Why You Can’t Switch Off (and How to Finally Stop Overthinking)

If you’ve ever lain awake at 2 a.m. replaying a conversation in your head, or drafted an email twelve times because you’re terrified of saying the wrong thing, you already know what overthinking feels like.
It’s exhausting. It’s noisy. And it’s the fastest way to drain your energy, confidence and creativity.

How Overthinking Shows Up

Overthinking wears many disguises:

• Analysis paralysis – you can’t make a decision until you’ve considered every possible outcome.
• Perfectionism – you won’t start unless you can guarantee it’ll be flawless.
• Mental rehearsal – you script conversations before they happen and replay them afterwards.
• Catastrophising – you imagine the worst-case scenario in technicolour detail.
• Over-responsibility – you believe if something goes wrong, it’s automatically your fault.

The common denominator? You’re living in your head, not your life.

Why Overthinking Happens

Overthinking is your nervous system’s misguided attempt to keep you safe.
When the body perceives uncertainty, the mind kicks into problem-solving overdrive. That’s cortisol talking — your stress hormone preparing you for threat.

Most women I coach developed this pattern early on. Maybe you were praised for being “the responsible one” or learned that mistakes weren’t safe to make. So your mind decided: If I can think of everything that might go wrong, I can avoid pain.

But instead of preventing pain, it just prolongs it.
Overthinking becomes a form of control — a way to manage fear, rejection, and shame — yet it traps you in a feedback loop of doubt and self-criticism.

The Cost of Overthinking

When your mind is constantly scanning for danger, your body never gets to rest. Overthinking leads to:

• Decision fatigue and burnout
• Anxiety and disrupted sleep
• Creative stagnation (because fear kills flow)
• Strained relationships (when you misinterpret or assume)
• Lost time and opportunities (because you wait until it feels safe — it never does)

It’s not harmless rumination — it’s self-sabotage disguised as preparation.

How to Stop Overthinking (and What to Do Instead)

You can’t think your way out of overthinking. You have to work with the body, not against it.

1. Regulate first.
   Slow your breathing. Feel your feet. Bring your awareness back to your body.
   (HeartMath® coherence and HRV practices are brilliant for this — they retrain your nervous system to find calm even in uncertainty.)
2. Name the fear beneath the thought.
   “If I do this wrong, what am I afraid will happen?”
   Naming it turns an abstract worry into something you can work with.
3. Use the 5-Minute Rule.
   Give yourself five minutes to make a decision or take the next small action. Progress beats perfection.
4. Redirect the energy.
   Overthinking is active energy with nowhere to go. Move it — go for a walk, shake it out, journal, breathe.
5. Shift from control to curiosity.
   Instead of “What could go wrong?”, ask “What could I learn from this?” or “What would I do if I trusted myself?”
6. Integrate, don’t analyse.
   Coaching helps you integrate insight into your body so your nervous system learns that safety isn’t found in control — it’s found in self-trust.

The Bottom Line

Overthinking is a protective habit — not a personality trait.
Once you understand the physiology and emotion driving it, you can rewire it.
When you stop running mental simulations of everything that might go wrong, you finally make space for what can go right.

Ready to get out of your head and back into your life?

Book a 75-Minute Breakthrough Session with me to uncover and shift the core belief that keeps your mind in overdrive.
👉 Book your session here