Overthinking: why thoughts go round in circles and how to step out

You sent a message and now you are reading it in your head for the twelfth time. Or you keep returning in your mind to a conversation from three days ago, assembling what you should have said. Or you are standing in front of a decision — a job, a move, a relationship — and you turn it over for so long that you know everything about it and have decided nothing. And then in bed in the evening, the whole thing once more, in the director’s cut.

Colloquially this is called overthinking; psychology has more precise names for it and — more importantly — precise reasons why thoughts go round in circles even though the spinning solves nothing. In this piece we will take apart what rumination actually is, how it differs from useful thinking, why your brain is convinced that ruminating is doing something clever, and — most importantly — where the exits from the circle are.

Rumination is not thinking — it is spinning on the spot

First a distinction that changes the view. Thinking and ruminating look similar at first glance — both take place in the head, both are occupied with a problem. But thinking moves: from a question towards options, from options towards a decision, from a decision towards an action. Rumination spins: the same questions, the same scenes, the same “what if” and “why” — with no new answer and no next step.

The psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, who devoted her career to rumination, defined it as a repetitive, passive focus on one’s own distress, its causes and its consequences — “why do I feel this way”, “what is wrong with me”, “what does all this mean” — with no movement towards a solution. Her research showed two things: that rumination lengthens and deepens depressive states, and that women are noticeably more inclined to it — which on her account also shapes the difference in the prevalence of depression between the sexes.

It helps to distinguish three processes that like to dress up in the same costume:

• Rumination looks back: it chews over the past, mistakes, what was missed. Its melody is “why” — why did I say that, why is this happening to me, why am I like this.
• Worry looks forward: it spins future scenarios. Its melody is “what if” — what if I am late, what if I fall ill, what if it does not work out.
• Problem solving looks at the next step: it defines what is within my power, chooses an action and carries it out — even if it is small and even if it is not perfect.

In a large review (2008) the researcher Edward Watkins showed that repetitive thoughts are in themselves neither good nor bad — what decides is their style. Abstract, evaluative spinning (“why am I like this”) deepens distress; concrete, process-focused thinking (“what exactly happened and what can I do differently next time”) reduces it. The same engine, a different gear.

Why the brain is convinced that rumination helps

If rumination is so fruitless, why do we do it — and most persistently of all precisely when we are hurting most? Because from the inside it does not feel like spinning. It feels like work.

Rumination feeds on beliefs that look perfectly reasonable. The psychologist Adrian Wells, the author of metacognitive therapy, calls them positive metacognitive beliefs — beliefs about the usefulness of one’s own thinking: “If I turn it over for long enough, I will understand.” “If I think through every scenario in advance, nothing can surprise me.” “Worrying means I care and that I am responsible.” The mind interprets its own spinning as preparation, analysis, conscientiousness — and therefore rewards it with the feeling that we are doing something.

The trick is that rumination really does deliver a small immediate reward: as long as I am analysing, I do not have to decide; as long as I am spinning in my head, I do not have to expose myself in the world. Rumination is mental avoidance dressed up as diligence. It shields us from the risk, the uncertainty and the feelings an action would bring — and leaves us with the sense that we are not being passive. That is why it is so stubborn: it punishes us slowly and rewards us at once.

There is one more sleight of hand. Because rumination happens in language — in words, not in images and the body — it keeps feelings at a safe distance while never actually processing them. This too is why the circle has no natural end: it does not find a solution because it is not looking for one. It is looking for certainty. And there is no certainty to be had about a past that is gone and a future that has not arrived.

What the spinning does to mood — and to a night’s sleep

The cost of rumination has been well measured. In longitudinal studies, Nolen-Hoeksema and her colleagues showed that rumination predicts the onset and persistence of depressive episodes, increases anxiety and worsens problem solving: people in a ruminative state come up with fewer good solutions to their problems, not more — even though they are convinced they are looking for them. The spinning also distorts memory: in a ruminative mood the brain more readily retrieves negative memories, and those give the spinning fresh fuel. The circle feeds itself.

The night is a chapter of its own. Bed is ideal terrain for rumination: it is quiet, the dark cannot be drowned out with errands, the body is still and the mind gets a stage. In her cognitive model of insomnia the psychologist Allison Harvey showed that it is precisely mental activity before sleep — worrying, planning, analysing the day — that is one of the central engines of poor sleep; an aroused mind keeps the body on standby, and poorer sleep lowers mood and resilience the next day, which supplies new material for rumination. If you recognise yourself in this nocturnal part of the circle, read my piece on what happens to the nervous system in insomnia — the mechanism is the same and the way out is related.

But it is also important to say this: rumination is not a character flaw. It is a habit of mind — an entrenched pathway, often paved by years of insecurity, a critical environment, or experiences where you had to stay a step ahead at all times. And like any habit, this one can be interrupted — not by the command “stop thinking” (that is at best an invitation to the white bear), but by deliberately stepping onto another path.

Exit points: where you can step out of the circle

The good news: the circle of rumination has several doors. You do not have to find the perfect one — it is enough to use whichever is nearest to you at the time.

• Move your body, not your thoughts. The most reliable way out of your head is through the body and through action. Behavioural activation — the simple principle of “action first, mood follows” — is among the most effective approaches in depression research at all. You do not need grand gestures: a walk, a phone call, ten minutes of tidying, one concrete task with a beginning and an end. A mind that is working stops spinning.
• Give your worries an appointment. The technique of postponed rumination: when the mind starts up, you say “not now — at six you have your fifteen minutes”. It sounds simple, but research shows that postponement works because it does not suppress the thought (that would strengthen it) but reschedules it. I described the exact procedure in my piece on the worry postponement exercise.
• Shift from “why” to “what now”. Watkins’s distinction in practice: replace the question “why is this happening to me” with “what is one small step I can take today”. If there is no step — if the thing is not within your power — that is an answer too: then it is not a problem to be solved, but a feeling to be accepted.
• Return your attention to the body. Rumination lives in language; the body is always in the present. Three slow out-breaths, feet on the floor, five things you can see, four you can hear. This is not about getting rid of thoughts, but about moving the spotlight — and the spotlight is the only thing you really control.
• Write, don’t spin. Ten minutes of writing on paper forces thoughts into an order that circling does not have: sentence by sentence, with a beginning and an end. Often it becomes clear on the page that the problem has three sentences of content and two hours of packaging.

None of these doors works every time and none works perfectly straight away. What counts is the repetition: every time you break the circle — even if only after half an hour — you teach your brain that spinning is not the only route.

The view from a distance: talk to yourself as you would to a friend

There is one more exit that deserves a chapter of its own, because it is so simple and so well researched: a change of perspective. The psychologist Ethan Kross and his colleagues studied what happens when people think about their distress from a distance — as an observer of the scene rather than an actor in the middle of it — or when they use their own name and the third person in their inner speech (“Why did that hit Ana so hard?” instead of “Why did that hit me so hard?”). The results: less emotional arousal, less subsequent rumination and a more constructive way of making sense of the event — all for an exceptionally small effort.

The explanation is elegant: rumination is immersion. You spin because you are watching the scene from the inside, from the front row, where everything is large and everything is personal. Even a small step back — in time (“how will I see this in five years?”), in space (the scene as if on a cinema screen) or in language (your own name instead of “I”) — switches on the part of the mind that knows how to give advice. You know what a good adviser you are when it is a friend who has the problem: calm, clear, compassionate. That same wisdom is available to you too — you only have to change chairs.

A practical version for the end of the day: write down the question you keep spinning on, and answer it as you would answer your best friend with the same problem. It almost always turns out that the answer has been there all along — it just could not be heard from the inside.

Perfectionism: when a decision is not allowed to be wrong

A particular form of rumination is decision paralysis — an endless weighing of options that never arrives at a choice. Underneath it there is almost always perfectionism: the belief that there is an objectively correct choice, and that any other one would amount to a personal defeat.

The psychologist Barry Schwartz and his colleagues demonstrated an interesting difference between two decision-making styles: maximisers look for the best possible choice and review every option, while satisficers look for good enough and stop at the first option that meets their criteria. The finding gives one pause: maximisers do objectively often choose better — but they are less satisfied with their choices, regret them more and compare themselves more. The price of searching for the perfect is contentment with what you chose.

From this follows a surprisingly practical rule: in most of life’s decisions there is no correct choice that could be calculated in advance — there is only the choice you then stand behind and make work. A decision often becomes the right one not through analysis but through commitment. And ruminating after a decision (“did I choose right?”) is the same circle in a new costume: there too, the way out is through action, not through one more analysis.

When rumination is a messenger: the view from the therapy room

Finally, a layer that techniques alone do not reach. In my work with people I notice that chronic rumination is often not merely a habit of mind but a guard: as long as I am analysing, I have a sense of control; as long as I circle the details, I do not have to meet the larger feeling underneath them — the sadness, the anger, the fear of rejection, the question that would actually change something. The mind runs small circles so that it does not have to take one big step.

That is why the most important question about rumination is sometimes: what is this spinning protecting me from? What would I feel if it stopped? In therapy it often emerges that behind the endless analysis of one message stands an old fear of not being enough; behind the eternal weighing of decisions, the experience that mistakes were once dearly paid for. When that lower layer is given room and words, rumination often loses its job — there is nothing left for it to guard. If you are interested in how to relate differently to individual thoughts in the first place, read my piece on why a thought is not a fact; and if you feel your circles have been spinning for too long, get in touch — two people think better than one mind going round in a loop.

And just this for tonight: if you catch yourself mid-spin in bed again, do not be angry with yourself. Say “ah, the circle” — and take a single out-breath, longer than the in-breath. It is not yet the way out. But it is the handle on the door.

I have also published a short post on Instagram about how overthinking is not problem solving:

Premlevanje se preobleče v reševanje problemov — a rešitve ne išče. Išče gotovost.