Imagine that you have been involved in science all your life, have published a number of papers with astonishing scientific findings, become a Nobel laureate in a field that is not your main field of activity, have written a best-selling book that has been a huge success, and then, in response to the doubts raised by your colleagues, -scientists, you just took them, admitted they were right and agreed that some of your judgments may be erroneous. Quite unusual, don't you agree? However, this story actually happened. When, with whom and why - let's find out in order.
What are the causes and dangers of overthinking?
It's hard to think of a more common cause of worry, frustration, and anxiety than overthinking . This is what the West calls the problem of “overthinking .
Whether it's thinking about the future, thinking about the past, or analyzing the behavior of others, our ability and habit of thinking critically is a double-edged sword that each of us needs to be careful with . But before you start trying to reduce the flow of your thoughts, it will be useful to understand why you tend to overthink and sort things out in the first place.
Below we will look at seven reasons that people often encounter when trying to deal with this problem.
Automation
Here we move on to Glutamate, a brain-boosting neurotransmitter. The process of transmitting nerve impulses goes faster with Glutamate. It is also involved in the formation of synaptic plasticity (15), a kind of strengthening of connections between neurons. Myelin strengthened the neurons themselves. The way to strengthen connections is repetition, automation. Your first bike ride was quite adventurous, your first day at a new job, your first training in a new sport. At the same time, even after a week of practice, there was already significant progress!
Therefore, take note - practice teaches the brain faster than theory. But even in the abstract, repetition of theory allows you to think faster. This occurs due to both synaptic plasticity and increased myelination.
Habit since childhood
portfolios.mica.edu
Most people who suffer from overthinking develop this habit at an early age. Because at that period of life it was the only way to cope with terrible and difficult experiences.
Let's give an example: if a child lives in a family with an alcoholic parent, he develops the habit of constantly thinking about what will happen if dad comes home drunk. After all, this is useful because it can save you from troubles.
But here's the thing... Often the source cause of overthinking is very different from the "child" cause. While it's true that you need to understand the origins of the habit if you want to get rid of the problem, you also need to figure out why the habit of overthinking persists in the present!
see also
How to stop swinging your leg, biting your nails and touching your hair: expert opinion
“There are probably all kinds of addictions. We all have some kind of pain. And we are all looking for ways to get rid of it.” – Sherman Alexie
The illusion of control
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More than any other painful emotion, people find it difficult to cope with helplessness. Agree, we just hate feeling helpless! Especially when it comes to the closest people - spouses, children, parents. When someone we love or care about suffers, of course we want to help them.
Unfortunately, our ability to help others is often more limited than we think. But instead of confronting our helplessness, we begin to deny it. And although in fact we cannot do anything, we begin to think more, worry more, worry more. Reflection simply seems useful to us.
We think too much because it provides the illusion of control and virtually eliminates the feeling of helplessness.
Unfortunately, the long-term costs are rarely worth it. Result: chronic anxiety, arising from constant worry; low self-esteem due to constant rumination; stress and overwhelm because we never feel like we can turn off our minds.
see also
7 wise conclusions that many people do not learn by the age of 40 (but they should)
All this is usually associated with our intolerance of helplessness. This means that if you want to stop obsessing over your thoughts, you need to get used to the lack of control in some situations.
“You have learned to run away from your own feelings, and that is why you have nightmares. Denial is a direct road to madness. Acceptance is the path to control.” – Megan Chance
The illusion of confidence
headspace.com
A close relative of the illusion of control is the illusion of confidence. It is based on another feeling that we humans simply cannot bear - uncertainty.
As a general rule, we like to feel confident about how events will unfold, especially in situations where a lot is at stake. We are so eager to avoid the feeling of the unknown that we resort to denial, pretending that things are more predictable than they really are.
One form of uncertainty denial is overthinking.
When we get stuck in problem-solving mode, we feel like a solution is only possible if we think long enough and seriously about it.
see also
6 Science-Based Ways to Boost Your Mood
The nature of reality is deeply uncertain too often. The trick is to understand that facing uncertainty is the best way to deal with it in the long run. Only when you have the courage to live with the unknown can you minimize its negative impact on your life.
“Knowing which questions are unanswerable and not answering them: this skill is most needed in times of stress and darkness.” – Ursula Le Guin
SUBSTANCES
The most powerful brain-boosting things often end up on the list of prohibited substances. Information taken from international medical research aggregators! These are not drug readings, so everything is based on science and without propaganda. We do not call anyone to do anything.
— Hybrid varieties of marijuana
There is a lot of controversy around this substance: from the point of view of the law, both heroin and marijuana are the same drugs. From a medical point of view, of course there is harm, but less than with the same alcohol.
With rare use of marijuana, a slowdown in the perception of time is observed; these data appeared back in the 70s of the last century and this effect is still being studied (19,). Moreover, there is no connection with dosage, but there is a connection with frequency, and for those who use it frequently, the changes are smaller.
Subjective time dilation is approximately 20-30%, that is, a real hour is estimated by the brain as 1 hour 20 minutes. Moreover, if you block cannabinoid receptors, then on the contrary, an underestimation of time occurs. And there is an idea that when a person says something along the lines of “the years are flying by,” there is either little novelty, little stress, or a problem with dopamine/glutamate or cannabinoid receptors.
A possible explanation for this: an increase in dopamine and glutamate. Increasing the clock frequency of the brain, the speed of thinking. As a result, it is out of sync with the present time.
— Psychostimulants
Back in the 37th year of the last century, amphetamine was studied in full, but even then there was evidence that a single dose of a small dose of amphetamine, 20 mg, gave almost + 10% in tests, which means the brain worked faster (21).
Now there is quite a lot of evidence that psychostimulants improve brain function, especially in ADHD (22). This disease is characterized by the inability to maintain attention for a long time, sudden hyperactivity, and in a sample of more than 170 thousand people, the prevalence of the disease is 5%, and among children it is even higher. There are many legends around this diagnosis, some see a conspiracy that ADHD was invented in order to legally sell amphetamine by prescription, while others really believe that the disease is the most serious!
Regarding intelligence and amphetamine, improvements from the norm occur with a low-medium dosage, then dopamine increases in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. When there is no euphoria yet, but the speed of thinking is already increasing (23, 24)
As with marijuana, there is a slowdown in the perception of time by 20-30% - there is no such thing. Data vary widely, from no change in brain function to 50-100% (25, 26)
— Substances for Glutamate
Sometimes it is useful to create conditions for the growth of glutamate or the activity of its receptors. What substances?
In 2014, a report presented ampakine nootropics as safer substitutes for amphetamine in boosting the brain (27). These nootropics work with the AMP glutamate receptor and focus less on reaction speed or thinking, and more on learning speed (28, ).
Unfortunately, due to the relative newness of this class of substances, many studies are conducted on animals. However, good old piracetam (30, 31) and newfangled aniracetam (32) have been seen to increase AMP activity.
— Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, Huperzine (33) are added to myelin.
— Lithium-based additives (34)
Of the hormones, testosterone (35) and thyroid hormones (36, 37) can make the brain faster. Potassium Iodide supplement as an example. As for testosterone, it’s more a question of sleep and training.
Perfectionism
reddit.com/hypnotickefir
What most people don't understand about perfectionism is that perfectionism is not perfection. It's about feeling perfect.
People “suffering” from perfectionism find it difficult to part with things in which they do not feel ideal:
- This applies to the blog post you want to publish;
- The report that you are going to send to your superiors;
- Pieces for piano that you are going to perform live for friends and acquaintances.
Nobody actually believes that things can be perfect - obviously, it's simply impossible. But the tolerance for feeling deficient in some areas of life is very, very low.
If you convince yourself that you need to work harder, it means you need to think more. And this means feeling less inferior and imperfect.
If you struggle with perfectionism, there's a good chance your overthinking problem is related to an emotional tolerance problem.
see also
Why is adolescence the most difficult period?
Practice tolerating feelings of inadequacy so you can continue to live the way you feel.
“On the spiritual path of radical acceptance, we do not strive for perfection, but rather learn to love ourselves and find wholeness.” – Tara Brach
Secondary Benefits
biografieonline.it
Some people get into the habit of thinking too much because it provides secondary or unobvious benefits.
For example:
- People see that this evokes sympathy and pity on the part of their friends, which cannot but be flattering.
- Sometimes overthinking is an excuse for postponing or avoiding decisions: if you convince yourself that you can't make a decision because it's not well thought out, no one can blame you for making a bad decision.
So, one approach to ending the cycle of overthinking is to figure out what the unobvious benefits of your thought process are, and then develop less stressful strategies to achieve the same result.
For example, if you think too much because it attracts attention and sympathy from your spouse, perhaps you should work on being more emotionally vulnerable and assertive in your relationship?
Habits appear and remain for a reason. Change begins when you understand the true reason behind it.
“Once you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” – Goethe
about the author
Daniel Kahneman is an American psychologist of Israeli origin, considered the founder of the so-called behavioral economics, which is a symbiosis of social psychology and economics. Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 in economics, while devoting his entire life to psychological sciences. Together with his colleague Amos Tversky (1937–1996), the scientist analyzed decision making and the formation of judgments that influence consumer choice.
Of his works, the scientific article “Decision Making under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” (translation may vary, in the original Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases) acquired particular importance, in which the author showed that man is, in principle, an irrational being, and it is characteristic of him deviate from an effective and obvious solution.
Hypergeneralization
psychologytoday.com
Overgeneralizing means that because thinking too much helps you in one area of your life (such as school or work), you assume it will work in others, such as your relationship.
Thinking is a tool. But many people are so good at thinking and are so often rewarded for it in other aspects of life that they find it difficult to give it up where it is not so useful.
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50 tips for all occasions that can come in handy at any time
The old saying goes well here: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
To the experienced thinker, everything begins to seem like a problem that needs to be solved through careful thinking. If you find yourself overthinking, make a list of the different areas of your life and ask yourself an honest question: Is analytical thinking really the most effective approach?
“I have often wondered about the universal tendency to make hasty generalizations. Generalizations almost never contain the truth and are usually extremely inaccurate.” – Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage .
Myelin
The speed at which a signal propagates along a neuron depends mainly on how myelinated it is.
The myelin sheath forms a protective layer around the axon, and the more of it there is, the more efficient it is in transmitting action potentials to synapses. In short, like an insulating layer around a wire. If it is thin, with cracks, etc. – The signal will travel worse, with interference.
The second point is that the more myelin, the thicker the axon itself, our nerve cable, and the better it receives energy (6, )
If you make more myelin, you will think faster. It's just difficult to measure.
In 2021, I took a test for the state of the nervous system, before and after a large course of nootropics. There the number of antibodies to different parameters was compared. In theory, the more there are, the worse the system works. This is what the data was ( ).
In some moments, the changes reach up to 5 times, by the way, nootropics are a placebo. Believe me, until I learned to increase or decrease antibodies with the power of thought, I didn’t even know what to expect from such an experience.
So the parameter Antibodies to MBP (Myelin Basic Protein) changed from +8 to +17, while the norm was from -20 to +10, there were more antibodies. At the same time, he led a crystal-clear lifestyle.
There is another opinion that the growth of antibodies is, on the contrary, an indicator of balancing. Just as with an increase in dopamine, its receptors decrease, so with antibodies, they can grow not just as a defective catalyst, but also in response to a too dramatic improvement in the condition. After all, the brain loves to be in balance. In that analysis, antibodies to all markers of the nervous system increased, except beta-endorphin. So, either the effects are so significant that even the brain slows them down with antibodies, or the ideal lifestyle and nootropics only kill the body - it’s up to you to decide.
So how do you strengthen the myelin around neurons?
- As a 2011 study showed, myelin by default is better built around the most used axons, in essence - this is training. If you want better conductivity, practice in a specific direction, more about this a little later (9).
— Phospholipids, vitamins, iodine and choline precursors are needed (10, 11, 12, 13, 14). It is like a building material, cement for myelin. This is more about nutrition: eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts.
On the other hand, it is sometimes mentioned that a healthy brain is already sufficiently myelinated, so you can, of course, add eggs, vitamins and nuts to the diet and evaluate subjectively after a couple of weeks whether there is any improvement.
