Overthinking isn’t just in your head.

It hijacks your whole nervous system.

SCIENCE INCOMING

Your nervous system: a quick overview

Your CNS sends and receives information from your PNS.

Your somatic PNS is how you feel and move your body.

But a lot of what goes on in your body is involuntary and unconscious—controlled by your autonomic PNS.

It has two divisions.

Your sympathetic* nervous system creates the “fight or flight” response, increasing your pulse and blood pressure (among other things) so you’re ready to act fast.

Your parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite. It talks your body back down.

So…

What happens in your nervous system when you overthink?

As your mind rehashes the past, ‘what-if’s about the future, tells you what a terrible person you are…

A different part of your brain assigns emotions to your thoughts—which is typically some flavor of fear for people who overthink.

Your brain is pretty smart, but it doesn’t distinguish very well between actual disasters and imaginary ones.

So it yells "RED ALERT", turning on the klaxon that tells your PNS there's an imminent disaster.

Your sympathetic nervous system jumps into action, releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. It continues to release adrenaline and cortisol for as long as you overthink.

Even after you stop overthinking, they hang around in your bloodstream. It takes adrenaline an hour and cortisol 20-30 minutes to dissipate.

You’re basically marinating in stress hormones--which is why overthinking is physically uncomfortable

So what?

The more your sympathetic nervous system is active, the less it takes to activate it. Eventually, even fleeting worry triggers a full-on cascade of stress hormones.

Chronic stress is associated with a whole host of health issues I won’t go into here.

Let’s just say lots of sympathetic nervous system activity is bad in a very big way. Not to mention how awful it feels.

You need a hero

Fortunately, you have one.

Your parasympathetic nervous system.

It tells all your organs to calm the F down and stop with the stress hormones already.

This is why you memorized something uplifting and inspiring. Your parasympathetic nervous system responds to the positive emotions you remember when you recite it.

The vagus nerve is the main nerve in the parasympathetic nervous system. It's also the longest nerve in your whole body, running from your brainstem (where brain meets spinal cord) to your large intestine. It also innervates your vocal cords and inner ears.

The blue lines and pink patches indicate the areas your vagus nerve affects.

And my point? (finally)

In addition to reciting an uplifting passage, you can activate your parasympathetic nervous system in 7 other ways. Finding the ones that work for you and using them regularly strengthens your calming response.

You spend less time in a state of chronic stress. You’re more comfortable in your own body.

This is what ‘nervous system regulation’ means. It’s incredibly helpful for people who overthink:

• You notice when you’re overthinking earlier so you can stop it faster

• You have more tools in your toolbox

• Over time, it helps decrease the intensity of your physical response to overthinking

Breathwork

Deep breathing stimulates your vagus nerve. Aim to exhale longer than you inhale.

4-7-8 breathing: Place your tongue behind your top front teeth. Exhale completely. Inhale for a count of four, hold for seven, and exhale through pursed lips for eight. Repeat four times.

I’m a huge fan. The other night, I woke up around 3AM and was awake enough that I expected to have trouble getting back to sleep. I fell asleep by the third round of 4-7-8.

Box breathing: Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Exhale slowly and completely. Then breathe in slowly for a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of four. Exhale slowly for a count of four. Hold your breath again for a count of four. Do several cycles until you feel a bit calmer.

As you practice box breathing, you can gradually increase the count to 5 and then 7.

I've done box breathing for years. {chef's kiss}

4-8 breathing: Inhale for a count of 4. Exhale for a count of 8.

My favorite for going to sleep at night.

Massage your tragus

The tragus is the little cartilage flap right in front of your ear. It’s directly connected to the vagus nerve, and massaging it helps activate your parasympathetic nervous system.

Massage it very gently with slow circular motions or gentle tapping for 1-2 minutes on each ear.

Or lightly pinch your tragus between your thumb and forefinger for 30 seconds.

‘Gently’ and ‘lightly’ are key words. More isn't better here.

I like putting my fingertip in the little tiny dip just in front of and above my tragus, right where it meets the curve of my upper ear.

Get cold

Cold exposure activates your parasympathetic nervous system.

It indirectly activates your vagus nerve, slowing your heart rate and constricting blood vessels in your arms and legs, sending more blood to your heart and brain. This reflex is fully triggered when your face is submerged in cold water while you hold your breath.

I’m not suggesting holding your breath and jumping into an icy lake. Splashing cold water on your face or holding a cold, wet washcloth to your face are better alternatives. So is taking a cold shower. If that sounds horrible (it does to me), try ending your shower with a cold water rinse. I did that for several months last year--I felt great afterward.

​Cooling the vagus nerve is another technique proven to reduce your heart rate. Put a cold compress on either side or the back of your neck or lie down and put one on your chest. Drink a glass of ice water.

*Important: Check with your physician before trying cold exposure technique if you have a heart condition.

Hum

Humming-specifically, bumble bee breathing— also stimulates the vagus nerve and may reduce stress more than sleeping does. Singing does, too.

I like to hum very low in my throat—almost throat-singing—on my morning walk. I’m in the forest, so no one can hear me. I also get the benefit of being in...

Nature

Rigorous evidence proves that exposure to nature decreases stress. You don’t even have to be outside; you can just look at videos or pictures of green space to experience the benefits of more parasympathetic activity. Here's a guide to 11 websites where you can get a dose of nature right now.

Forest bathing, an intentional practice of walking slowly and engaging your senses, increases parasympathetic activity. I posted about forest bathing here.

Move

Vigorous exercise helps disperse the stress hormones released by the sympathetic nervous system. Your body also has to adapt to provide you with more oxygen and energy, which strengthens your vagus nerve tone. I ran 15-20 miles a week for decades because it allowed me to feel (mostly) comfortable in my own skin.

Gentle movement, like stretching, walking slowly while paying attention to your breath, or yin yoga, stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.

Meditate

I left this one for last because it was very hard or me to learn. I tried, using various techniques, for 20 years.

As a lifelong overthinker, I had been deeply engaged in every one of my thoughts for years. I could not figure out how to watch them.

There’s nothing less meditative than trying to figure out meditation.

I vividly remember sitting in meditation, frustrated because I couldn’t simultaneously notice my thoughts and stay focused on a mantra or my breath. I literally thought people who meditated had mastered an esoteric way of teaching their brains do both at the same instant.

I didn’t understand that these were sequential mental activities. I could have a thought, notice, and come back to a point of focus.

In other words, I overthought meditation.

And I resisted guided meditation because I viewed it as the remedial version. Real meditators didn’t need guides.

Two things changed my experience.

One: I learned I didn’t need to pay attention to all my thoughts. The negative, repetitive ones were just noise. Learning to stop overthinking helped me learn to meditate.

Two: the entire point of meditation is to return to a focal point. Jack Kornfield described it as teaching a puppy to stay—you just gently guide it back over and over.

Meditation has been part of my daily foundation for umpteen years.

Final note

These techniques can help you recover from a bout of overthinking.

They're even more beneficial when you incorporate them throughout your day. I do breathwork every night as I'm falling asleep and if I wake up in the middle of the night. I meditate and spend time outside every day and practice yoga several times a week. I massage my tragus when I'm reading or sitting at my desk.

The more your parasympathetic nervous system gets activated...

• the more balanced your whole nervous system becomes,

• the quicker you recover from a mental storm, and

• the better you feel.

This week:

Pick two options for activating your parasympathetic nervous system. Two of the same kind or two completely different ones.

Try them when you're not overthinking. Then try them when you notice yourself overthinking.

Do them at least once a day. If you chose a smaller one, like breathwork, tragus massage, or humming, 2-3 times/day is ideal to start.

Notice any subtle or more obvious differences in how you feel over the course of the week.

*It’s not called the ‘sympathetic’ nervous system because it feels sorry for you. Galen, an OG physician who lived from 129 to ~200 CE, used the Greek word for sympathy to describe different parts of the body working together.