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#229 Overthinking Reset: 3 Ways to Slow Down Your Mind

Episode 229 • 14th May 2026 • The Happiness Challenge • Klaudia Mitura

Hello, happiness seekers. My name is Claudia and you are listening to the Happiness Challenge, a podcast where I test drive the best happiness hacks that science has on offer.

And this month's theme on the Happiness Challenge is all about overthinking. I know what a great topic to dive into.

If you have listened to my conversation in episode 228 with Dr. Claire Hayes, you will remember one of the most interesting ideas that we explored when we are overthinking. Trying to jump straight to thinking positive often isn't the answer, because positive isn't the same as helpful.

And when our mind is spiraling, forcing a bright thought can actually feel very fake or make things even worse. And actually it can turn into another thing that to judge ourselves for. Why am I not being happier? Why am I not thinking a positive way?

So in this short follow up episode, I want to give you some simple toolkit you can use in the moments of overthinking to slow down your mind. This is not to fix your thinking, not to stop your thinking, not even feel better.

It's just to at that particular moment in time is to slow down the racing train of thought. We'll start with Claire's ABC coping statement as a bit of recap from the previous episode.

And then I will share three additional ways to slow down your racing mind, which I use all the time and I find them really comforting. So let's tune in.

So the first tool, the ABC coping statement, this one I use all the time and it's my personal favorite because it's very quick and practical and very quickly reminds me that I have a choice. Even though overthinking can sometimes feel very overwhelming, we do have a choice in that moment. And ABC stands for acknowledge.

I feel because I think and choose, but I choose to.

So in real life it sounds, I feel overwhelmed because I think I need to solve this problem right now, but I choose to breathe slowly or I feel anxious because I think something bad is going to happen. But I choose to do the next right thing. And the word choose really matters because it's not I should do this. It's not I must do this.

It's not I have to do this, it's I choose one helpful action. In this moment. I'm in control here. I am empowered.

And I personally was able to manage and actually slow down my overthinking much better because of this approach, because it helped me to understand that I don't need to win an argument with my thoughts. I just need to take a helpful next tiny step And I do have a choice in that.

Now here are three more tools you can use alongside a, B and C coping statement. Again, these are my favorites. I think they're really practical and can really help us to slow down our racing mind.

The first one, the first method is name it and time box it. And this is called the worry window.

So overthinking often becomes exhausting for us because it has no edges, no structure, it just keeps going, it's endless. And if we stop thinking about one thing, something else pops out and we in that spiral of thoughts.

So instead of debating our thoughts, instead of trying to contain them as such, with the worry window, we're trying to park our thoughts, we're trying to write them down, even put a little bit of bullet points in your phone notes just to give them a little bit structure. But ultimately what we saying is, okay, my mind is overthinking right now and I need to process it.

And we setting a timer for 10 minutes and you can either write everything down to park all your thoughts on the page, it doesn't matter what the order is, or you can have it a more structured approach towards your overthinking by writing answers to two things. What is the problem that I'm trying to solve and what is the next step I can take? And when the timer ends, you stop.

So there is a time limit of the worry window.

And if your brain is trying to restart the loop, you say to yourself, not now, I'll come back to this in my next worry window, which is at the end of the day or tomorrow morning.

So what we trying to achieve with this method is we trying to give our overthinking a structure to process our thinking and thoughts better rather than ruminating or catastrophizing. So we're trying to take that overthinking patterns and start thinking about actual problem solving. But we're giving ourselves a bit of time limit.

So it's not an endless approach, it's not an endless activity that happens and spills across our day. A second method is a 60 second body reset. So overthinking, it's often not just in our head, it's also quite physical.

When I'm overthinking, I often will have attention in my neck and not in my stomach.

And sometimes, or actually I would say majority of time, we are overthinking because we are hungry, we are tired, we are thirsty, and when we are overthinking, our body is out of that balance and our nervous system is out of balance. So what we need to do is do a quick reset that we can do anywhere to just come back to our body and release some of that tension.

Two very simple techniques. I cover them in other episodes. First of all, the physiological sigh.

So we inhale through our nose, we take a second small top up inhale, and then we do a very long slow exhale. So we do. And we do that two or three times. And this briefing technique, the physiological sigh is directly impacting our nervous system.

It's specifically saying to our body, you are safe. It's okay.

So it's a very powerful technique and one that people won't notice you doing this even if you are in public, even you are in the workplace, even if you are in the middle of very difficult conversation. You can do that and it's not noticeable. And the second option is the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Grounding. Again, very simple. It's more also having an awareness.

So around us. So it's five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

So it's a very much I'm grounding myself in this present moment. And again, you're not trying to think happy thoughts. You're not trying to focus on positive.

You're simply telling your body, we are safe, we are coming back to the present. It's okay, I'm just in this moment. And if your body relaxes a little bit, your mind ultimately will slow down too.

And the final third method is called the next right thing. So overthinking very much thrives in uncertainty.

And overthinking often happens about those big things in life that we just don't know what's going to happen. And we're going into this what if loops and what if this happens? What does that happen? But wait, but I forgot about this. But what about this part?

So it's very generally big. So what we trying to do with the next right thing is to shrink it. We're trying to shrink our overthinking.

And the best way to do that is to ask yourself a question. What's the next right thing I can do in the next two minutes?

It's not the perfect thing, it's not the whole plan, it's not trying to figure out entire situation we're dealing in. But in this moment, what is the next right thing I can take? And it can be very simple.

Drink a glass of water, open email and draft R.A. the first sentence. Put our shoes and step outside. Write one bullet point on a piece of paper, put the kettle on and breathe while it boils.

So this is really simple and yet powerful technique of okay, but what can I do right now? In two minutes? What is it that I can do?

And I'm going to quote here my favorite epic fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson, who in one of his books he wrote the most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, it's the next one. Always the next step. And I really love this because it very much creates this idea that there is a choice.

Even our choice might be small in the moment. And that choice creates an action. And action creates evidence that we are resilient, we are resourceful and we are capable. And.

And that evidence in itself often calms the mind when we are in that overthinking spiral. So here is just a reminder. When you catch yourself overthinking, don't pressurize yourself to flip into positive thinking. Instead, aim for helpful.

So four things you can try the ABC coping statement I feel because I think, but I choose the worry window when you are time boxing and parking your thoughts, body reset when you're doing some kind of a quick 60 second nervous system downshift and next right thing when you're thinking about okay, one tiny action that moves me forward in this moment in time. So I very much dare you to pick one tool to practice in the following days.

And if you are overall interested in the topic of overthinking, also check out my chapter questions in my book the Alphabet of Happiness, where I dive deeper into how can we reflect and how can we coach ourselves without ruminations? But thank you so much for being here today. That's all for today and I see you in the next episode. I dare you to be happy. Bye.

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