You know that feeling when your brain just won't switch off and you keep replaying a conversation or worrying about something that hasn't even happened.
Yes, we've all been there.
I'm Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
And today we are talking about something that we all do at some points and that is overthinking.
But the good news about overthinking is that you can train your mind to stop overthinking and feel more at ease.
So it's a great topic today, something which affects everyone, whether it is with work, with life, with English language learning.
Overthinking is a big problem, I think, in today's society, in today's world.
So before we start today's episode, I am going to go through some key vocabulary.
Listen for these words during the episode and try to notice how they're used in context.
And as usual from the last episode, I will include a link in the description for the vocabulary list and study plan around the lesson.
It's completely free and on the website.
So click the link in the description below.
So our vocabulary list.
The first word is overanalyze.
Overanalyze.
And this is to think about something too much, breaking it down into unnecessary details.
For example, she overanalyzed every word in the email and convinced herself that she had said something wrong.
Overanalyzing is definitely something that we all do from time to time.
The second word, I'm sorry, I have a little bit of a cough this week, like with my throat.
So if you hear me cough, I will try my best to edit these out.
But there may be the odd little cough in the episode.
So please, I do apologize in advance.
So our second word is catastrophize, catastrophize.
And this is to imagine the worst possible outcome, even when it's unlikely.
An example of this is he always catastrophizes before an exam, assuming or thinking that he'll fail, even though he studied hard.
The third word, self-doubt.
And this is a lack of confidence in oneself and one's abilities.
Self-doubt.
Her self-doubt made her hesitate before speaking in meetings.
Next phrase, mental clutter.
This is more of a phrase than the last two.
Mental clutter.
Too many thoughts that make it hard to focus.
Before bed, he wrote down his worries to clear his mental clutter.
And the final phrase, it's a phrase, paralysis by analysis.
I like this phrase.
And it means when overthinking stops you from taking action.
She wanted to start a business, but paralysis by analysis kept her stuck.
I've included this one because I will use this phrase in today's episode.
All right, let's dive in.
There will be more vocabulary on the extended vocabulary list in the description, but let's get started.
Overthinking is exhausting.
It can keep you stuck in your head.
It can drain your energy.
And honestly, most of the time, it doesn't actually solve anything.
So why do we do it?
A lot of overthinking comes from fear.
The fear of making the wrong decision, fear of looking stupid or fear of things not going as planned?
But here's the secret.
Overthinking does not equal better thinking.
In fact, it usually makes things worse.
So how do we break the habit?
We're going to go through some practical steps as to how we can stop overthinking.
I guess the reason why this topic came into my mind today was because recently I've been trying to start a new practice of meditation.
So mindfulness and meditation.
I'll talk a little bit more about it later.
But in general, when starting this meditation, I noticed how much we actually think.
How many thoughts come into our heads, into our minds, without our permission.
Without wanting them, they just appear.
And often...
We are really overthinking many things in our lives.
They are repeating and repeating in our heads.
And this meditation and mindfulness is quite a good way of quieting your mind and realizing that you can choose to not have these thoughts.
And some of these steps, I think, are very well or very closely linked to this practice.
So the first point today is to catch yourself in the act.
The first step to stopping overthinking is awareness.
Awareness.
So being aware.
Pay attention to when your thoughts start spiraling.
Are you replaying a conversation in your head, for example?
Are you imagining all the ways something could go wrong?
Take a step back and say to yourself, I'm overthinking right now.
And this simple recognition can help you break the cycle.
So I would say this is probably the most important step to realize that you're overthinking and to catch yourself and say you know what Oliver, stop stop thinking over and over again about the same thing.
It's not going to help.
It's not going to help thinking about it.
If you can't do anything about it, don't think about it is really a good way to think about it.
So the next step is to challenge your thoughts.
Not every thought that you have is true.
Sometimes our brains lie to us.
And if you're overthinking something, you need to ask yourself is this thought based on facts or just my fears?
Is it emotional or logical?
Is it something from my emotions or from my logic?
Would I say this to a friend if they were in my situation?
That's a good question to ask yourself.
You can also ask yourself, will this actually matter in a week, a month, a year?
And when you start questioning your thoughts instead of automatically believing them, you realize that a lot of them aren't as important as they seem.
So it's a good step. challenge your thoughts for example if you're going to speak english and you are thinking oh my goodness my accent is so bad people will laugh at me it's going to be embarrassing they will think it's funny you need to ask yourself you know would i like is this based on facts would i think that it is funny or embarrassing if someone spoke my language with an accent?
And the answer is probably no.
Those thoughts that you're having and worrying about are likely not true, or at least not true in the way that you think they are.
So it's something to always challenge.
Challenge yourself.
When we think about our thoughts, they appear from nowhere.
They just appear into our brain and sometimes they're not true.
They're emotions or worries or fears.
So this step is very crucial, very important.
Okay, step three.
Step three is to set a time limit for your decisions.
This is a quick and easy step.
If you've ever spent hours and hours deciding what to wear or what to text someone, that is an example of overthinking.
And one way to stop this is by setting yourself a time limit.
Give yourself five minutes to decide and then move on.
If it's a bigger decision, give yourself one day.
But no more.
The more time you spend, the harder it can become to decide.
I know some people that when they want to decide to do something, they count down in their head.
10, 9, 8, 7... right down to one, and then they decide after that.
And some people find this an effective way to quickly make decisions.
And I'm not talking about very important decisions.
I'm talking more about, for example, what you want to order to eat, what you want to choose from your wardrobe to wear.
Simple decisions, giving yourself more of a time limit and not letting yourself overthink or be indecisive.
So it's a good way of controlling that aspect of yourself, or at least taking back control over of how you think and decide about things.
So before we go to step four and the rest of the steps, it really surprises me.
Every week I check the statistics for this podcast and, quite amazingly, we now have 18000 followers and listeners on Spotify.
But from that there are so many more people that listen to the podcast every week but they're not following or subscribed.
So, wherever you're listening, if you are new or if you just listen to this podcast, make sure that you are following or subscribed.
Because for me, it helps promote the podcast.
It helps push it and promote it to new people so that I can help more people improve and learn English.
And likewise, if you're on a podcast platform, make sure that you rate the podcast.
So give it five stars.
And this also really helps people to find this podcast.
I've been doing this podcast for five years now and my goal is to just keep growing it and to become the biggest English language sort of listening based podcast ever on the internet.
It's my goal.
It started as a hobby, this project, but I would really love to develop this podcast into something more serious, into a very big project to help millions of people around the world.
So thank you very much for your support.
I appreciate every little bit of it too.
Okay, so back to the podcast, step four.
And step four is to distract yourself with action.
Overthinking loves a passive mind.
Passive is the opposite of active when you're not doing anything.
If you sit around and do nothing, your thoughts will spiral.
They will become overthinking thoughts.
So instead, take action.
Go for a walk, do some exercise, listen to music or do a hobby, start a hobby, work on something that you love.
And this action takes your focus out of your head, out of your mind, and puts it into the task.
If you're speaking English, for example, you're worried about speaking English.
Just force yourself to start and your brain will immediately stop worrying.
It will be focused on what you're doing.
Or if, for example, you're worried about, you're thinking about you.
Know how can I make progress in my English?
What can I do next?
The best thing to do is start something.
You know, if you're worried about learning vocabulary or that you have to do something, start small.
Just distract yourself, get out of your head and do it.
Just start doing it.
Start practicing English and you will notice that your worries will become less.
A lot less because you're acting.
You're out of your brain, out of your mind, which is really helpful.
Okay, step five that I would recommend for breaking your overthinking cycle with, whatever it is life English, anything is, to use the worst case scenario trick.
And that is because sometimes we overthink because we're worried about what might happen.
Let's take the example of speaking.
You might worry, oh my goodness, I'm going to speak with terrible grammar or with an accent.
So try this.
Ask yourself, what is the absolute worst that could happen?
Then ask, what would I do if that actually happened?
And most of the time you'll realize that even the worst case scenario is not as bad as you thought.
And even if it does happen, you'll be able to handle it.
Let's take that example of speaking English or making starting that conversation.
You know, if you make a mistake, maybe your accent is very strong.
Maybe you make a mistake with grammar or you can't remember a word.
What's the worst that can happen there?
Let's take the example of you can't remember a word.
What will probably happen is the person will try to help you to find the word that you need.
And let's say you don't understand something that someone says.
What's the worst that can happen?
You ask them what they mean and they explain it.
Let's say you speak with an accent.
What is the worst thing that can happen that they don't understand you?
And in that case you explain it again in a different way, maybe slower, more simple, in another way, and then they will understand.
So really, all these things that we're worried about, that we stressed about, particularly with English and English performance, the worst things that can happen are not that bad.
They're not so bad.
And if they do happen, you can handle it and you'll learn from it and get better.
Now, step six, let go of perfectionism.
What is perfectionism?
Perfectionism is wanting to have everything perfect.
For example, you think, oh, I want to speak with perfect grammar and pronunciation.
And it comes from wanting things to be perfect, really.
But trying to be perfect all the time will leave you feeling stuck.
Instead, you need to aim for progress, improvement rather than perfection.
If we aim for perfection all the time, we will be sometimes disheartened, so we'll be disappointed when we don't achieve it.
And maybe stressed and worried about hitting perfection.
Whereas when we aim for progress, we are aiming up.
We are aiming to get better.
But we're not putting that pressure on ourselves to never make a mistake.
And those mistakes will help us with our progress.
They will help us improve.
And this idea of perfection is not true.
It doesn't exist.
There is no perfect English speaker.
No native speaks English perfectly.
I make mistakes.
I don't speak perfectly.
And you never will too either.
But you will get better and better and better until you're very good at speaking English.
Excellent even.
But you'll never be perfect.
And I never will be perfect either with English.
So accepting that, we can relax.
Just aim to be better, to progress, not to be perfect.
The final step is to practice mindfulness.
So around overthinking.
And mindfulness really helps you to focus on the present moment instead of getting lost in your thoughts.
Here's, I guess, a very simple way as an example that you could do this even through breathing.
If you find yourself overthinking about stuff, you can take a deep breath in for four seconds, hold it for another four seconds, breathe out for four seconds and then repeat this.
And this can calm your mind and bring you back to the present moment.
I suppose since I started trying to do some of this meditation, I've been reading about some of the benefits of this.
And there are so many.
The first benefit is that it really reduces stress.
And it's probably one of the most common reasons why people try.
And I might make a separate episode about meditation, about the benefits, just as an interesting discussion to have and to learn some new vocabulary.
So yeah, it can really reduce your stress levels.
It can control anxiety as well for people that suffer anxiety.
It can support your emotional health and your self-awareness.
And it can bring you more into the present.
The thing I notice about overthinking is when we overthink, what happens is we are less in the present.
We're less in the present.
We're less thinking about the things that are going on around us.
We're less focused on our everyday life and we appreciate things less.
We're not noticing what is going on around us as much because we're stuck in our heads.
We're thinking about something that we really shouldn't be in that moment.
And there's a lot of philosophy about this too.
And one very popular philosophical take or school of thought, if you will, is stoicism.
And within stoicism and the ideas of stoicism, we should look at what we can control.
And if it is something outside of our control, we shouldn't worry about it because ultimately we can't do anything about it.
There's nothing that we can do to fix it, to make it better, to influence it or control it.
If it is something within our control, then we should think about it and act rather than worry.
So that is one way to think about it.
We don't achieve anything by worrying.
Of course, it's good to maybe consider some dangers or problems that might happen and to take actions against them.
But past a certain point, It is no benefit.
It does not help.
We're just rethinking and rethinking in our heads.
And if we overthink too much, it can lead to a bunch of quite negative stuff.
It can make you feel tired.
It can make you feel anxious, stressed.
It can even make you feel nauseous, like sick in your stomach because you're worrying about stuff.
And of course the big one is sleep.
I've often found that at times when I am overthinking something whether it's been exams, whether it's been my job or something happening in my life, of course my sleep becomes worse.
Sleep is affected.
So I suppose next time you catch yourself second guessing your decisions or overthinking something, it is better to just catch yourself, as we said.
So you want to first catch yourself.
Then you want to challenge yourself the thoughts that you're having, make sure that they're true and be realistic.
You want to set time limits for your decisions.
So if you have to decide on something, you want to distract yourself with action.
So try to do something, to take action rather than just thinking about it.
And you want to think about the worst that can happen and realize that it's not so bad.
You can handle it, And then realize that you can't do everything perfect.
And if all else fails, of course, you can practice some mindfulness too.
Maybe some meditation, some deep breathing, something to help reduce those stress levels.
So I guess overthinking doesn't actually help us.
Problem solving does, but past a certain point, it becomes overthinking.
So instead, we need to recognize when we're doing it, challenge those thoughts, take action and let go of being perfect.
And the more you practice the steps that we've discussed today, the easier it will become to stop overthinking and to start living.
So I hope that you found this episode helpful.
If you did enjoy it, make sure to subscribe and share it with someone that might need to hear this.
And if you're worried about your English, if you're worried about how you sound, about your pronunciation, about thinking of words, about speaking, I want you to ask yourself why.
What is it you're really worried about?
What is the worst thing that can happen with these fears about English?
I mean, I totally understand it if you're stressed about an exam, about a test, maybe if you're doing education in English or you need something for your job.
But in general, don't put so much pressure on yourself.
Don't put so much stress on yourself.
Enjoy learning English.
Relax, enjoy listening to these podcasts, doing your grammar exercises, to writing, to whatever you're doing.
Just take more pleasure in it.
Focus on the tasks and don't overthink and stress about it.
The moment we make it a chore, a task that we don't really want to do, the harder it gets.
So that's why it's particularly important to keep yourself in that relaxed state.
So do try.
I know it's hard, but I am sure that each and every one of you can do it.
So before I go today, I want to remind you that we have advanced English episodes on Patreon.
These are sort of shorter 10 to 12 minute episodes every week which focus on a more advanced topic.
The main reason they are shorter is because I speak faster in these episodes and I use more advanced vocabulary.
And even more so.
We have a News in Easy English series which is exclusive to Patreon too, and a lot of extra bonus content on there as well.
So if you would like to support me to support Easy English, check out the link below.
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You can also sign up as a free member and you can sample or try a couple of episodes for free.
Thank you so much for listening.
And I hope You have an amazing rest of your day.
Goodbye.
