Some people are under-thinkers, meaning that they don’t think about or consider something at all before they do it. Then if something unfortunate happens as a result of it, they don’t give it much thought then either.

Then there are the thinkers, meaning, yes they think about and mull over something before they undertake it and then if something unfortunate happens as a result of their decision or action, they worry for a little while and then move on when they realise what’s done is done. But then there are the overthinkers.

They overthink every little detail of something they plan to do. They overthink and then they overthink some more until they are satisfied that what they plan to do is the right thing to do. Now whether or not they are right is a different matter altogether because no one can know for sure what will happen in the future as a result of their decisions or actions.

Now these people are obviously doing the right thing by thinking very carefully about something before embarking upon it. As I said, no one can know for certain the outcome of any action and that’s when the over-thinker becomes OCD. Some people might argue that overthinking is not a bad thing and whilst it might not be in some circumstances, overthinking becomes an issue when the overthinking becomes obsessive.

Those who overthink, do so with respect to every little aspect of their lives, whether it’s large or small.

They think and think and think until it takes over their lives. The event could have happened last week, last year or even twenty or forty years ago.

What is more, they don’t overthink about the good times they had but about the bad stuff that happened to them in their lives. As a result they become depressed and often inconsolable. They don’t sleep well, eat well, or even live normally when they’re awake. They have classic symptoms of depression and anxiety which are often caused by overthinking, or constantly thinking, about a topic or even several topics. Overthinking, or rumination as experts call it, needs to be broken and researchers believe they’ve discovered a tool that works to break that over-thinking cycle. Experts believe that it is the brain’s chemistry that is causing some people to be obsessive thinkers and have developed a therapeutic tool to break the overthinking cycle. Now researchers say that most of their subjects were in their teens and early 20s. But I’m surprised they didn’t include older people who probably have had more negative things happen to them in their lives and, therefore, are most likely to ruminate the most.

But not everyone can be part of this therapy and I’m sure we all know someone who is a ruminator. Rumination can ruin someone’s normal existence and no matter how much family members can try and distract the person from dwelling on past events over and over again, it just doesn’t work. The cycle can never be broken even if family members try to explain that the past has passed and the present is not only now but better. Even distracting someone by giving them other good things to think about or taking them out does not work for longer. I can tell you that taking that person out makes no difference to the outlook in that person’s mind. They still ruminate and ruminate and ruminate even when they’re out.  

In fact, the other danger with overthinking is that sometimes the thinking can be skewed. The person imagines things that never happened but in their ‘memories’ those things did. That makes treatment of the over-thinker doubly difficult, almost impossible to deal with. Now, I used the phrase ‘treatment’ thereby making overthinking sound like a mental health issue. It is and it isn’t. It only becomes a mental health issue when the quality of life of the over-thinker, and those around him or her, are adversely affected. I strongly believe that it is then that external help should be sought. Unfortunately, that is not so easily done. The chances are that the over-thinker thinks that they are fine and will not be so willing to agree to ‘talking’ to someone to break that rumination cycle.

Birjees Hussain