It’s a fact. Your mind is a maker of thoughts, a connector of thoughts, and a creator of patterns. Your mind doesn’t stop thinking and thinking. Thinking is always happening, up and down, left and right. And overthinking is what busy minds do, many times!

Here is what you can do to handle overthinking:

Observing your overthinking thoughts is a skill that can be learned.

In a study conducted by Ruiz, Luciano, Florez, Suarez-Falcon & Cardona-Betancour (2020) on repetitive negative thinking, participants were taught defusion skills,  3 sessions of 60-minutes (1st session was 9-minutes), and 5 audio recordings of 30-minutes each between sessions.

While learning and practicing different defusion exercises, participants were developing their abilities to notice triggers for worry and rumination, take distance from those thoughts, and behave according to what was important to them (values-based actions).

Results of this intervention, after a 1 and 3-month follow-up showed a clinically significant decrease in the measurements of worry measured by the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and depression, anxiety, and stress measured by the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS). No adverse effects were observed.

The research on ACT for repetitive negative thinking (Ruiz et al., 2016a, 2018a, 2019; Dereix-Calonge et al., 2019; Salazar et al., 2020) continues to show the evidence for defusion skills – observing thoughts for what they are – and the benefits from them in the long-run.

The skill of observing your overthinking thoughts

Many easter philosophies, mindfulness-based therapies along with Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) have highlighted the advantages of learning to notice and observe uncomfortable thoughts without buying into them and without struggling to eliminate them. Within ACT, there is a distinction between fusion and defusion.

Fusion refers to those moments when we take our thoughts literally, as the absolute truth, get entangled with them, and “pushed around by them.” (Harris, 2009).

Defusion was a term coined by Steve Hayes, Ph.D., co-founder of ACT,  is the skill of observing and seeing our thoughts for what they are – content from our busy minds.

When practicing defusion you learn to see that thought is not a threat to you, a command you have to go along with, may or may not be true, and is more like letters put together or pictures that your mind comes up with.

When getting into overthinking mode, all the thinking troubles you.

How to practice observing your overthinking thoughts

There are many ways to practice defusion; here are four of my favorite ones that you can practice right away.

When noticing the beginning of an overthinking pattern, try these defusion skills:

Labeling and what’s my mind up to?

Ask yourself, “What’s my mind up to?”

Then answer yourself by labeling each thought as your mind presents it:

“Now my mind is having a worry thought.”
“And now my mind is having a doubtful thought.”
“And now my mind is having an uncertain thought.”
“And now my mind is having a criticizing thought.”
Continue in this way until you’ve labeled seven to ten thoughts.

Labeling is describing a thought as something your mind produces, rather than something you are or something you do. It’s a subtle distinction, but it lies at the heart of defusion.

Instead of using statements like “Now I’m overthinking” or “Now I’m worried about,” use the phrase “Now my mind is having a worry thought.; now my mind is having a doubtful thought;

You can also say, “my mind is having the urge to know …”

Thank you, mind

Every time your mind comes up with an unpleasant thought, literally say “thank you mind.”

Here are some examples:

What I said was embarrassing. “Thank you, mind.”
I’m a mess. “Thank you, mind.”
They’re laughing at me. “Thank you, mind.”
I’m anxious. “Thank you, mind.”
I’m worried. “Thank you, mind.”

Turning your hand

Each time you catch one of those overthinking patterns starting to show up, let go of it by turning your hand over as if you’re letting go of a small stone that you’ve been carrying.

Tell yourself, “there’s a [enter the type of thought … ],” as you turn a hand and let the thought fall away.

Card-carrying

Write your most bothersome thoughts that start overthinking patterns on a 3 by 5 index card and carry it in your pocket or purse. When your mind comes up with one of these thoughts, dismiss it by saying to yourself, “I’ve got that on the card.”

The power of practice defusion intentionally

Rather than automatically following the same overthinking patterns over and over, make a conscious effort to practice defusion in favor of finding new ways of thinking better and living better.

Does defusion really work?

Here is my report: I don’t go one day without having an occasion to practice defusion – judgments about my cooking abilities, internal questions about what’s wrong with me; the lack of time to do what I really care about doing, worrying about my looks, what-if thoughts about loneliness.

Defusion has become the antidote to hours of dwelling in my head.

Even the ten to fifteen minutes of watching my mind – Vipassana meditation – sets the tone for my maker of thoughts.

Overthinking thoughts slip by with far less friction.