Overthinking: Why It Happens and How to Stop

Overthinking means going over the same thoughts again and again without getting anywhere: replaying what happened, or running through everything that could go wrong. It isn't a diagnosis, and most people do it sometimes. It becomes a problem when it eats up hours, wrecks your sleep or comes with low mood or constant worry. Practical techniques can help, and therapy such as CBT has good evidence when they aren't enough.

What overthinking is

Psychologists call it repetitive negative thinking, and it comes in two main forms:

• Rumination looks back. It circles what went wrong and asks "why?": why did I say that, why does this always happen to me.
• Worry looks ahead. It runs through "what if?": what if I fail, what if they're angry, what if the money runs out.

The World Health Organization's international classification of diseases, ICD-11, lists no condition called overthinking, but it does list rumination and worry as symptoms. Our glossary has short entries on rumination and worry.

Not all repetitive thinking is harmful. Going over a problem in concrete terms, "what exactly happened, and what can I do about it?", can lead to a plan. The kind that keeps people stuck is abstract and circular: "why me?", "what's wrong with me?", with no step at the end.

Signs you're overthinking

• replaying conversations long after they've ended, picking apart what you said
• going round the same decision for days and still not deciding
• chains of "what if" that end in the worst case
• lying awake with your mind racing
• feeling tired, tense or headachy after a day in your own head

Why we overthink

There's rarely a single reason. Usually it's a mix of real pressure and habit.

Real pressure gives the mind plenty to chew on. Money, work, exams, relationships, family expectations, health. Nigerian life supplies a lot of it. In a 2023 survey of about 1,500 health workers and community members in six local government areas of Jigawa, Oyo and Lagos, people said their symptoms of depression and anxiety had risen since the fuel subsidy was removed, most of all among younger and single people and market women. A survey like this can't show the removal caused the rise. Big uncertain decisions, such as whether to japa, can be turned over for months. Worry about real problems such as rent or school fees isn't a disorder in itself; even ICD-11 warns that realistic worries can look excessive if you ignore someone's circumstances.

Habit keeps it going. For some people, rumination becomes an automatic response to stress or a low mood. It can feel like problem-solving, but in experiments abstract "why?" thinking made problem-solving worse than concrete thinking, and over time the going-over can become a habit. Overthinking often comes alongside poor sleep, anxiety, depression or past trauma.

Women ruminate slightly more than men on average, but the difference is small, and plenty of men overthink too.

"Thinking too much"

If you've ever said "I'm thinking too much", you're using one of the most common ways people around the world describe being under strain. A review of 138 studies found the idea on every inhabited continent; most of the studies came from Africa and South-East Asia. People usually mean going over problems such as money, marriage, children, illness or loss, and they often link it to headaches, poor sleep, tiredness and poor concentration.

In one Ibadan study of depression around childbirth, women described "thinking too much" and "deep thought" when dwelling on hurt from family conflict, alongside headaches, feeling hot and sleeping badly. In Zimbabwe, the Shona word kufungisisa means thinking too much, and it sits at the heart of the Friendship Bench, where trained lay health workers offer problem-solving therapy. In a trial of 573 adults in Harare, about 14% of people who had the Friendship Bench were still above a depression screening cut-off after six months, against about 50% in the comparison group.

So "thinking too much" deserves to be taken seriously: as a sign that life is heavy, and sometimes as a sign of anxiety or depression.

Overthinking at night

Overthinking and poor sleep often go together. In a review of 55 studies, people who worried or ruminated more tended to sleep worse, take longer to fall asleep and get less sleep. The links were small to medium, and these studies show a link, not which comes first.

Small studies suggest it helps to deal with worries before bed rather than in it. There's a step-by-step routine in the next section. If poor sleep has lasted for months, or is making daily life hard, a structured treatment called CBT for insomnia is the first-line treatment and has strong evidence; our guide to insomnia explains it.

Is it anxiety, depression or something else?

Overthinking is part of several conditions, and the type of thinking can be a clue:

• Generalised anxiety: worry that's excessive and hard to control, on most days for months, often with restlessness, tension and poor sleep. Our anxiety guide covers the treatments.
• Depression: rumination about the past and about yourself is closely tied to it, and in studies that follow people over time, rumination predicts later depression. See our depression guide.
• OCD: unwanted, distressing thoughts that feel wrong to you, often with rituals, such as asking for reassurance or repeating words in your head, to ease the distress they cause. Our guide to intrusive thoughts explains the difference.
• Social anxiety: going over every detail of a conversation or meeting afterwards, sure you embarrassed yourself.
• Trauma: memories that push in uninvited, rather than thoughts you keep returning to.

You can overthink without having any of these. A therapist can help you work out what's going on.

How to stop overthinking

Most of these techniques come from CBT and mindfulness-based therapy, which have the best evidence; the sleep and writing tips have weaker support. Try one or two for a couple of weeks rather than all at once.

1. Switch from "why?" to "what next?" When you notice you've gone round the same thought for a few minutes, name it: "I'm overthinking." Swap the abstract question for concrete ones: "What exactly happened? What's one small thing I can do in the next 24 hours?" If there's a step, write it down with a time.
2. Ask: can I act on this? If it's a problem you can do something about, decide what, how and when, and do the first step if you can. If it's a "what if" you can't control, acknowledge it and turn your attention elsewhere. Money and work worries are real, and this step respects that instead of dismissing them.
3. Give worries a time slot. Pick 10 to 15 minutes at the same time each day, sitting somewhere other than your bed. When a worry comes up during the day, jot it down and leave it for later. At worry time, plan steps for what you can act on and let the rest go. Trial results are mixed: worry time cut worry in some small studies but not others, and it didn't improve sleep in a 2025 trial. Planning steps, rather than just putting worries off, seemed to work better.
4. Catch it, check it, change it. Write the thought down. Ask what the evidence is for and against it, and what you'd tell a friend who thought it. Write a fairer version. Our article on dealing with negative thoughts has more examples.
5. Get absorbed in something. Choose something that needs your attention: a call with a friend, cooking, a walk, a task you've been putting off. Plan it in advance on hard days. This isn't running from problems; you can come back to them with a plan.
6. Notice the thought, don't fight it. Label it ("there's the money worry again"), then bring your attention back to your breath or to what's around you: five things you can see, four you can hear. Expect it to come back. Each return is practice. Our guide to mindfulness for beginners goes further. If this makes very distressing thoughts worse, talk to a therapist.
7. A routine for a racing mind at night. Before bed, but not in bed, spend five minutes writing a specific to-do list for the next few days, and one next step for each worry. Keep a calm hour before bed, skip alcohol, tea and coffee for at least six hours beforehand, and avoid screens right before sleep. In bed, picture a detailed, calm scene, such as walking a route you know well, rather than trying not to think.
8. Write it out, and move. Just before an exam, spend a few minutes writing down what you're worried about; in classroom experiments this helped anxious students do better. Move your body most days; a brisk walk counts. These are helpful extras rather than treatments. See journaling to clear your head.

Can you get rid of negative thoughts for good?

No, and you don't need to. In a study of 777 students across 13 countries, about 94% had at least one unwanted, intrusive thought in just three months. Unwanted thoughts are part of having a mind.

Two popular fixes tend to backfire. Trying to push a thought away tends to bring it back more often. And repeating positive statements to yourself made people with low self-esteem feel worse in experiments. What helps more is changing your relationship with the thoughts: noticing them sooner, checking them, and getting back to your day faster.

When to get help

Talk to a therapist if overthinking:

• takes up hours of your day, or keeps you from work, study or rest
• has disrupted your sleep for weeks
• comes with low mood, panic or worry you can't switch off
• hasn't eased after a few weeks of trying the techniques above

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has the best evidence. In a 2025 review of 55 trials in adults with conditions such as generalised anxiety and depression, CBT reduced repetitive negative thinking by a moderate amount, more so when it was built to target worry and rumination, and the gains held about four months later. The effect was smaller when CBT was compared with other active treatments. Rumination-focused CBT has some early trial support, and UK guidance (NICE) suggests considering mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), usually in a group, for people at higher risk of depression coming back. You can learn more about how CBT works.

You can find a therapist who works with anxiety and worry, or one who uses CBT and practical skills, and talk by video, voice or chat.

If your thoughts have turned to harming yourself or ending your life, get help now. In immediate danger, call 112, or 767 in Lagos. To talk to someone at any hour, call Safe Place Nigeria on 0800 800 2000, toll-free and answered 24 hours a day. More numbers are on our helplines page.