The Dangers of Worry & Overthinking
Do you worry about things? We all do, but when you spend too much time worrying and overthinking, it puts you in a bad mood and prevents you from enjoying the moment.
With mindfulness, overthinking is a bad habit you can learn how to break. When you think too much, you start analyzing every word and movement, which is so bad for you in many ways. Here are some of the dangers of overthinking so you can understand more about why mindfulness is so powerful.
It Takes Focus From the Important Things
One of the main issues with thinking too much and over-analyzing everything is that it can take your focus from the main things you need to really concentrate on. If you own a business and are trying to brainstorm some marketing strategies, but your mind keeps overthinking about every single thing that could potentially go wrong, it is going to create a lot of chaos in your mind. With mindfulness, you should think just about the current task, then move on to focus on other things.
Overthinking Robs Your Time
You may not realize it, but the practice of overthinking will take a lot of valuable time. You are analyzing certain situations or decisions far too much, thinking about every single thing that could possibly result from that decision, to where your time just continues to be wasted. Living in the moment and being more mindful is about appreciating the current moment, and not stressing about potential scenarios that might never happen.
You Live in a Negative, Stressed State
If you are an overthinker, you probably already live in a stressed state a good portion of the time. This isn’t just because of situations in your life that are causing you stress, but often something your mind is going to you. It is time to stop overthinking and show appreciation for the positive things in your life. This can really help to get rid of many of those negative thoughts and help you live a happier, more fulfilled life through mindfulness practices.
It Sometimes Leads to Irrational Thoughts
Unfortunately, overthinking often leads to considering scenarios that aren’t completely realistic or rational. You are trying to decide if you should take a flight, which causes you to imagine all sorts of terrible things happening. Sometimes, the decisions in your life are as simple as thinking in the moment. Is this flight something you want to do? If you have taken the necessary safety precautions, then there is nothing else to think about but decide if you really want to go to your destination on a plane or not. It really can be that simple.
Stop Worry in 7 Steps
Think about how much time you spend worrying each day. Has any of that worrying ever accomplished anything positive in your life? Why do we worry about things we can’t even control? And how can we stop doing that?
Imagine what you could do with all of that time and energy.
Imagine how much happier and comfortable you would be if you could minimize amount of time you spend worrying each day.
Worrying is a habit that we believe is helpful in some way, but it’s easy to see that worrying only has a negative effect.
Worry less and live more with these strategies:
Put your worries in perspective. Think of the big picture. According to scientists, there are around 100 million billion stars in the universe. That’s 100,000,000,000,000,000 suns. Most of those stars are believed to have one or more planets revolving around them. That’s a lot of planets.
In the grand scheme of things, we just hanging out on the equivalent of a speck of dust hurtling through space. We don’t even get to do it for that long. Your problems aren’t as big as you think. Life is short and should be sweet. Enjoy it while you can.
Expect good things to happen. You can’t worry if you expect a positive outcome. When you assume things will turn out poorly, it’s natural to worry. Be as prepared for the worst as you can but be optimistic. Your worry isn’t going to change anything.
Understand what is and isn’t under your control. We spend a lot of time worrying about things we can’t change. What’s the point? Do what you can to mitigate your risk and then see what happens. Let go of the things you can’t control.
You can’t control most of the things you worry about any more than you can control the weather or the tides.
Stay grounded in the present moment. Pay attention to what you’re doing right now. Avoid thinking about tomorrow. Make the best use of your time each moment and the future will take care of itself.
Have gratitude. When you realize how much you have and how lucky you are, the future isn’t as scary. Remind yourself of how good you life is already. You’ll worry less.
Gratitude is a habit. Take a moment each day and mentally list the things that you’re grateful for. This can do more to enhance your perspective than you think.
Avoid isolating yourself. Life is harder to manage all alone. It’s not reasonable to assume you can do everything by yourself. It’s also less stressful to have a few friends in your corner. Avoid isolating yourself just because you’re stressed. Your stress will only increase. Stay in touch with others.
Remind yourself of your past worries. You’ve worried about a lot of things in the past. How many of them actually came true? Of those that did, how bad was it? You’ll likely discover that most of your worry was inaccurate.
Most of the things we worry about never happen. And even if they do, it’s not nearly as awful as we anticipate.
Any time spent worrying is wasted time. If there’s something you can do to resolve the situation, just fix it. Life is short and worrying detracts greatly from life. Work to minimize the amount of time you spend worrying each day. You’ll enjoy life more and be more successful.
