Overthinking also carries a significant opportunity cost. Mental energy is not a limitless resource. We have only so much to spend each day, and how we choose to spend it matters. As Annie Dillard writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”
When we spend our time overthinking, that’s what we’re doing.
Let’s face it: nobody wants to live a life characterized by overthinking. But it doesn’t feel like something we’re choosing; it feels like something we can’t escape. We don’t want to fritter away our one precious life second-guessing ourselves about a conversation we had last Thursday or whether we’re sick enough to go to the doctor or when we’re going to squeeze in a Costco run this week. We want better for ourselves. But we’re not sure how to get there.
A friend recently relayed some advice she’d read in a women’s magazine that advised to squelch overthinking by resolving not to think about anything that stresses you after dinner. We laughed about this together. It sounds good, but how does one actually do it? If one could simply decide not to think about it, we wouldn’t have an overthinking problem, would we?
Why is it so hard to untangle this one little thing that looms so large over our lives?
Overthinking Affects Women More Than Men
“We are suffering from an epidemic of overthinking,” writes Nolen-Hoeksema. The problem is widespread and, thanks to a combination of neuroscience and socialization, especially plagues women. According to recent studies, women really do have more going on in their brains than men do. In 2017, researchers at the Amen Clinics released imaging data showing “the brains of women in the study were significantly more active in many more areas of the brain than men, especially in the prefrontal cortex, involved with focus and impulse control, and the limbic or emotional areas of the brain, involved with mood and anxiety.”
This difference may be a key reason why women are more likely to ruminate, overanalyze, and become paralyzed by indecision. We perseverate instead of act, we worry, we second-guess ourselves. And, whether due to biology or socialization, we focus more on our emotional ties to others than men do. According to Nolen-Hoeksema:
Women can ruminate about anything and everything—our appearance, our families, our career, our health. We often feel that this is just a part of being a woman. . . . This may be partly true, but overthinking is also toxic for women. It interferes with our ability and motivation to solve our problems. It drives some friends and family members away. And it can wreck our emotional health. Women are twice as likely as men to become severely depressed or anxious, and our tendency to overthink appears to be one of the reasons why.
More recent studies indicate that the problem is only becoming worse. One study analyzing birth cohort differences from 1989 to 2016 shows that, despite increased awareness of the dangers, perfectionism is increasing over time. Perfectionism is strongly linked to overthinking, as we’ll explore in chapter 3, and the findings that today’s young people face more competitive environments and more unrealistic expectations than those of previous generations does not mean good things for their mental or emotional well-being.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can—and must—learn to do better. The consequences are too serious not to.
How to Use This Book
This book is for those of us who, like me, would like to look back one day and declare that our lives were well lived. We can see that living well depends upon thinking well—about the things that matter. We want to learn how to overcome decision fatigue, stop feeling overwhelmed, and bring more peace and joy into our lives. That means learning strategies for approaching both our minutes and our days.
Over time, I have deliberately cultivated processes I can trust, ones I turn to when I’m wandering into overthinking territory. Over the years, I’ve seen how simple strategies and subtle shifts of perspective can trigger lightbulb moments that make some aspect of life easier. These small shifts, taken one at a time, are just that: small. Yet cumulatively, they’ve transformed my life.
I wanted to share this information with others, and that’s why you’re holding this book in your hands. Helpful information already exists on this topic, particularly on the subject of rumination, but I couldn’t find any existing resources that address all the ways I knew I was overthinking or that share strategies to help me avoid more than just ruminating. As I learned more and more about overthinking, I grew more and more surprised by just how many facets of our lives overthinking touches. I wanted to write a book that reflected both the far-reaching, destructive effects of overthinking and the not-always-obvious ways we can learn to do better.
I got my start in writing as a blogger. My favorite posts over the years have been those that combine unexpected, seemingly unrelated elements in a way that provides fresh insight by letting the reader see a situation—and herself—in a new way. This book reflects that same approach in subject and scope: it divides things along lines you might not expect, covers topics you may not anticipate, and takes a broader view than previous books on the subject. I’ve done this on purpose, because I believe the subject merits it. And we, as women, need it.
We can learn how to stop overthinking on a persistent basis by doing these things:
Setting ourselves up for success. We’ll examine the importance of laying a solid foundation that enables us to become the kind of people who are not prone to overthinking.
Taking charge. We’ll learn how to overcome unhealthy thought patterns in the moment and implement practices that make it harder to lapse into these patterns in the first place.
Letting the sun shine in. Overthinkers too often think themselves out of life’s simple pleasures, but we’ll examine how to smartly think our way into them.
You are not doomed to a life of overthinking. You can do better, but it won’t happen instantly. Getting your thought life under control is a process. It has been for me, as you will see. Some days I do well; I’m satisfied with how I’m spending my hours—and by extension, my life. Sometimes I struggle, and I know I will continue to do so. I’m never going to “arrive,” but I can see how far I’ve come. The process hasn’t been easy, but it’s been worth it.
And it can be for you too.
In this book, we’ll explore the practices that have helped me and so many others overcome overthinking. Some strategies are mundane, while others are easy to grasp and instantly life-changing. Some are about money and memories, while others are about simple abundance. Some are weightier, while others help us reach a decision when the answer isn’t obvious.
It’s that last strategy that finally jolted me out of my Nashville funk last June. Let’s go back to my kitchen table, where I’m locked in to The Weather Channel website, refreshing the page like a madwoman, hoping for a better answer that’s never going to come.
My friend replies to my SOS text with laughter and then asks: “What’s stressing you out about the travel details?” She asks me to articulate the precise issue, and I do: I tell her I hate my options. Giving voice to that reality doesn’t feel like a complaint; it feels like clarity. I’m not going to be happy either way.