Why Telling Yourself to Stop Overthinking Backfires

Telling yourself to stop overthinking tends to backfire because part of your mind keeps checking whether the thought has gone, and that checking keeps it close. It fails most when you're tired, stressed or juggling, and those are usually the moments you reach for it.

If you're the one who gets through the day on lists, then lies down at 11pm and orders your brain to quit, this is about you. The order rarely holds. By midnight you're rerunning the same conversation, plus a fresh worry about why you can't stop.

What works better is one replacement thought chosen ahead of time, or one concrete next step. Willpower alone is the weakest option on the list.

What Happens When You Tell Yourself to Stop Thinking?

The thought usually comes back, and often more than before. The classic test is the white bear study.

In 1987, psychologist Daniel Wegner and colleagues asked 34 undergraduates at Trinity University in Texas to think aloud for five minutes. Those told not to think of a white bear still thought of it more than once a minute. Later, when they were allowed to think about it, they thought about it more than students who hadn't tried to suppress it first.

These were young students and a harmless thought, so it's a lab effect rather than a picture of your 2am. But Wegner spent years working out why it happens.

His answer is called ironic process theory. One part of your mind goes looking for other things to think about. A review by Wegner and Richard Wenzlaff calls the second part an ironic monitoring process. It stays in the background and scans for the thought you banned.

That monitor is searching for the very thing you're trying to avoid. So the instruction to stop carries the thought along with it.

Why Overthinking Gets Worse When You're Stressed or Tired

The two parts don't need the same effort. Finding distractions takes mental effort, and the review says the monitor "continues its vigilance for unwanted thoughts" when other demands disrupt that effort.

In the experiments it describes, people suppressed a thought under time pressure or while memorizing something. The unwanted thought became more accessible than when people weren't suppressing it, sometimes even more than for people trying to think about it.

People asked to hold a particular mood under that kind of load reported moods running the opposite way. And people who had recently recovered from depression formed more negative statements once a load was added. Their rate came close to that of people who were currently depressed.

Sleep shows it most clearly. In one study of normal sleepers, people told to fall asleep as fast as possible did so faster under a light mental load. While listening to John Philip Sousa marches, the same instruction meant they took longer to fall asleep than people who weren't trying.

Thoughts at bedtime follow a similar pattern. A review of insomnia research describes people told to suppress a thought while trying to sleep. They said they took longer to drop off and slept worse. That held for good sleepers and for people with insomnia.

Now think about when you usually give yourself the order to stop. It's after a long day, in bed, or while answering a message and planning tomorrow. If you carry most of your household's planning, the mental load means there's rarely a moment when your mind isn't running a second task.

For the bedtime version, how to stop anxious thoughts at night covers writing the worry down and leaving it until morning.

Does Distracting Yourself Help Overthinking?

Yes, if it's one specific distraction rather than whatever comes to mind. In Wegner's second experiment, 49 students were tested, and one group was told to think of a red Volkswagen whenever the white bear appeared. Their rebound afterward was smaller, close to that of students who never suppressed at all.

The 2000 review makes the same point. Self-distraction that keeps shifting from one thing to the next may be what drives the rebound, while a single distracter weakens it. By that logic, scrolling your phone is the unfocused kind.

A few ways to put that to work.

• Pick your replacement now, while you're calm. A walk you know well, a recipe you could cook without looking, or a city for every letter of the alphabet.
• When the thought shows up, don't argue with it. Go to the replacement, and use the same one each time.
• If the thought is about a real problem, turn it into one next step first. "Why does this keep happening" loops forever, while "text her on Thursday" has an end.
• Practice the replacement when you're rested, so it's easier to reach for when you're tired. If a thought keeps returning, a rested afternoon is a better time to think it through properly.

Why "why" questions keep you stuck is covered in the difference between rumination and reflection.

Is Suppressing Thoughts Always Bad?

Not always, and this is where the popular white bear story goes too far. In a 2023 University of Cambridge study, 120 adults in 16 countries practiced suppressing fearful or neutral thoughts. They did it for about 20 minutes a day over three days.

Each time a cue word came up, they first acknowledged the event in their mind. Then they tried to block any images or thoughts about it, without distracting themselves. Afterward the suppressed events felt less vivid and less anxious, and measures of mental health improved.

The gains were biggest in people who suppressed fears rather than neutral events, especially those with worse symptoms at the start. The participants were volunteers who trained over Zoom, and the comparison group suppressed neutral memories rather than doing nothing. So it's one study, and researcher Michael Anderson said more work will be needed to confirm the findings. It was also a short, structured exercise with a cue and a rule, not an order barked at yourself after a long day.

Suppression as a daily habit looks riskier. One study in the 2000 review followed people at risk of depression for 4 to 6 weeks. Those who reported suppressing more depressive thoughts tended to see their symptoms worsen.

The other route is letting the thought be there. The review lists accepting and expressing unwanted thoughts among the alternatives to suppression, while noting that much of that research was still to be done. Processing a feeling without bottling it covers what that looks like with emotions rather than thoughts.

When Overthinking Needs More Than Self-Help

See a doctor if the worry is hard to control and gets in the way of work, relationships or other parts of your life. Mayo Clinic lists overthinking plans and solutions to all possible worst-case outcomes among the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Some thoughts are frightening rather than worrying. NIMH lists aggressive thoughts toward others or oneself and unwanted taboo thoughts among common obsessions in OCD. If these thoughts, or what you do to cancel them out, distress you or disrupt daily life, talk to a health care provider. The same goes if they eat up time, since people with OCD often spend more than an hour a day on them.

Overthinking can also travel with low mood. NIMH says a depression diagnosis needs symptoms most of the day, nearly every day, for at least 2 weeks. If yours have lasted that long, or aren't going away, tell your doctor.

If you're having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, call or text 988 any time in the US or Canada. That reaches the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US and the 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline in Canada. If your life is at risk or you can't keep yourself safe, call 911 or go to the nearest ER.

In the UK and Ireland, call Samaritans on 116 123, free, any time, or 999 in a UK emergency. Elsewhere, call your local emergency number.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Can't I Stop Overthinking Even When I Know It's Pointless?

Knowing a thought is pointless doesn't switch off the part of your mind that watches for it. Stress and tiredness make that watcher harder to override. Knowing why you feel anxious has the same gap between understanding and relief.

Is Overthinking a Mental Illness?

No, overthinking on its own isn't a diagnosis. It can be part of GAD, depression or OCD when it's persistent, hard to control and gets in the way of daily life.

How Long Does It Take to Stop Overthinking?

In lab studies, using one replacement thought picked in advance led to less rebound afterward than suppression alone. A long-standing pattern takes longer. For cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Mayo Clinic says it may range from about 5 to 20 sessions.