How to Stop Overthinking and Control Your Mind

The short version: you don't stop overthinking by trying to stop thinking. You can't. You stop overthinking by learning to observe your thoughts instead of being swallowed by them, and by training the rational part of your brain so your emotional brain stops running the show. Here's how that actually works.

Key takeaways:

• You can't stop thinking, so don't try. Learn to watch your thoughts instead.
• Overthinking is your nervous system stuck in survival mode, perceiving a threat that needs attention.
• The fix is training your executive function (the rational, present part of your brain) until it's back in charge.
• Action beats analysis. Doing the thing quiets the loop faster than thinking your way out of it

  
  The problem most of my clients walk in with:

  One of the things I hear so often from clients is that they just want control over their thoughts. They can't stop overthinking. They can't stop the negative thoughts, the intrusive thoughts. It takes them over and they lose a sense of self-control. They feel like they're going to lose their mind. They start reacting, getting frustrated with their wife, their kids, their partner. They blow up at work, or they create these mental stories in their head that are completely made up.

I'm sure you've experienced that. I know I have. You find yourself in a thought loop, and when you snap out of it, you realise it was just a total illusion. I remember once I was hanging out the clothes on the line, thinking about some dude from school, stuck in this weird loop. Then I snapped out of it and realised it was a complete waste of mental energy.

So let me tell you how to stop overthinking and control your mind.

First, just take action

One of the things that's going to stop you from overthinking is taking action. Doing the things you need to be doing instead of sitting there idling. I'm not saying suppress your emotions or suppress your thoughts. But one of the best cures for overthinking is just action.

That said, if your overthinking is making you lose focus, making you procrastinate, lowering your productivity or performance, then there's something deeper going on, and this is where it gets useful.

The secret is not to stop thinking

The secret to stopping your overthinking is not actually to stop thinking, because you can't stop thinking.

I've done 15 years of meditation. I've spent a lot of time trying to get to a place of no thought, and I've experienced it. It's beautiful. But it only lasts a short period of time, and it takes a high level of focus and concentration to get there. Then you come back to reality and you start thinking again. You're always going to be thinking until you die, because thinking is part of your survival. Your brain is thinking because it's designed to keep you safe.

So the move isn't to stop overthinking. Here's the actual secret: you learn to watch and observe your thoughts. You become the witness. The watcher.

When you're the watcher of your thoughts, you create distance and space between you and the thought. When you don't have that space, you're attached to the thought, fully involved with it, so much so that it becomes part of your identity. But your thoughts do not need to be part of your identity. You don't need to believe every thought you have. You can detach, and pick and choose the thoughts you want to keep. If a thought comes in that you don't want, don't fight it. See it, observe it, witness it, and choose a different one.

Why you can't stop overthinking: your brain on survival mode

Now you might be saying, "Josh, that sounds great, but it's a lot easier said than done." And the truth is, it is. But you can start right now.

After working with over 300 clients in my coaching business, here's what I've found: if you're really stuck in overthinking, there's usually an emotional attachment underneath keeping you there.

That's happening because of a part of your brain called the limbic brain, or emotional brain, which is perceiving threat. Your survival mechanism works like this: if it senses a threat, that threat needs attention, so you keep thinking about it. That's your brain trying to keep you safe. It's the same loop behind high-functioning anxiety and living in constant survival mode.

This is all proven by neuroscience. There's a part of your brain called the amygdala, the threat detection centre, which is also where a lot of your fear lives. When you're stuck in fear, worry or self-doubt, the amygdala fires off and hijacks the prefrontal cortex, the conscious, rational, logical part of your brain. That's why you can't think clearly. The prefrontal cortex is associated with executive function.

An executive is the CEO of your brain. Someone who oversees everything. The executive function is supposed to be managing your experience rationally and logically. But when the amygdala takes over, it's like the top shuts down because all the activity has dropped back into the emotional brain. The emotional brain hijacks you, you can't think clearly, and now you're just reacting to whatever's happening. That's your body's survival mechanism running the show.

Train executive function (rewire your brain)

So if you're constantly overthinking, the best solution I know is to train and strengthen the executive function. You're training the part of your brain that's conscious, present, rational and logical. When you do that, you get a level of management back over your thoughts, and even over your emotions.

This isn't about suppressing your emotions. Learning to feel your emotions and regulate them is a separate skill, and an important one. But for overthinking specifically, you've got to train this executive function, strengthen the prefrontal cortex, and become more present. This is also how you regulate your nervous system and pull yourself out of survival mode, because a calm nervous system and a clear mind are the same job from two angles.

This is why mindfulness is one of the most effective treatments for PTSD and trauma. I'm reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk at the moment. He's a psychiatrist who's been practising since the 70s, and one of the main solutions he offers for the transformation of trauma is mindfulness and yoga.

The problem is that most people try mindfulness and meditation, don't get it, and don't know how to do it properly. Maybe no one's teaching them. Maybe they're just listening to guided meditations hoping for a miracle, and when the miracle doesn't show up in the first day or two, they quit. It's one of those skills where you have to stick with it until you actually learn how to do it properly.

This is one of the most valuable things my clients get from working with me. I teach them meditation and mindfulness so they can become present, develop peace of mind, and get purpose back. Because when you get back into that executive function and feel like you've got your shit together again, that's when you start thinking about your goals instead of constantly reacting to whatever external event is throwing you off centre on any given day.

I've been practising since I was 17. I'm grateful to my younger self that I never stopped. I haven't been perfect, I've had ups and downs, but I've learned the skill. Now I can observe my thoughts, observe my feelings, and be present with my emotions when I need to be. That keeps me calm and grounded at home with my wife and kids, at work, and with clients.

The horse and the rider

It all comes back to staying present. Develop that skill and it can transform your life.

Once you have it, you stop worrying about your mental health, because you realise you're the one in control. Think of your mind as a horse and you as the rider. When your brain is going crazy, it's like the horse is bucking you around, going nuts, and you feel like you're going to fall off and die. But a skilled rider can calm the horse and keep it under control. Yes, it might still buck every now and then, but you can manage it and navigate the challenges as they come without getting thrown off and trampled.

That's the skill, and that's exactly what I help people do at Mind Launch. If you want to work with an overthinking coach who'll teach you how to quiet the noise for good, and you're a business owner or professional carrying more pressure than you let on, head to mindlaunch.com.au and book a call.

FAQ

Why can't I stop overthinking? Because your brain thinks there's a threat. The emotional part of your brain perceives something as unsafe, flags it as needing attention, and keeps looping on it to protect you. It's survival wiring, not a character flaw. Usually there's an emotional attachment underneath holding the loop in place.

How do I stop overthinking? Don't try to stop thinking, you can't. Instead, become the observer of your thoughts so you're not fused with them, take action instead of idling, and train the rational part of your brain through mindfulness so it stays in charge.

Is overthinking a sign of anxiety? Often, yes. Overthinking is usually a nervous system stuck in survival mode. It shows up a lot in high-functioning anxiety, where everything looks fine on the outside while the mind never switches off.

Can you actually train your brain to stop overthinking? Yes. Your brain is changeable. Practising mindfulness and meditation strengthens the prefrontal cortex (your executive function) over time, so you spend less time hijacked by the emotional brain and more time clear, calm and in control.

What's the fastest way to stop overthinking right now? Take action on the thing in front of you, and when the thought comes, don't fight it. See it, observe it, and choose a different thought. Movement and observation break the loop faster than analysis.

Want more help? Apply for coaching here.