How To Gain Some Control Over Your Thoughts

Ugh. I know I am overthinking this but I Just. Can’t. Stop!!!

Have you ever had a scenario that you turned over and over again in your mind?

And then again and again some more?

You may be laying awake at night, thinking of this situation.

You may be distracted in your conversations because your brain is showing its own little horror movie about this terrible event.

You may have a pit in your stomach, or notice other muscle tension because the different outcomes that accompany this scenario are just awful. Or the thoughts you have about yourself are just negative.

I am not good enough.

I am incompetent.

I am ashamed.

I’m so stupid!

We might call this kind of thing rumination, or we might call it overthinking. We might say we are having intrusive thoughts. There are subtle differences in all of these things, but they all can be downright miserable.  

Let’s define these terms first, and then we can get to strategies to deal with them.

Rumination

First of all, with ruminating, I want to clarify that I am talking about ruminating on thoughts.  There is something called rumination disorder which is an issue related to eating in which someone regurgitates their food over and over again and then either swallows it or spits it out.

Ruminating on thoughts is the act of thinking about something over and over on repeat. You are quite often consumed with thinking about this thing. The act of continuing to focus on these thoughts is what we would call ruminating.

Overthinking

Overthinking can be all-consuming as well, but when we engage in overthinking, we follow allllllll the trails that might be connected to that thing. We are not necessarily thinking the same thing over and over.  We are more focused on understanding the minutiae of what might be connected to it so we can solve a problem or prepare for every possible outcome. We tend to focus on those worst-case scenarios when we do this, which can keep us stuck in a state of anxiety. Rumination can stem from overthinking, because it is easy to get focused on some element of the thing and then start ruminating about it.

Intrusive Thoughts

These are thoughts that pop into your head often.

Sometimes they seem so very random, and you wonder, “What made me think of that?”

They may be related to content that starts you down a trail towards ruminating or overthinking.

They can be connected to past trauma (even if you do not really notice the connection).  When I mention “trauma” I don’t just mean something life-threatening – our brains can register events as “traumatic” when they are just more than we have the capacity to handle at the time. When we go through something traumatic, we connect the sensory information related to that trauma to memory networks in the brain.  When something in that network comes into our awareness (could be a phrase, a smell, a sound, a taste, a memory, an image, etc.) our brain shifts focus to remembering the trauma (or even just a fragmented part of that trauma).

Whether it’s rumination, overthinking, or intrusive thoughts, we keep them going by continuing focus our brain on that thought. It’s kind of like the social media or online marketing algorithms.

I remember once I lingered too long on a video of someone shaving soap. It was oddly satisfying to watch the way the shavings curled and fell from the bar.  I had to wonder, “Who thought of making a video of this, and how do people have so much time on their hands?”

My social media feed must have assumed I was really into soap shaving videos because of how much time I spent watching that video. Next thing I knew, my whole feed was populated with more soap shaving videos!

I have also had the experience of doing an internet search for something, and suddenly, all of my social media feeds are showing me ads for variations of that thing. It’s a little creepy!

When we entertain a thought that comes up, we are teaching our brain that it is something we want to pay attention to. Our brain then looks for that thing and uses any connection to that thing as an excuse to pull up a thought about it.  This is just like the way we teach online algorithms what we want to look at.

We are basically giving our brains a gold star when we (again) keep thinking about the thing.

So what does the brain do?  It gives us more thoughts just like it.

How To Gain Some Control Over Your Thoughts

Remind yourself to be kind

You are about to notice your thoughts, which may not be very nice. You may be tempted to beat yourself up because you are having these thoughts (again) or because you think they are weird thoughts that nobody else has (I promise you, they probably do), or you should be over this by now, or {insert some kind of negative self-talk here}. 

We are just looking at slowing down the thoughts that seem to be coming up and taking any kind of judgment or negative charge out of them.

Pay attention to what you are thinking. 

We can’t control what we don’t know about. I like to use my FACETS model to slow down my automatic thoughts and see what conclusions my brain might be jumping to. Just separating out the facts from the emotions and the thoughts can be enough to help me see that I am letting my thoughts run amok. 

When you are first learning how to slow your thoughts down to notice them, it can be helpful to jot them down.  Especially the ones that don’t seem to make any sense.

Ask yourself, “What makes sense about why I am thinking this?”

Doing this serves a variety of purposes.

• It can remind you that it’s reasonable that you’d be thinking of this, and you are probably not the only person in the world who has thought this way.

• If it’s a trauma trigger, it can remind you that this is just the brain works – something reminded you of that thing, so of course your brain followed it. It doesn’t mean you are broken, it just means there was something significant attached to that trigger.

• It can point to a problem you still need to solve. Our brains are very good at sending us repeated reminders of some kind of action we need to take.

• And sometimes it doesn’t seem to make sense at all. That’s ok.  You don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out (you don’t want to fuel it even more and cause your brain to keep thinking about it).

Take action

If you’ve discovered that there is something you can do about the thing you are thinking about it, do it. Or make a plan to do it. When there is an action to take, it’s almost like the brain is an incessant nag, reminding you of all of the aspects of the thing you need to do so you don’t forget. 

It can help to write down a list, or identify the steps to doing the thing.

Maybe there is a decision you need to make, in which case just scheduling some time to think through the decision or talk to someone with expertise about the decision can satisfy your brain that you are on it.

Redirect

It is often useless to try to not think of something because then, that thing you are trying not to think about becomes all you can think about.

Try it. DON’T think of a cat in a tophat. (I am guessing that’s all you can think about now)

When you can acknowledge, “Huh. There’s that thought again” and move on to thinking about something different, you teach your brain what you want it to focus on.  Remember the social media algorithm? You want to give the thing minimal attention and keep scrolling.

You can tell yourself something like, “Yeah, it makes sense that I am thinking about shaved soap, because I did dwell on that not too long ago. But I’d rather think about what I am making for dinner tonight.”

Or

“Yeah, that’s a big decision I need to think through.  Good thing I planned time to work on that tomorrow at lunch. Now I am free to focus on being present with my kids.”

If you are a Christian, this can be a great time to focus your thoughts on Bible verses.

Acknowledge, “Oh, there’s that thought again. Philippians 4:8 says ‘Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’ What is true in this scenario? How can I focus my thoughts?”

As with most blog posts I write, I am not pretending this is easy to do.

There could be bigger issues with the kinds of thoughts you are having. You may have developed a pattern of thinking this way because you don’t feel safe unless you are overprepared for any situation.

There could be trauma triggers to work through with a counselor. It’s possible to reduce the frequency of trauma triggers and/or the amount of activation that comes up when you find yourself having those kinds of thoughts.

A trained counselor can help you figure out what you might need in order to create peace in your mind.

I’m here if you are looking for that kind of help. 

Jennie Sheffe is a Licensed Professional Counselor and National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling to those who want to integrate faith into their therapy.