How to stop overthinking so fast you forget what anxiety is

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]What is up, my little overthinkers?

[00:00:02]Today we're going to be discussing how to get over rumination and overthinking using science. If you're new to my channel, hi, I'm Simone. This is my second channel, and on both of my channels I love to talk about manifestation, neuroscience, psychology.

[00:00:17]I have a psychology background.

[00:00:18]Sometimes we also touch on NLP and spirituality. I love to fuse everything together. So, number one, we want to separate rumination from problem solving. A lot of the time we're overthinking, it can be because we are trying to control our anxiety by thinking that we are in control. If I keep on thinking about this, I'm in control. But you're not, because if you're actually not generating a solution, you're not in control, you're just ruminating and giving yourself even more anxiety. So, if your thinking is like, "Why does this happen to me? I'm analyzing this person's behavior. I wonder what they're thinking." You're ruminating. You need to start to shift to a different level of thinking, which is, "How can I solve whatever I'm currently ruminating about and create an action plan for yourself in the moment."

[00:01:05]Number two, and I love this. Steven Hayes' acceptance and commitment therapy research shows that cognitive fusion, where we're basically treating thoughts as facts. You're studying really hard for a math test and you find that you're not going to get through the whole paper and you start to think, "I am going to fail." That definite statement is what is going to give you anxiety. But instead you can say, "I'm having the thought that I am going to fail."

[00:01:28]Actually makes the believability and the grip of this thought drop a lot.

[00:01:34]So, whenever you start to ruminate about something, you can start to say, "I'm having a thought that my boyfriend is cheating on me." But we don't know if that thought is real. You can go a step further, and I actually saw on Reddit someone said whenever they start to have negative thoughts, they say, "The is back." Or, "The bastard is back." Or, "The demon is back." They externalize it instead of making it a part of them. Oh, I'm just so prone to anxiety and rumination because I'm a fearful avoidant and I'm anxious, whatever. Oh, the is back. And then you get that thought and you're like, "Well, actually, I don't want to talk to this anymore. I'm going to block her thoughts out." When we can externalize it and separate it from us, it makes it much more easier to deal with. Next, and I love this so much. Jill Bolte Taylor's neuroscience research shows that when we have a very strong emotion and something happens, that effect typically lasts for 90 seconds. Anything beyond that is you just trying to keep that loop alive. So, what we want to do is we want to allow ourselves to feel it for the total 90 seconds, to observe it, but we don't want to stay in it and ruminate beyond that. You got to time it and then let it go. And also try not to give this thought pattern even more power. Just observe it. One thing we've talked about a lot is if a recurring thought comes up in your life a lot, what you should do is say, "I release this." You can say, "I release this to God or whoever you believe in." You can snap a band to remind yourself that we are cutting this behavior out and we don't want to think this anymore. Anything that can just snap you out of it. Ethan Cross's lab research has shown that self-distancing also reduces anxiety. We talked about this a little bit before when I said that Reddit person would say, "Oh, the is back." But you can also say, "If I'm feeling anxious, why is Simone feeling anxious?" We talk to ourselves in third person, and it actually shows if we are addressing ourselves by our name. This has been shown to reduce amygdala activities in MRI scans, and it improves our problem solving under stress. So, we would say, "Why is Simone stressed?" instead of "Why am I stressed?" "Why is Simone stressed and how can I help her?" Going back to point one, let's actually think about how we can problem solve this. And in a way it's kind of like parenting your inner child as well, cuz sometimes when we're overthinking and we're ruminating, that is our inner child being worried and recognizing a pattern usually, so we're trying to gain control. So, by thinking in third person, it's almost like you're trying to re-parent this inner child. I will talk to myself in third person. If I don't want to get out of bed, sometimes I'll be like, "Come on, Simone, we need to get out of bed. We need to take care of ourselves. Let me take care of you." And it helps a lot.

[00:04:18]Next, schedule a worry window. Tom Borkovec, sorry if I butchered that, Borkovec's GAD research found that designating a 15-minute worry window significantly reduced overall worry. So, the brain actually stops treating every single thing in your life as a worry because it knows that it has an allocated window. So, when you're going through a breakup, I always say you should try to feel all the emotions for maximum 1 to 2 weeks. Never ever suppress it. But beyond then, if you want to stay in that state, you're going to do a lot of damage to yourself and it's going to be a lot harder to get over this breakup. So, instead you should start to schedule windows now.

[00:04:57]I'm going to schedule 15 minutes to feel sad and to cry, and then I'm going to get back to my job. Stephen Porges' polyvagal work shows that it's much better for us to regulate bottom-up than top-down, meaning when we are in a state of anxiety, sometimes we can't just think our way out of it. We actually have to start by regulating our body. And always start with the breath. Always start with the breath or movement. Go for a walk, do some jumping jacks up and down, just start to move your body. You can go and breathe with Sandi's YouTube and just watch some videos there. I love his 5-minute routines. I do them every single day. And then after that, we can start top-down, so thinking of an action plan. I've shared this many times. This is my personal CBT framework. When I'm going through something and I like can't I can't make myself feel better, what I do is I get pen and paper, always pen and paper, never on your laptop, and I write down number one, what am I worried about? And then I go number two, why am I worried about this? Three, what is the worst possible outcome? Four, what is my biggest fear that is going to happen here? And usually your biggest fear is actually going to be with safety. You might be thinking, "I'm really worried I'm going to lose my job." The reason I'm worried I'll lose my job is because I'm not going to have any money. My biggest fear is that I'm going to be homeless and I won't be able to pay my bills. So, the underlying fear is actually safety and stability. That is what is being threatened. And then I write, "What is actually the realistic situation here?" The realistic situation would be, "Even if I lost my job, I would actually never be homeless." And you write the why after that. Why will your biggest fear likely not happen?

[00:06:39]Because I have supportive friends, because I have savings, because I can get government support. You write everything possible that is going to show you that you are safe. And then you can write, "What is actually the reality of the situation?" The reality of the situation would be, "I actually don't know if I'm going to lose my job. This is just me overthinking and preparing for the worst possible outcome. And even if I did lose my job, I know that I have the skills to get a new job. I know that I can make anything happen with the internet. I have done it before, I will do it again. I know that I will never be homeless. My biggest fear will not happen because of XYZ thing." So, you see how we just restructured your entire fear right there. And whenever I do that, I feel so much better. This is a framework that you should adopt for every single fear you have. Rumination does nothing. Imagine you have that fear that you have that fear you're losing your job. You can't even be proactive about it because all you're doing is sitting there and worrying. But when you've put it onto paper, you have a realistic overview of everything that's going on in your brain, all of your fears, why you feel that way. Then you can make a game plan. So, you can go a step further. What is my action plan now? Well, I don't know that I will lose my job, but I will start job hunting just in case. Or maybe I will start to invest a little bit extra time into my side hustle. You can make a proactive plan now. But if you're just stuck in rumination, you cannot make a plan.

[00:08:01]Lastly, you must get into meditation. I will make a whole entire video on meditation and why it's the best thing you can do for yourself under the highest ROI tasks, but Killingsworth's and Gilbert's Harvard study with 2,250 participants found that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind because you're being controlled. And Judson Brewer's neuroimaging shows that experienced meditators have measurably reduced default mode network activity. So, flow states, focused breath work, and absorbing physical activity all quiet the DMN and reduces self-referential rumination. I'm actually someone who tends to ruminate a lot and I think aloud. And I'll find cuz I work for myself, when I'm alone, I will talk to myself all day long. This is what happens when I'm not meditating. And I will actually play out full scenarios in my living room without me even realizing. I'll be like cooking and I'll be like straight up arguing with someone thinking about an imaginary situation.

[00:08:58]When I'm meditating, guys, and I'm meditating consistently, I don't do any of this. I find it's quiet. It's actually peaceful. And when I'm not meditating, this monkey mind is taking over. The emotions are taking over.

[00:09:10]Let's play out a fake scenario right now so that we feel in control of our emotions. Nope, I'm meditating, calm all the time. All you need is 10 minutes when you wake up in the morning. And guys, I hope you enjoyed this video. I will see you next time on my second channel and my main channel, Eat Sleep and Be. Cheers.