How to stop overthinking at night
Expert sources (3)
- 1
How to Control Your Inner Voice & Increase Your Resilience | Dr. Ethan Kross
Dr. Andrew HubermanNeuroscientist - 2
How to Stop Overthinking and Start Taking Action | Priyanka Chopra Motivation
Priyanka ChopraActor and producer - 3
How To Move From Small Talk To Deep Conversation (#AskVinh Q&A Ep. 5)
Vinh GiangCommunication coach
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Summary
Nighttime overthinking is a common issue that can be managed using three main strategies: practicing long exhale breathing to calm the mind, using temporal distancing to gain perspective on the temporary nature of problems, and choosing not to believe unconstructive late-night thoughts.
Nighttime mental chatter and overthinking are extremely common. On Andrew Huberman's podcast, he and psychologist Dr. Ethan Kross point to a few things that help [1]:
- Use long exhale breathing: Slowing your breathing with a long, drawn-out exhale helps calm the mind and signals your body to wind down.
- Practice temporal distancing: Ask yourself how you will feel about the problem tomorrow morning, next week, or years from now. Seeing that the situation is temporary turns down the volume of the mental chatter and makes it easier to get back to sleep.
- Refuse to believe late-night thoughts: Thoughts that show up in the small hours, roughly between 2 and 5 a.m., are rarely constructive, so a simple rule of not believing them can be an effective mental guardrail 1.
Insight
Shift from ruminating about problems to taking quick action before bed: set a 5-minute deadline to decide on one actionable step, then commit to doing it first thing tomorrow morning.
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