Is overthinking a mental illness? No, overthinking isn't a recognized mental health condition, but it can be a symptom of depression or anxiety. Overthinking is commonly associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), says Duke. GAD is characterized by the tendency to worry excessively about several things.
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.
Fear is one of the most common causes of overthinking. When people are afraid, they tend to ruminate on their thoughts and become fixated on worst-case scenarios. This can lead to a cycle of negative thinking and can make it difficult to focus on positive outcomes.
Hyper-Rationality is a trauma response and coping strategy. Overthinking, over-analyzing, and over-rationalizing are coping strategies that we learned early on to help us make sense of an unpredictable environment that at some point made us feel unsafe.
Overthinking can be an all-natural process, it can also be the result if the creative and overly active ADHD brain. While most believe overthinking to be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it' actually relates more to ADHD.
Overthinking is when your thoughts and worries circle in an endless loop. Instead of preparing you for next steps, overthinking usually leads to inaction because it causes you to become overwhelmed by fear. Overthinking can be an early indicator or symptom of depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions.
Most experts agree that certain anxiety disorders, which are often linked to overthinking, have a genetic component, but are also influenced by environment. You may be an overthinker because you inherited it genetically – or because you were raised by someone who created an environment of anxiety or stress.
"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."
Activities like meditation, reading and taking a walk can help keep your stress levels down. “It's best to be proactive and build these activities into your routine,” says Duke. “They can reduce your baseline level of anxiety and make you less likely to overthink.”
Is overthinking a mental illness? No, overthinking isn't a recognized mental health condition, but it can be a symptom of depression or anxiety. Overthinking is commonly associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), says Duke. GAD is characterized by the tendency to worry excessively about several things.
You think more than you do (spending so much time thinking of how to do something, you end up not doing it at all.) You get excited when you find a solution to your thoughts and then jump to the next problem and repeat the cycle. You spend more time preparing than accomplishing particular tasks.
Overthinking strikes all of us at some point, but if it goes unchecked and unresolved, overthinking can certainly morph healthy relationships into toxic relationships. If you fall victim to your thoughts and allow them to go too far, they can end up driving a wedge of distrust between you and other people in your life.
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.
A study reported in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease has confirmed that women overthink more than men do, due to their brains having more activity.
It's a mental habit that can be broken. You can train your brain to look at life from a different perspective. To overcome overthinking, Pittman recommends you replace the thought. “Telling yourself to not to have a certain thought is not the way to not have the thought,” she says.”You need to replace the thought.”
Often overthinking can be the result of feeling strong emotions of fear, panic, anger, excessive worry, etc. Identifying and challenging these feelings and thoughts may be an effective place to start. Two of these effective skills are identifying emotions and checking the facts.
For some individuals, talking to a licensed psychologist or other mental health professionals can be very helpful in successfully managing their negative thoughts. So, yes therapist can be a great help to reduce overthinking.
Research shows that overreacting, constantly worrying, and living in a state of perpetual anxiety can reduce life expectancy.
Thinking too much can take years off your life, seriously. It's a curse that many of us can't seem to break, but, it turns out that overthinking is actually really bad for your health. A study conducted at Harvard Medical School found that excessive brain activity could lead to a shorter life.
ADHD medication can help children and adults with ADHD approach their challenges and symptoms with more ease, one of which may be ruminating thoughts. So, medication for ADHD may aid with negative thought patterns, and help you get things back on track.