Ask HN: How do you deal with overthinking? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you deal with overthinking?

2 pointsblizard2 comments

I'm very good at analyzing a complex code, and understanding it quickly, debugging it, ...

But I don't know if me being analytical and suffering from overthinking has made me a better software engineer, or dealing with complex codes which requires highly analytical thinking has made me a kind of an overthinking person.

These days I'm suffering from overthinking about my personal issues and I just cannot simply ignore them.

Sometimes I think it's because of my career that I've become an overthinking/analytical person. I sometimes think that i should let go of software engineering, despite being very good at it, and becoming let's say for example an artist. at least give it a shot. I'm really really suffering from overthinking.

How do you guys deal with overthinking? Does meditation/mindfulness help on overthinking? How can I be a highly analytical person when dealing with software but be brain-less to large extent in real life?

A key thing I realized at one point is that as a human being, thinking isn't free. I have finite energy resources both emotionally and physically, and when I'm thinking, I'm expending those resources. Then, with that in mind, I can turn my analytical mind to the meta-problem of using my mental energy effectively.

When you shift this way - when you think of your energy as a finite resource that has to be budgeted and recharged - you see how wasteful all of that extra thinking really is. Look at every train of thought as a cost/value proposition, and it becomes really easy to decline most of the really pointless ones.

Mindfulness also really helps. What it really is, is teasing apart ideas from the emotional expenditure that normally comes with them. This attacks the problem from a different angle: making thoughts "cheaper", so that your (still finite) energy goes further.

What I've also found, is that relentless overthinking often stems from stress/anxiety (which is of course circularly caused by it, when you're bottoming-out your energy all the time). What this ends up meaning is, if you can free up some of your energy and gain some room to breathe, you'll probably naturally do a lot less overthinking, and have an easier time getting out of your analytical mindset.

Based on my own experience, Cognitive behavioral therapy can help with problems like this. You do not need to talk to therapist, CBT is well suited for self help, just try to stick to well known, evidence based books.

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