What It Means to Be an Overthinker: About Overthinking and Analysis Paralysis

You are driving home from your cousin’s wedding. Your mother and your sister are sitting in the back seat speaking about what a wonderful time they had at the wedding. Now and then, they pop a question at you.

Did you speak with uncle Ravi?

Did you hear that aunt Mary is going to France next month?

You wish to part take in the conversation because you can’t silence the noises inside your brain.

It is getting louder and louder. And it finally subdued all other voices.

You are swimming through your thoughts.

You wonder if you appeared like a pervert when you smiled a couple of times at that bridesmaid.

You wonder if the choice of your suit was rather unimpressive among the better-dressed family members.

You wonder if the joke that you cracked with your new brother in law offended him.

You wonder if the opinion that you gave out about the local political crisis was lame and you sounded stupid.

You wonder why your maternal uncle still calls you "little marshmallow". You wonder why he never addresses any of your cousins with their pet names. You wonder if he even takes you seriously.

You think and you think...

Thoughts spiral round and round it in your head

And

In between

You pause and wonder

“Wait, am I overthinking? Am I an overthinker? Should I be worried about my habit of overthinking?

The Creative Exchange/Unsplash

Overthinking and Analysis Paralysis

Everyone thinks and overthinks at times. However, some people just can’t stop thinking.

Overthinking usually involves rumination of future and past events. This is not a type of thinking that bring out solutions or self-knowledge. This is the one that causes deterioration of mental health. When mental health deteriorates, it becomes more and more tempting to overthink. And in the end, it continues as a cycle.

Sometimes, the more you think about a problem, the worse you feel and it can lead to something called analysis paralysis. What is analysis paralysis? Analysis paralysis is a situation when someone over thinks about a situation or a problem at hand and this overthinking makes him paralyzed or unable to make a sound decision.

The Aesop story “The Cat and the Fox” is a perfect example that demonstrates the effects of analysis paralysis. In the story, a fox and a cat are travelling together. As they begin the journey, both of them started to boast about tricks they knew to tackle any kind of dangerous situation. The fox claimed to know multiple tricks but the cat said that she knew just one efficient trick.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, they heard the sound of hunters. Immediately, the cat used the one trick she knew and climbed a nearby tree. However, the fox didn’t know which escape plan to implement out of tens of tricks he knew. And in the end, the hunter caught the ‘paralysed’ fox and the cat tactfully escaped.

Just like the fox, people who tend to get ‘analysis paralysis’ feel paralyzed by the possibilities and options that exist in front of them. The overthinkers find the need to carefully analyse and think about even the most trivial decisions in life. For such people, deciding what to wear could take hours of deliberation; the decision of whether or not to buy a piece of furniture requires a sleepless night of careful analysis on the matter.

Ok, I’m an Overthinker! How Do I Stop It?

Now coming to the question that most overthinkers ask, “how do I do stop my habit of overthinking? Well, the unpleasant truth is, there is no panacea for the problem. However, you can manage the issue effectively. The basic solution recommended by many professionals is to learn to recognize when you are overthinking and keep yourself from falling further into it by distracting yourself with an activity such as going for a run, talking to someone etc. If the problem is much more serious and you can’t break free from overthinking, consider getting professional help.

I would like to leave you with a quote that all levels of thinkers need to hear. This is a quote that is often attributed to Winston Churchill “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”

References

https://community.uservoice.com/blog/analysis-paralysis-what-it-is-and-how-to-avoid-it/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2020/04/20/10-signs-youre-overthinking-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=4dc64f272bb8