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Yep, exactly right. I suspect that authors of posts like the OP are people who might have small blips on the productivity/overthinking radar but otherwise are generally productive. They run into a small problem, "don't think about it," and get back to work, and everything is again fine. (Of course, everything would have been fine no matter what they did.) They then write blog posts about how they can just stop thinking about issues. Then people with more serious difficulties read those posts, try them, and go, "huh?" I had these sorts of issues, too. The true answer to overthinking isn't to stop overthinking, of course. The true answer is to realize that overthinking is a symptom but not the cause, and so you need to find the root cause and treat that instead. Just imagine you have some meter in your mind somewhere, not sort of unlike an HP bar, that measures how you're doing mentally. There are some actions you can do to replenish this bar, and some that will deplete it. If you find yourself overthinking constantly, it's possible that that bar is quite depleted. However, remember, it's a symptom of a low bar. Telling it to go away won't actually go away. You can also do a self-inventory to see how you're doing on replenishing it by checking to see how much you overthought on a given day. Everyone has their own things that replenish and deplete from this reservoir. I personally like hanging out with friends and exercising, but your mileage may vary. Other people like meditating, or cooking, or walking. It's pretty crucial to remember, though, that your current source of anxiety is probably just a red herring. |
Everytime I have anxiety it's my brain focusing on one thing to avoid confronting the real problem. When I finally find the thing I am avoiding it's usually not that bad of an experience to deal with it directly. Some examples are "I should call person X to deliver news Y." Or "I need to make a big decision soon."