“For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
– William Shakespeare –
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) obviously knew that thinking too much can ultimately turn just about anything good or bad. Today, science (and functional MRI’s) is proving that our incredibly powerful ability to overthink can negatively or positively affect our health. The good news is that we have control over how and what we think about, which means we have more control over our bodies than we think.
Before we go further, we should define “over analysis”. To be clear, the problem isn’t analysis. There is obviously a time for analyzing things in our professional and personal lives. The problem is over analysis. Some might call it overthinking, worrying, ruminating, being in your head, on the fence. Maybe it can result in you not being aware or present or intuitive. But the most descriptive word is that overanalysis is … repetitively going over a thought or problem without completion.
WHAT DO WE (OVER)THINK ABOUT?
At some point, everyone has been stuck in overanalysis mode, repeatedly going over a thought or problem without completion. It could involve making a decision about a job or relationship or home or money. Or it could be more about the past – what you shoulda, coulda, woulda – what you should have said to someone, what someone said to you, what you should have done for your career, whether you could have stayed in a relationship, should you have taken a new job, why did I eat that?
Sometimes the thoughts involve what’s called self-reflective or self-referential thought. These thoughts are often about ourselves, right? About the self – and feelings or thoughts that involve
- anger,
- regret,
- sorrow,
- failure,
- shame,
- rejection,
- humiliation,
- loss,
- retaliation.
In the intake forms my clients submit, one of the top sources of stress is ‘unfulfilled expectations” where people feel like they haven’t accomplished what they should have or could have by this point in their life. They have regret, feel like failures, are angry at themselves and then others and so on, for not accomplishing, or often even trying, things they wanted to. This often includes work and personal life, but definitely involves a frustration or feeling of failure for not having reached certain health and wellness goals. They are ashamed or feel like failures for being overweight, for still not being happy in their bodies, for not being fit or healthy – for themselves or their families. These thoughts play a massive role in our stress levels and then of course in our physical health. This is exactly why I’ve included overanalysis in my wellness programs.
OVERANALYZING CAN ACTIVATE THE STRESS RESPONSE
Over analyzing can easily activate The Stress Response in the body. Your negative, ruminating, overthinking thoughts alone – what you simply think about – can stimulate your nervous system and cause a cascade of hormones to flood your body with the exact same chemical reaction that takes place in a fight or flight situation. Here is just a sample of some of the negative affects of over analyzing:
- increased cortisol (in the body AND brain),
- insomnia
- high blood pressure
- depression
- anxiety
- PTSD
- substance abuse
- binge-eating
- and many more imbalances that can result from your body in a constant state of stress and elevated cortisol.
And if overanalyzing activates our stress response, then it may be accurate to say that we – with our thoughts alone – could worry ourselves sick.
“THE SECOND YOU START ANALYZING IS THE SECOND YOU STOP FOLLOWING YOUR GUT”
I’ve searched high and low to figure out where I found this quote, but without a doubt, I believe that the second you start analyzing is the second you stop following your gut. Listening to your gut is similar to listening to your body, which I encourage my clients and students to do every week.
I remind my clients of this regularly so they can see how their bodies respond to challenges in the programs, and to help them see that these little changes can have big impacts on their health, especially over time. I also want them to clearly identify what it actually feels like to feel healthy, like they’re stepping into a new normal. So that if something ever doesn’t feel right in their body, if something takes them below that normal, if their intuition feels that something is off, they can – and will – take action.
Our bodies give us hints when something is wrong, but we often ignore them. A combination of things can cause us to ignore ourselves:
- we don’t know what to listen for,
- we don’t trust ourselves enough to take action,
- we feel crappy all the time so don’t know the difference between feeling good or bad, or
- we can’t get out of our heads for long enough to pay attention to our bodies instead of our racing, analytical minds.
Instead, we end up overlooking things like headaches, eczema, brain fog, back pain, urinary tract infections, digestive issues, insomnia, PMS, fatigue, low sex drive, or a gut feeling or intuitive sense that something is not right. Ignoring these hints often come with long term consequences.
Taking action might mean you make deliberate habit changes that help get you out of situations that normally cause you to over analyze things. It might mean you decide to leave a job, or a relationship in search of something more fulfilling. It might mean you seek outside help who can help you get things under control. And that’s why learning to manage the tendency to overanalyze is part of our Stress Reduction Programs.
HOW DO YOU STOP OVERANALYZING? YOU SHIFT YOUR FOCUS.
How do you shift your focus so you can get out of your head?
First of all, I want to say that if you feel like rumination or negative thoughts are impacting or disrupting your life, please consider seeing a therapist or counsellor. I’m not a therapist and by no means do I want to imply that these suggestions are the solution for everyone. A therapist can give you individualized treatment and recommendations. This program is strictly for educational purposes.
Based on my experience, here are a few suggestions that have worked and are recommended in the industry:
- Learn something new.
- Learn a new language. Learn how to paint, cook, meditate. Learning helps redirect that blood flow and builds new neural pathways which can help you focus, and build confidence.
- Move your body.
- Exercise can increase serotonin and dopamine, which helps to improve mood, reduce negative thinking and get blood rushing through your body.
- Breathe.
- Get hooked on the benefits of mindful breathing. This is such a great way to redirect your focus. And there is evidence showing that if you combine exercise and breathing, there can be a reduction in depressive symptoms. One 8-week study showed a 40% reduction when combining 30 mins of meditation and 30 mins of movement everyday.
- Journal.
- Journaling your thoughts is a terrific way of getting reprieve because you have physically done something about it and have created a record. Of course, don’t allow it to take you down a rabbit hole of negativity. Alternatively, choose to acknowledge things you’re grateful, or micro goals you want to get done.
- Call a friend.
- Social support is such an important piece of stress reduction. We’re built to connect with people. Having a lack of support – from family, from friends, from co-workers – can become a stressor. This doesn’t mean that you should find a partner to and ruminate with. That actually has a term – it’s called co-rumination. You want that social support to be a release of stress so that you know you’re supported and you’re not alone.
- Try neurofeedback.
- Neurofeedback is a way to monitor and train the brain through biofeedback, by seeing how your brain responds to your thoughts. This is fascinating to me because you can directly make a physical connection to what/how you think.
- Find a Counsellor/Therapist
- I am an absolute advocate of counselling and therapy and encourage you to get that support if you feel you need it.
👩🏫 Think you know stress? Test your stress smarts by taking the What’s Your Hidden Stress Score Quiz.
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