How to Stop Overthinking: Understanding Why Your Mind Gets Stuck in a Loop

You know you're overthinking.

You've gone through the conversation several times. You've considered what might happen tomorrow. You've checked the decision again. You've tried telling yourself to stop.

And somehow your mind comes straight back to it.

One of the frustrating things about overthinking is that it can feel productive. Your mind may tell you that if you just think a little longer, you'll finally work something out. Sometimes you will. But sometimes thinking stops being problem-solving and becomes a loop.

The question then isn't simply:

“How do I stop thinking?”

A more useful question can be:

“What is all this thinking trying to do for me?”

Because sometimes overthinking is an attempt to create certainty, anticipate danger, avoid a mistake or protect us from a feeling we don't want to experience. Understanding that changes the way we respond to it.

Overthinking and problem-solving aren't the same thing

Useful thinking usually takes us somewhere. There's a problem, we consider it, make a decision or identify a next step, and eventually the thinking comes to an end. Overthinking tends to circle.

What if I've made the wrong decision? Why did they say that? Should I have replied differently? What if this happens? But what if something else happens?

The mind keeps producing questions without reaching a point where it feels satisfied.

Anna Runkle distinguishes productive thinking from rumination in her work on nervous system dysregulation and overthinking. A useful way to think about the difference is that productive thinking tends to lead somewhere, while rumination keeps looping and often leaves you more agitated rather than clearer.

A useful test is:

“After thinking about this for the last 20 minutes, do I have more clarity — or just more anxiety?”

If you have a decision, a plan or new information, you may be problem-solving. If you've essentially repeated the same thoughts with slightly different wording, you're probably in a loop.

And when that happens, doing more thinking isn't always the answer.

Sometimes the thought isn't the real problem

Psychiatrist Gabor Maté uses a useful distinction in his H.E.A.L. material. He asks people to separate what actually happened from the interpretation placed on what happened.

For example: someone doesn't reply to your message. The event is: they haven't replied yet.

But your mind might interpret it as: They're losing interest. I've annoyed them. I'm being rejected.

Those are not the event. They're possible meanings your mind has attached to it. Maté's exercise then asks people to look at the emotional reaction, the belief or assumption underneath it, and whether there might be other explanations for what happened.

That doesn't mean your interpretation is always wrong. Sometimes something genuinely is wrong.

The useful part is learning to notice the difference between:

That small separation can create some breathing room.

Practice 1: Separate the event from the story

What is the thinking trying to protect you from?

Once you identify the story, go one level deeper.

Suppose the thought is: What if I embarrass myself during the presentation? Ask: What am I actually afraid would happen? Perhaps: People will think I'm incompetent. And underneath that: If people think I'm incompetent, I'll feel that I'm not good enough.

Or perhaps you're repeatedly analysing a relationship: Why hasn't he replied? Underneath may be: I'm afraid I'm being rejected.

This is why overthinking isn't always really about thinking. Sometimes thinking is the mind's attempt to avoid uncertainty or prepare for an uncomfortable feeling.

Tim Fletcher uses a similar reflection after someone has been triggered: identify what you were afraid of, what your nervous system was pulling you towards, and what a more helpful response could look like.

Practice 2: Ask what's underneath

Before you reason with your mind, come back to your body

There is another reason why endlessly talking yourself out of a worry may not work. When we are highly activated, anxiety isn't only happening as thoughts. You may notice your jaw tightening, your breathing changing, your stomach turning, your heart beating faster or your whole body becoming restless.

Bessel van der Kolk's work places considerable emphasis on this body component. His workbook encourages people to notice thoughts as thoughts rather than automatically becoming absorbed in them, while also paying attention to present-moment safety and bodily experience. One of his grounding practices is particularly simple: notice the chair supporting your body, feel your feet on the floor, look around the environment and notice what is actually around you, then bring attention back to your breathing.

You aren't trying to convince yourself that everything in life is fine. You're reminding your nervous system:

“I am here, in this room, right now.”

Practice 3: Come back to the room

Give the worry a time instead of giving it the whole day

Trying to order your mind:

“Stop thinking about it.”

often doesn't work very well. There's another option. You can acknowledge the worry without allowing it to take over the next six hours.

For example: “I know I'm worried about this. It matters to me and I don't need to dismiss it. But I don't need to solve it right now. I'm going to come back to it at 7pm.”

This is similar to the CBT technique often called “worry time”, where you set aside a short period to think about worries rather than allowing them to interrupt the entire day.

Practice 4: Make an appointment with your worry

What about “What's the worst that could happen?”

This question can help — but I wouldn't stop there. If you're already anxious, repeatedly imagining increasingly terrible outcomes can simply give your mind more material to worry about.

Instead, turn the question into a coping exercise.

Practice 5: Turn the worst case into a coping plan

Write it down when your mind won't let it go

Sometimes the mind keeps repeating something because it's trying desperately not to forget it. Writing can give the thought somewhere else to live.

Anna Runkle's work includes a daily writing practice around fears and emotional overwhelm, with the aim of taking repetitive thoughts out of the mental loop and putting them somewhere concrete.

You don't need a complicated journal. Try: I'm worried that… and complete the sentence.

Then: The fear underneath that is…

Then: What I can do about this today is…

If there's nothing you can do today, write that too. Your brain doesn't have to keep rehearsing something you've already acknowledged and recorded.

You don't have to believe every thought — or fight every thought

There's an important middle ground between believing everything your mind says, and trying desperately to stop your mind thinking.

Marisa Peer's work places strong emphasis on noticing triggers, reactions, bodily responses and the thoughts that accompany them, as well as catching the thought before it develops into a larger emotional reaction.

The part I find most useful here is awareness. Notice the sentence.

I'm going to mess this up. They don't like me. I can't cope. Something bad is going to happen.

Then rather than immediately arguing with it, try:

“I'm noticing that my mind is telling me…”

That slight change can help you experience a thought as a mental event rather than a fact you must obey.

Sometimes understanding isn't enough

You can understand perfectly well that you're overthinking and still find yourself doing it. That's because patterns aren't necessarily maintained only by logic. They can also involve emotional associations, learned responses and bodily reactions that happen automatically.

That's one reason different approaches work for different people. For some people, CBT-style techniques such as challenging thoughts, problem-solving and scheduled worry time are particularly helpful. Other people find that they understand the pattern consciously but continue to feel the same automatic response.

That's where approaches such as hypnotherapy may offer another way of exploring the beliefs, associations and emotional responses underneath the conscious thought. In my sessions, we may work with what the mind is trying to protect you from, the beliefs underneath the worry, and how you would like to feel and respond instead.

The session is also not necessarily the end of the work. Depending on what we are working on, I can create a personalised audio recording for you to listen to after the session. The recording is based on your own goals, beliefs and the changes you want to strengthen.

For someone who struggles with anxiety or overthinking, that might include suggestions around feeling safer, trusting yourself more, allowing the mind and body to relax, tolerating uncertainty, releasing the need to control every outcome, and responding to situations with more calm and confidence.

The idea is not to force thoughts away. It is to repeatedly reinforce a different internal response so that the new way of thinking and feeling becomes more familiar over time.

You can read more about Hypnotherapy for Anxiety & Overthinking and how hypnotherapy and RTT work if you'd like to understand how I approach this work.

Start with one thing, not all five

If you're reading this while your mind is already overwhelmed, don't turn these practices into another task you have to do perfectly. Choose one.

If you're analysing another person's behaviour, try event versus interpretation. If your body feels highly activated, ground first. If the same worry keeps interrupting your entire day, try worry time. If you're catastrophising about something that genuinely could happen, build a coping plan. If thoughts are simply circulating endlessly, write them down.

The aim isn't to eliminate every worried thought. Worry is part of being human. The aim is to become better at recognising when thinking is helping you — and when your mind has started running the same loop again.

And perhaps the most useful question to remember is still:

“What is this thinking trying to do for me?”

Sometimes the answer tells you much more than telling yourself to stop.

If you would like some support with this

If anxiety or overthinking is taking up more space in your life than you would like, hypnotherapy can provide an opportunity to explore some of the beliefs and automatic responses underneath the pattern. I offer personalised online sessions, and where appropriate, a personal recording to support and reinforce the work after the session.

You can start with a free 15-minute discovery call where you can briefly tell me what's happening, ask any questions and see whether working together feels right.

This article is for general information and self-reflection. It is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric care, and Inner Change Therapy is not an emergency or crisis service.

Sources & further reading

• Gabor Maté — H.E.A.L. workbook and masterclass material on separating events from the interpretations we attach to them.
• Bessel van der Kolk — The Body Keeps the Score and related workbook material on the body's role in anxiety.
• NHS Every Mind Matters — CBT-based self-help techniques for managing worry, including “worry time”.
• NICE guidance — generalised anxiety disorder and panic disorder in adults, covering CBT-based approaches.