Help! I Can't Stop Overthinking! Any advice?

Yeah I've suffered from this too a lot. Still have a tendency for this, but it has gotten better. You need to control your thoughts. Practice blocking thoughts out when you are completely alone. When a certain thought occurs, just say to yourself "stop thinking about that" and move your thoughts to something else. Try to be rational when thinking. Okay there's kids on the school bus. "What if they try to throw shit at me?". "Why would they do that?" . "And if for whatever reason they do that, then I will react accordingly" . Or you can just react to your irrational thought with confidence/humour. "What if they throw shit at me?" . "So be it, I don't care" . Or "Then I'll yell at them for doing that" . Everyone gets irrational thoughts. You need to control them and keep them out of your head. Also confidence plays a big role in this. You shouldn't be afraid of anything happening. If you are afraid, then there are some insecurity issues to be dealt with. Would you be scared to yell at the kids on the bus? Why? You don't want to be afraid of anything this petty.

 

Social anxiety = Excessively cautious = Overly careful with doing the perfect thing to get a perfect result = Too much concern for possible failure / rejection / pain / problems / negative experiences.

All this negative thinking is a way for you to maintain control. You believe that you can think your way out of ever experiencing negative things in life. You believe that you can predict what's going to happen so that you can prepare yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally to handle all the uncertainties of life and not feel as much pain. If something bad does happen, you maintain control by saying "see, I knew this would happen" and you reinforce your habit of overthinking because you think it's actually helping you.

Fantasizing about other people = It's a manifestation of your insecurities. You don't believe that you can actually have a real experience with that person. So instead of actually trying something in reality, you escape into a fantasy world where you have complete control of what happens. Same thing with porn. Reality has possibilities of both positive and negative experiences. Porn is a way to escape into a world where you get the positive without taking any risks of pain, problems, and negative experiences. That's why porn / fantasizing is so addictive, but eventually people realize that it's empty, depressing, and they want something real.

So it all boils down to you being afraid of uncertainty and you cope with it by trying to maintain control with your excessive thinking / fantasizing.

Not everything works out in life. Not everyone will be interested in you. Life can be unideal / awkward / difficult / uncertain / uncomfortable / chaotic. It can be full of rejection, mistakes, failure, and negative experiences. You can't control life. Unless you do or say very little. Unless you hide yourself from the world. Unless you limit your existence and participation in this world to the point where you're not living very much at all.

The more you escape reality the harder it will be for you to learn how to thrive in reality. You get better at escapism while your problems in reality become bigger and bigger to the point where you never want to face it. What's comfortable now (escapism / porn / fantasizing) becomes uncomfortable later on (unable to function or socialize). What's uncomfortable now (learning to face things that doesn't go your way) becomes comfortable later on (freedom from the prison of your own mind + having real experiences with real people).

You have to learn to let go of control. Because you really aren't in control of much. You can die at any moment. Your health / finances / materialism / relationships can all go away in an instant. Accidents / crime / diseases / change happens. You don't control anything. You control less by overthinking than you would if you just let go of control.

 

Stop.
That simple. Stop. Start practicing mindfullness. If you find yourself worrying about something or second guessing stop and focus on your surroundings, even if they are 'boring'.

 

one thing that helped me a bit, is writing down some of the things I think about too much. I think if a certain thought comes up all the time and I cant get it out of your head, it is oftentimes because I feel like the thought isnt finnished, I have t found a proper solution to a problem. Writing the thought down, helps to structure them, helps to tie up loose ends, or just find out that what I think is complete nonsense, just mental noise without any real meaning.

 

I dont know, but doing NoFap makes me stop overthinking. A week clean do the trick to me.

 

Great..mind you I didn't say it was easy! just simple
Seriously look up mindfulness tons of artciles on it but 'tuning in' to the present is the best thing you can do. Obviously one has to plan - maybe set aside time but if you find your mind idling with what ifs or worries, just tune into the present.