People who overthink can be paralyzed by their worries and may struggle to make decisions or take action. Overthinking can be caused by — and can contribute to — depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.
"Studies show that ruminating on stressful events can, over time, lead to anxiety and depression," warns Dr. Fowler. "From a mental health standpoint, anxiety can affect your ability to cope with everyday stressors, and depression results in sadness, loneliness and feelings of emptiness."
Overthinking can create an endless cycle of stress and worry, which can ultimately cause you to feel less prepared, motivated, and confident. It can also play a role in mental health issues like anxiety and depression, so it is important to find ways to break out of such destructive thought patterns.
It impacts your brain
Cortisol can damage and kill brain cells in the hippocampus. Chronic over thinking can also alter brain functions by changing its structure and connectivity.
Are you always waiting for disaster to strike or excessively worried about things such as health, money, family, work, or school? If so, you may have a type of anxiety disorder called generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). GAD can make daily life feel like a constant state of worry, fear, and dread.
Traumatic events in the past, stress experienced in the present, and high pressures or demands of life can also be the cause of overthinking in someone. “The impact of overthinking if it occurs for a long time is one of them is declining physical health.
Constant worrying and overthinking can often lead to issues with mental health and well-being. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, self-compassion, and asking for help from a healthcare professional can help alleviate the stress of overthinking.
While overthinking itself is not a mental illness, it is associated with conditions including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and substance use disorders. Rumination can be common in people who have chronic pain and chronic illness as well, taking the form of negative thoughts about that pain and healing from it.
Someone driven to worry or anxiety through thinking. worrier. worrywart. neurotic. fussbudget.
Anxiety and stress can affect virtually every body system. This includes your cardiovascular, endocrine, musculoskeletal, nervous, reproductive, and respiratory systems. In the digestive system, stress can cause: nausea, vomiting.
Overthinking and excessive worrying create feelings of distress and restlessness that may lead to anxiety or depression if left undealt with. Taking back control of your thoughts is the key to feeling peaceful again. Overthinkers are people who are buried in their own obsessive thoughts.
"When the body cannot handle emotional overload, it simply begins to shut down. And that is often manifested by a sense of extreme tiredness and fatigue," says Kalayjian.
Stress affects all systems of the body including the musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, nervous, and reproductive systems.
For some people, ruminating thoughts are a way to control anxiety. It may mean you're replaying life events in an attempt to make sure that next time, you're prepared and won't feel as anxious. Repeating entire conversations in your head is a type of rumination. It's how your mind attempts to self-soothe.
In addition, medications originally designed for depression, the SSRIs (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, Effexor, Cymbalta, and others), are also capable of lowering the underlying level of anxiety which takes a lot of steam out of this phenomenon.
The two types of overthinking are rumination (which involves rehashing past events) and worrying (or hyperfocusing on an anxious concern about the future).