we've kind of discussed the theories behind overthinking and the subsequent indecisiveness that tends to come from it, I think we really need to explore the ways in which we can bring this behavior or this tendency under control.
Part of that is understanding the types of decision makers that we are and how we can reprogram our brain to kind of ignore the tiny itty -bitty details and ignore all the possible pathways and just focus on the bigger picture.
Back in the early 2000s, these psychologists, they came up with this theory that there are two types of decision makers in the world.
There are satisfiers and there are maximizers.
Satisfiers, they aim for a good enough solution.
They have a very clear set of criteria that they are not trying to maximize but just satisfy.
And when their criteria is met, when they get what they're after, they're happy with that decision.
They're really happy with it.
They are what we would call highly utilitarian and practical.
The example that people give is looking for a new car.
That's a good one actually.
So if your main criteria is like, I want it to drive and I want it to be under $5 ,000, you'll find a car that drives under $5 ,000, you'll purchase it.
You're not looking for a car that can drive really, really well and is under $3 ,000.
You're not constantly looking for the better option.
You're just looking for something that meets or satisfies those criteria.
In contrast, maximizers are not satisfied unless they have the best possible outcome, the perfect solution.
But often in aiming for that kind of perfect outcome, they have very ambiguous criteria.
It's really based on the right feeling.
Interestingly, in the study conducted in 2007, they found that these types of decision makers are actually less happy compared to satisfiers because maximizers are constantly preoccupied with the what if.
What if I find something better?
What if something better comes along in the future and I've already accepted this other decision?
They also reported more avoidance of decision making in general, that chronic indecisiveness that we're talking about.
They're more likely to report impulsive, spontaneous decision making, which sounds counterintuitive, but I think the reasoning behind that is because they are so consumed with overthinking what the best possible outcome could be that they procrastinate.
And when they actually do have to make the decision, it's often closer to the deadline, or they do so impulsively because they're so exhausted from this rumination, from considering all the possible outcomes, that they no longer have the brain space to actually make a proper decision.
So they do so spontaneously.
In order to address our underlying tendency to overthink, and therefore that chronic indecisiveness, what we need to do is shift from being a maximizer to a satisfier.
And that involves a few things.
When you are faced with a decision, narrow down the solution using chunking.
This is a psychological idea whereby a big group of information is broken down into smaller parts and grouped by common elements or easier problems.
So this really allows you to tackle a big decision by turning it into a series of smaller choices.
And it also allows our brain to channel that energy we use to overthink into a meaningful problem solving strategy.
And it makes the problem less profound.
And it makes it seem less life changing when we kind of take off those smaller chunks.
So for example, someone actually messaged me with this conundrum they were having the other day of choosing between two job options and one of them paid more.
But the other one was more aligned with what they enjoyed and what they saw themselves doing in the future.
Using that satisfier principle and that method of chunking, we need to break down our two options and break down that information using a series of discerning questions.
So in this example, you know, can I live off the salary of the second job?
Would I be able to pay my bills?
That's like a minimum criteria for living.
Then there's that second question of what actually matters more to me right now?
This is personal preference and values, financial security or workplace satisfaction.
And then let's look to the future.
What are the opportunities for promotion or further development?
Which job is going to offer me more in the next five years or 10 years around career development?
From those questions, we can kind of create a bit of a rudimentary pros and cons list.
So instead of feeling paralyzed by this big choice, we can approach it as a satisfier would.
What are the minimum conditions for my happiness here and which of these choices meets those minimum conditions?
I think it's also to remember that everything in life is temporary and fixable.
The decision you make right now, it's not going to lock you in for the rest of your life.
You can always admit that maybe you made a mistake or you made the wrong choice and go back and fix that.
Or also maybe even find yourself satisfied, even though that choice may not have been perfect.
Life is kind of what you make of it.
So many times you think that you'll be more satisfied doing something else, but the grass is, as they say, always greener on the other side.
So overthinking it isn't actually going to make you happier or give you the outcome that you want.
Another massive strategy.
This is my favorite strategy.
I personally use this a lot when I'm overthinking is to find some way to make your thoughts tangible and organized.
When we overthink, everything in our brain feels like a mess.
It feels like this big group of like unruly vines that have just tangled up in our brain.
But there's this saying that a problem on a page is a problem halved.
Hold that anxiety or worry or that thought in your mind, grab a pen and paper and spend 20, 30 minutes, however long, writing down every single aspect of the problem that is concerning you.
Every possible ramification, every possible element, get those thoughts out into the open and you'll suddenly find they are a lot more manageable because you're actually able to do something productive with them.
You feel like you've done something useful.
I also find that it can really minimize some of our own internal delusions.
Sometimes things that seem highly probable in our brain can sound so silly when we speak them out loud or when we put them in writing because we let our minds process that information in a different format.
It's the same reason why talking about a problem with a friend often helps us ease our anxiety and tendency to overthink because when we speak it out loud we kind of see how irrational we might be, you know, how irrational we might be.
And I think that kind of tactic of making what is normally internal external and making it tangible has personally really, really helped me out.
Distraction also helps.
I know that sounds like a cop -out, but sometimes we just need some peace and quiet and we want to give our brains a rest.
Telling yourself to stop thinking about it will never work, but making it harder for your brain to think about it does.
Our minds, at the end of the day, have limited space.
So when we fill up that space with a challenging activity like doing a puzzle or listening to a podcast and going for a run or reading a book and listening to music, something that activates multiple parts of our brain, we kind of jam all the channels, meaning that our anxiety is in our overthinking
and our indecisiveness and those problems that we have or those thought patterns they can't get through and it makes it really difficult for our brain to ruminate on them.
Obviously though I think it would be unethical if I didn't say that this is a short -term solution and sometimes we do need to go a lot deeper to kind of identify those bad mental habits and what we would call automatic negative thoughts in psychology.
So an automatic negative thought, it refers to a pattern of negative thinking that interrupts our ability to make decisions.
This ranges from things like overthinking, but also fortune -telling, which is an element of overthinking and overgeneralizations, should statements, I should do this, I should have done that, and also jumping to conclusions, feeling like you know what's going to happen, catastrophizing in a situation.
We can train ourselves to identify when these types of thoughts are present and deliberately refocus our thinking.
Catch the thought, write it down, examine the evidence for it.
Why do you think that you're going to fail?
Why do you think those people don't like you?
Why do you think you're making the wrong decision?
Why do you think that person is mad at you?
Is there evidence for this thought or is it just an automatic negative thought that you've internalized?
Part of that is also going to see a therapist or a psychologist.
Someone asked me the other day like is therapy actually worth it?
I think that in these situations, in all situations, it actually really is, because this person is completely impartial.
Their only focus in those sessions is to tell you the truth and help you through your problems.
What they're going to do is really call you out for your negative thought patterns, for your automatic negative thoughts.
They're going to hold you accountable when you're overthinking and kind of act as that voice of reason, that person who interrupts those thought patterns as they're occurring and asks you to correct them.
Is this actually helpful?
Is thinking about this really going to give you a solution?
The chances are probably not.
Like we said, overthinking tricks our brain into thinking that if we mull something over a million times over, if we ruminate on it enough, somehow some new solution, some new outcome will be discovered.
I don't really think that's ever the case.
You don't really have to do it alone.
I think that's the final message here.
It can be really paralyzing and really difficult, and I think it's worth considering what level of professional help is needed.
Fear of failure, perfectionism, anxiety, whatever it is, your 20s should be a time for freedom and getting to enjoy all of those precious moments and all those little joys without constantly worrying about what comes next or who thinks what about you.
So I would say from one chronic thinker to another, I really hope you find that piece.
And I hope that this episode has been helpful.
I guess my final reminder for the day is where you place your attention is where you place your energy.
And although sometimes it can feel like our thoughts are in control, that is not the case.
It is your brain. It is your mind.
You have the ability to sort through the rubble, sort through the mess and select what you want, select what you want from all of that, select what you want from the chaos.
Also, as much as it is a really common tendency, I think it's also really valuable to just quickly return to that point.
A lot of this is to do with things that are outside of our control, this need for a sense of certainty, even some of those neurotransmitters like GABA.
Those are really kind of the culprit in this situation.
So it's not some personal flaw.
It is sometimes just the way that our brains are wired and you don't need to fix yourself in order to cope with that thought pattern.
I think that's a really a really good place actually, I kind of want to end things because yeah, I just think sometimes in my own personal life, I like find myself overthinking and I'm like, I just wish I could stop thinking about this.
I don't want to think about this.
I don't want to keep annoying my friends with this like minor concern that they don't really care about.
But knowing that it is somewhat of a natural even evolutionary process has really helped me accept it, which means that I've been able to address it.
So I really do hope that you enjoyed this episode.
As always, if there is someone in your life who needs to hear this, you should send them a link.
Maybe they will find it helpful.
Maybe they weren't.
I don't really know.
But it's always nice to show that you're thinking of them and that you know what they're going through.
So please feel free to share this episode along.
If you also feel called to do so, no pressure, but please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now.
It really helps the show.
It helps it to reach new people.
It helps me. So I really do value the support.
And if you have an episode suggestion, please feel free to join me over at that psychology podcast.
I take any and all ideas.
I add them to my list and every now and again, I really like to pull something from what someone has suggested and dedicate a whole episode to it.
So there's something that you're going through that you want a psychological explanation for.
Please feel free to send it over.
As always, we will be back next week with another episode.
See you then. This year, I've been really rethinking my relationship with alcohol.
And so I decided to commit to dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for dry January, because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends, out for drinks whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle goals.
I'm a big beer fan, so I also love the taste of Heineken 00.
Plus, being alcohol free, you can enjoy whenever refreshment calls.
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken .com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
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