Overthinking Since 1980: How to Survive Your Own Brain

Let me paint you a picture. It's 2:47am. You are lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, which you now know has a small crack in the corner that you've never noticed before but will now think about every single night until you die. Your body is tired. Your eyes are heavy. But your brain? Your brain has decided that now—right now, this exact moment—is the perfect time to replay a conversation you had with a colleague in 2007. Word for word. With director's commentary. And alternative endings.

"Did I say the wrong thing? I definitely said the wrong thing. She looked at me strangely. Or did she? Maybe she was just thinking about something else. But what if she wasn't? What if she's remembered it all this time and secretly hates me? Should I message her? No, that's weird. It's been nearly twenty years. That's definitely weird. But what if—"

And so it continues. The spiral. The loop. The mental hamster wheel that someone has greased with existential dread and set to maximum speed.

Overthinking. It's free. It's available 24/7. No subscription required, though if it were a streaming service it would absolutely be the one you forget to cancel and end up paying £9.99 a month for, forever. It's the thing your brain insists on doing while you're trying to sleep, eat, work, or just exist quietly without internally narrating every possible worst-case scenario.

I've been overthinking since approximately 1980. That's when I arrived on this planet, and I'm fairly sure I came out of the womb already worrying about whether I'd made a good first impression on the midwife. Four decades later, I've learned a few things about how to live with a brain that never shuts up. Not how to stop it—I'm not a miracle worker—but how to turn the volume down. How to interrupt the spiral. How to occasionally get some sleep.

Let's talk about it.

The Greatest Hits of the Overthinking Repertoire

Overthinking has a playlist. A rotation of classics that it returns to again and again, like a wedding DJ who only knows three songs and plays them on a loop until everyone wants to scream.

See if any of these sound familiar.

"Did I Say the Wrong Thing?"

This one's a banger. It can be triggered by anything. A conversation that ended three seconds ago. A conversation that ended three decades ago. A text message you sent that hasn't received a reply yet. A text message you sent that has received a reply but the reply was "okay" and now you're convinced the person hates you because "okay" is just "I'm furious but I'm being polite" in disguise.

Your brain will replay the moment. Analyse the tone. The facial expressions. The exact wording. It will present alternative scripts. Things you could have said. Things you should have said. Things you definitely shouldn't have said but did, and now you've ruined everything forever.

Spoiler: The other person has almost certainly forgotten the conversation entirely. They're not lying awake thinking about it. They're asleep. They're fine. You're the only one running the replay.

"What If...?"

Ah, the classic. The genre-defining hit. "What if" is the overthinker's signature move. It starts innocently enough—"What if it rains later?"—and then escalates with alarming speed.

"What if I lose my job?"
"What if something happens to someone I love?"
"What if I get ill?"
"What if I've made all the wrong choices and my entire life is a mistake and it's too late to fix anything?"

Your brain presents these questions as if they're helpful. As if worrying about them now will somehow prevent them from happening later. It won't. It just means you suffer twice—once in imagination, and then again if the thing actually happens. Which it probably won't. But your brain doesn't care about probability. Your brain cares about possibility. And possibility is infinite.

"I Should Have Done More Yesterday."

This one creeps in around 4pm on a Sunday. Or 10am on a Tuesday. Or literally any time you sit still for more than thirty seconds.

"I should have been more productive."
"I should have done the laundry."
"I should have replied to those emails."
"I should have been a better friend/partner/parent/person."

It's the voice of perpetual inadequacy. The sense that whatever you did, it wasn't enough. Whatever you achieved, you could have achieved more. You rest, and your brain immediately starts itemising all the things you could be doing instead of resting, which defeats the entire point of resting and leaves you more tired than when you started.

It's exhausting. And yet, we do it. Day after day. Year after year. Since 1980, in my case.

Writing It Down: The Brain Dump Method

Here's something I've learned, after decades of letting thoughts swirl around in my head like washing in a machine that never finishes its cycle: writing helps.

I know. It sounds too simple. It sounds like something a wellness influencer would say on a grid post with a photo of a pristine journal and a matcha latte. But hear me out.

Thoughts are slippery. When they're in your head, they feel enormous. Overwhelming. You can't see the edges of them. You can't tell which ones are real concerns and which ones are just mental static dressed up as emergencies.

Writing them down changes that. It moves the thought from inside your head to outside your head. It gives it shape. Limits. You can look at it and think, "Oh. That's what I'm worried about. That's... actually quite small, when I see it written down."

Journaling prompts can help if you're staring at a blank page feeling ridiculous. Try these:

• What's actually bothering me right now? (Not the surface thing. The thing underneath.)
• What's the worst that could happen? And if it did, what would I do?
• What's one thing I can control in this situation?
• What would I tell a friend who was worrying about this?

Thought logs are another option. More structured. You write down the triggering situation, the automatic thought, the emotion it caused, and then a more balanced alternative thought. It feels a bit like homework, but it works. It forces your brain to engage the rational bit—the bit that knows you're probably not going to die because you sent an email with a typo in it.

And if you don't want to journal? If the thought of keeping a diary makes you want to set something on fire? Just scribble on a scrap of paper and throw it away. The point isn't to create a beautiful record of your inner life. The point is to get the thoughts out. Let them live somewhere else for a while.

Mindfulness: Yes, Even for Chaotic Brains

I used to roll my eyes at mindfulness. Hard. Like, properly dramatic eye-roll. The kind that would give me a headache.

Because the image of mindfulness—the one sold to us by apps and Instagram—is someone sitting cross-legged on a cushion, eyes closed, face serene, mind completely empty. And my mind has never been empty. Not once. Not for a single second since 1980. The idea of "clearing my thoughts" is about as realistic as the idea of sprouting wings and flying to the moon.

But here's what I've learned: that's not what mindfulness actually is.

Mindfulness isn't about having an empty mind. It's about noticing what's in your mind without getting swept away by it. It's about watching your thoughts like you'd watch clouds passing overhead. "Oh, there's a worry cloud. There's a 'did I leave the oven on' cloud. There's a 'that thing I said in 2007' cloud." You see them. You acknowledge them. You don't chase them.

And crucially—you can start small. Tiny. Microscopic, even.

One minute. Just one. Sit somewhere quiet(ish). Close your eyes or don't. Notice your breath. Not changing it. Just noticing. Your mind will wander. That's fine. That's what minds do. When you notice it's wandered, gently bring it back to the breath. That's the whole practice. The noticing and the returning. Not the staying perfectly focused.

Two minutes. Same thing. Just a bit longer.

You don't need an app. You don't need a cushion. You don't need to be serene. You can do it while waiting for the kettle to boil. You can do it sitting in the car before you go into the supermarket. You can do it lying in bed at 2:47am when your brain is running the 2007 conversation again.

It won't stop the thoughts. But it might—might—give you a tiny bit of space between you and the thoughts. A little breathing room. And sometimes that's enough.

Scheduled Worry Time: The Weird Trick That Actually Works

This one sounds absurd. I know it does. The first time someone suggested it to me, I laughed. Out loud. Possibly with a snort.

"Scheduled worry time." Like I can just tell my anxiety to clock in at 3pm and clock out at 3:10pm. Like my brain respects boundaries and working hours.

But here's the thing: it works. Not perfectly. Not every time. But enough that it's worth trying.

How it works:

Pick a time. Same time every day if possible. Mid-afternoon works well—far enough from bedtime that it won't keep you up, far enough from morning that you've got some mental energy. Set a timer for 10 minutes. No more. (You can do 5 if 10 feels daunting.)

During those 10 minutes, you are allowed to worry. Encouraged, even. Go wild. Write down every single thing that's bothering you. Every "what if." Every "I should have." Every "did I say the wrong thing?" Let it all out. Be as catastrophic as you like. The world is ending. Everything is terrible. You're definitely going to be fired and also everyone secretly hates you. Write it all down.

When the timer goes off, you stop. Mid-sentence if necessary. You put the worries away. Physically, if you can—close the notebook, put it in a drawer, walk away.

Why it helps:

Your brain learns that there's a designated time for worrying. When a worry pops up at 11am, you can say, "Not now. We'll deal with this at 3pm." And weirdly, sometimes that's enough. The worry feels heard. It knows it's on the agenda. It doesn't need to scream at you constantly to get your attention.

It also helps you see your worries more clearly. When you look back at a week's worth of worry logs, you'll notice patterns. The same themes coming up again and again. And you'll also notice how many of the things you worried about... didn't happen. Or happened and weren't as bad as you'd imagined. Or happened and you dealt with them and moved on.

It's not a cure. But it's a container. And for an overthinking brain, a container is a gift.

Takeaways: Gold Medals and Gentle Reminders

Overthinking Is a Survival Skill Gone Rogue

Here's the thing I try to remember when I'm three hours deep into a spiral about an email subject line: overthinking isn't a character flaw. It's not evidence that I'm broken or weak or failing at being a functional human.

It's a survival skill. Way back when, being able to anticipate danger—to think through possible threats and plan for them—kept our ancestors alive. "What if there's a predator behind that rock?" was a useful thought. It kept you alert. It kept you safe.

The problem is, there's no predator behind the rock anymore. There's just an email. A text message. A social situation. A life decision. But your brain doesn't know the difference. It's still running the same ancient software, scanning for threats, trying to keep you alive.

Overthinking is just your brain being too good at its job. A survival skill that's been left on, running in the background, draining the battery.

You're not broken. You're just running an outdated operating system on modern hardware. It's annoying. But it's not your fault.

The Tip: Schedule Your Worries

I've said it already, but I'll say it again because it's genuinely helpful: 10 minutes. Same time every day. Write it all down. Then stop.

It feels silly. Do it anyway. Give it a week. See if anything shifts.

The Humour: If Overthinking Were an Olympic Sport...

If overthinking were an Olympic sport, we'd all have gold medals. Not just one. Multiple. Across various categories.

Gold in "Catastrophic Scenarios, 3am Edition."
Gold in "Replaying Conversations from a Decade Ago."
Gold in "Finding Hidden Meanings in Perfectly Innocent Text Messages."
Gold in "Lying Awake Worrying About Lying Awake Worrying."

We'd be national heroes. There'd be sponsorship deals. "This gold medal brought to you by overthinking—the sport that never stops, even when you desperately want it to."

Sadly, it's not an Olympic sport. There's no podium. No medal ceremony. No national anthem for the country of "People Who Can't Switch Off Their Brains."

But there is this: a community of us. Millions of us. All lying awake at 2:47am, staring at the same ceiling crack, running the same mental loops. You're not alone in this. You've never been alone in this.

And tomorrow morning, the sun will come up. You'll make a cup of tea. You'll get through the day. And maybe—just maybe—you'll schedule 10 minutes to let your brain do its thing, so it doesn't have to do it all night long.

Anxiously Ever After is written by me, Jennie, a 50-something-year-old woman with lifelong anxiety, diagnosed GAD, and a brain that has been overthinking since approximately 1980. I write about panic, neurodivergence, and the general chaos of being human with warmth, honesty, and as much humour as I can locate at any given moment.