Overthinking and rumination – When thoughts never seem to end
Updated: Sep 26
Most people think a great deal at times. We try to understand what has happened, plan for the future, or consider important decisions. Sometimes, however, thinking becomes something else.
The same questions return again and again without leading us forward. Our thoughts begin to revolve around what has already happened or what might happen, and it becomes difficult to let them go.
Overthinking and rumination are common sources of psychological distress. At the same time, they are rarely only about thoughts. They are often closely connected to emotions that have not yet been given space or become understandable.
In five sections, I explore why we can become caught in overthinking and rumination, the difference between thinking, reflecting, and problem-solving, how our thoughts can take us away from emotions and the present moment, and how we can create more space to understand, feel, and act.
What are overthinking and rumination?
Reflecting on our lives is an important human capacity. Through reflection, we can understand ourselves, learn from experience, and make thoughtful decisions.
Overthinking differs from reflection in that our thoughts continue even when they are no longer helping us. We analyze the same situation from different angles, search for the perfect explanation, or try to find an answer that may not exist. Rumination often concerns the past—what we should have said, done, or understood—while overthinking may also be directed toward the future and everything that could go wrong.
What these forms of thinking have in common is that they feel difficult to stop. The more we try to solve the problem by thinking about it further, the more caught up in our thoughts we often become.
A reflection
Thoughts can give us a sense of control when something feels uncertain. But they can also become a way of keeping our distance from what we are actually feeling. Sometimes we do not need more answers, but a closer connection with our own experience.
– Maria Sandgren
Further reading
This text draws on my clinical experience as a psychologist, together with research on emotions, relationships, well-being, and mental health. Below is a selection of books and scientific articles for those who would like to explore the subject further.
The books are listed in their Swedish editions and reflect the literature on overthinking and rumination with which I am most familiar. The research sources are primarily in English, supplemented here by health information from the Swedish healthcare service 1177. The books approach overthinking and rumination from different perspectives, including psychological research, clinical experience, and the ways in which our thoughts affect emotions, relationships, and everyday life.
The research articles examine how overthinking and rumination are associated with stress, sleep, trauma, self-criticism, and psychological well-being. They also describe how different forms of psychotherapy may contribute to change.
If overthinking and rumination are taking up an increasing amount of space in your life, do not change over time, or make it difficult to function in everyday life, it may be helpful to seek support from a licensed psychologist.
Books (in Swedish)
Orosboken – Erik Andersson och Tove Wahlund
Öppet sinne : kraften i att veta vad du inte vet – Adam Grant
Tjatter: Hur du övervinner oro och ältande – Ethan Kross
Dansa mjuk med tillvaron: Om mening, mod och möjligheter – Anna Kåver
Kroppen håller räkningen: hjärna, sinne och kropp vid läkning efter psykiskt trauma – Bessel van der Kolk
What research shows
A study on overthinking, sleep, and stress. How everyday stress can increase overthinking and disrupt sleep.
A study on intrusive thoughts, meaning in life, and quality of life. How intrusive thoughts following trauma can affect a sense of meaning and quality of life.
A study on affect-focused therapy, worry, and self-criticism. How affect-focused psychotherapy can reduce worry, rumination, and self-criticism.
Information on managing negative thought patterns. How negative patterns of thinking can affect everyday life – and how they can change.
When thinking becomes a way of avoiding emotions
Many people describe feeling that they “cannot stop thinking.” But when we pause and explore this together in therapy, it often becomes clear that something else lies beneath the thoughts—sadness, fear, anger, shame, or longing.
This does not mean that overthinking is deliberate. On the contrary, it is often an automatic attempt to manage intense emotions. Thoughts occupy our attention and temporarily allow us to avoid feeling what hurts. The difficulty is that the emotions remain and continue to affect us.
As emotions gradually become possible to experience and understand, the need to ruminate often decreases as well.
A reflection
We sometimes believe that we need to finish thinking something through before we can feel better. Often, however, the opposite is true. When our emotions become more understandable, our thoughts no longer need to do all the work.
– Maria Sandgren
Further reading
This text draws on my clinical experience as a psychologist, together with research on emotions, relationships, well-being, and psychological difficulties. Below is a selection of books and scientific articles for those who would like to explore the subject further.
The books are listed in their Swedish editions and reflect the literature on overthinking and rumination with which I am most familiar; the research sources included here are primarily in English. The books and articles describe what overthinking and rumination are, how they may affect everyday life, and which approaches and treatments have been shown to be helpful.
The research articles explore how overthinking and rumination may reduce emotional awareness and presence, interfere with grieving following a loss, diminish the ability to act, and make emotional processing more difficult. They also examine how loneliness may interact with rumination and emotional processing, and how psychological difficulties may be associated with problems processing emotions.
If overthinking and rumination are recurring or restricting your life, it may be helpful to seek support from a licensed psychologist.
Books (in Swedish)
Orosboken – Erik Andersson och Tove Wahlund
Öppet sinne : kraften i att veta vad du inte vet – Adam Grant
Tjatter: Hur du övervinner oro och ältande – Ethan Kross
Dansa mjuk med tillvaron: Om mening, mod och möjligheter – Anna Kåver
Kroppen håller räkningen: hjärna, sinne och kropp vid läkning efter psykiskt trauma – Bessel van der Kolk
What research shows
A study on emotional awareness and overthinking. How overthinking and rumination can reduce emotional awareness and presence in the present moment.
A study on overthinking and the grieving process. How overthinking and rumination can make it more difficult to adapt to a loss and process grief.
A study on overthinking and difficulties with emotional processing. How overthinking and rumination can reduce the ability to take action and make it more difficult to process emotions.
A study on overthinking, loneliness, and emotional processing. How loneliness can interact with overthinking, rumination, and difficulties in processing emotions.
A study on difficulties in recognizing emotions and psychological distress. How psychological distress can be associated with difficulties in identifying, experiencing, and processing emotions.
Self-criticism makes the thoughts even stronger
For many people, overthinking is closely connected to a self-critical inner dialogue.
“Why did I do that?”
“What do they think of me?”
“I should have known better.”
The thoughts are then not only about understanding a situation, but also about judging oneself. Every mistake becomes evidence of not being good enough. Self-criticism causes the same event to be replayed again and again in an attempt to avoid future mistakes.
This rarely leads to a greater sense of security. Instead, uncertainty is reinforced while trust in one’s own experience gradually diminishes.
A reflection
Self-criticism often sounds like an inner voice trying to help us avoid making mistakes. But when it becomes too powerful, it instead prevents us from listening to what we actually feel, need, and want.
– Maria Sandgren
Further reading
This text draws on my clinical experience as a psychologist, together with research on emotions, relationships, well-being, and psychological difficulties. Below is a selection of books and scientific articles for those who would like to explore the subject further.
The books are listed in their Swedish editions and reflect the literature on overthinking, self-criticism, and self-compassion with which I am most familiar; the research sources included here are primarily in English. The books and articles describe how overthinking and rumination may affect everyday life and examine approaches that can contribute to change.
The research sources explore different forms of self-criticism, the relationship between self-criticism and a lack of self-compassion, and how shame is connected to fear of negative evaluation, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. They also describe shame as a social emotion and distinguish it from guilt.
If overthinking, rumination, or self-criticism is recurring or restricting your life, it may be helpful to seek support from a licensed psychologist.
Books (in Swedish)
Orosboken – Erik Andersson och Tove Wahlund
Öppet sinne : kraften i att veta vad du inte vet – Adam Grant
Tjatter: Hur du övervinner oro och ältande – Ethan Kross
Dansa mjuk med tillvaron: Om mening, mod och möjligheter – Anna Kåver
Kroppen håller räkningen: hjärna, sinne och kropp vid läkning efter psykiskt trauma – Bessel van der Kolk
What research shows
A study on feelings of inadequacy and self-criticism. How feelings of inadequacy and self-hatred can be understood as different forms of self-criticism.
A study on being harsh towards oneself compared with showing oneself compassion. How self-criticism can be understood as an attitude characterized by a lack of self-compassion.
A description of shame, fear of negative evaluation, and self-esteem. How shame is associated with fear of being negatively evaluated and with low self-esteem.
A description of shame and its relationship to interpersonal relationships. How shame can be understood as a social emotion – and how it differs from guilt.
Reconnecting with ourselves
When people seek therapy, they often want the thoughts to stop. After some time, however, many discover that the most important change is about something else.
They begin to notice what happens in their bodies as worry increases. They become more attentive to their emotions and needs. They recognize sooner when they are becoming caught in familiar patterns of thinking and can gradually choose a different way of responding.
Thoughts will never disappear completely because they are fundamentally important to our survival in difficult circumstances. We need to be able to notice potential threats and dangers. At the same time, we all have a tendency to become caught in inflexible and repetitive patterns of thinking in response to external events. Overthinking and rumination may also become strategies for avoiding emotions such as anger, sadness, and grief.
When we ruminate, the difficulty is not primarily that we are unwilling or unable to let go of our thoughts. Rumination differs considerably from reflection, in which we can choose what we want to explore and develop in our thinking. During rumination, patterns of activity in the brain change, making it difficult to disengage from negative thoughts even when we want and try to do so.
After some time in therapy, however, overthinking and rumination may become less controlling. When attention turns toward our own experience, with greater access to emotions and broader perspectives, it becomes easier to make decisions, set boundaries, and be present in our relationships and in the life we want to live. We can then more readily distinguish reflection and problem-solving from overthinking and rumination about ourselves, other people, everyday life, and work.
A reflection
The aim is rarely to stop thinking. Rather, it is for thoughts to no longer take up so much space that they obscure the life unfolding in the present. As attention shifts toward our emotional experience, we become more present and overthinking and rumination begin to recede.
– Maria Sandgren
Further reading
This text draws on my clinical experience as a psychologist, together with research on emotions, relationships, well-being, and psychological difficulties. Below is a selection of books and scientific articles for those who would like to explore the subject further.
The books are listed in their Swedish editions and reflect the literature on overthinking and rumination with which I am most familiar; the research sources included here are primarily in English. The books and articles describe what overthinking and rumination are, how they may affect everyday life, and which approaches may contribute to change.
The research sources examine how the brain’s resting-state activity is affected by overthinking and rumination and how reflection, problem-solving, emotional processing, and emotion regulation are understood within psychological research.
If overthinking and rumination are recurring or restricting your life, it may be helpful to seek support from a licensed psychologist.
Books (in Swedish)
Orosboken – Erik Andersson och Tove Wahlund
Öppet sinne : kraften i att veta vad du inte vet – Adam Grant
Tjatter: Hur du övervinner oro och ältande – Ethan Kross
Dansa mjuk med tillvaron: Om mening, mod och möjligheter – Anna Kåver
Kroppen håller räkningen: hjärna, sinne och kropp vid läkning efter psykiskt trauma – Bessel van der Kolk
What research shows
A study on how the brain functions during overthinking. How resting-state brain activity can be affected by overthinking and rumination.
A study on reflection as a form of thinking. How reflection is described in psychological research. Thinking can take different forms, such as overthinking and reflection.
A description of problem-solving as a form of thinking. How problem-solving is described in psychological research. Thinking can take different forms, such as overthinking and problem-solving.
A description of emotional processing and emotion regulation. How emotional processing and emotion regulation are described in psychological research.
Living more and ruminating less
There is no point at which we stop thinking about life. Questions, uncertainty, and doubt will always be part of being human.
The difference is that our thoughts no longer need to command all our attention. When we become more grounded in our emotions and our own experience, it becomes easier to live even when everything has not been resolved.
Many people do not describe this as thinking less, but as living more. Relationships, work, creativity, and everyday life gradually take up more space than the questions that once consumed almost all their energy.
A reflection
When people seek therapy, they rarely say that they want to think less. More often, they long to be more present in their own lives—to have energy left for their relationships, dare to make decisions, and feel that life is moving forward again. Perhaps this is when overthinking truly begins to loosen its grip—not because every question has been answered, but because the questions no longer need to occupy all our attention.
– Maria Sandgren
Further reading
This text draws on my clinical experience as a psychologist, together with research on emotions, relationships, well-being, and psychological difficulties. Below is a selection of books and scientific articles for those who would like to explore the subject further.
The books are listed in their Swedish editions and reflect the literature on overthinking and rumination with which I am most familiar; the research sources included here are primarily in English. The books and articles describe what overthinking and rumination are, how they may affect everyday life, and which approaches may contribute to change.
The research articles cover different aspects of psychological well-being, including the importance of awareness, connection, insight, and a sense of purpose and meaning. They also examine how overthinking and rumination are associated with poorer well-being and changes in resting-state brain activity, while distinguishing rumination from reflection.
If overthinking and rumination are recurring or restricting your life, it may be helpful to seek support from a licensed psychologist.
Books (in Swedish)
Orosboken – Erik Andersson och Tove Wahlund
Öppet sinne : kraften i att veta vad du inte vet – Adam Grant
Tjatter: Hur du övervinner oro och ältande – Ethan Kross
Dansa mjuk med tillvaron: Om mening, mod och möjligheter – Anna Kåver
Kroppen håller räkningen: hjärna, sinne och kropp vid läkning efter psykiskt trauma – Bessel van der Kolk
What research shows
How psychological well-being can be developed through four fundamental psychological capacities.Psychological well-being is not static. It can develop and be strengthened through experience and practice. Research highlights four areas in particular:
Awareness – paying attention to emotions, bodily signals, and what is happening in the present moment.
Connection – experiencing a sense of belonging, care, and meaningful relationships.
Insight – understanding how thoughts, emotions, and beliefs shape our experience of ourselves and the world.
Purpose and meaning – experiencing a sense of direction, coherence, and something to move towards.
A study on the relationship between overthinking and poorer psychological well-being. How overthinking and rumination, but not reflection, are associated with poorer psychological well-being.
A study on the brain at rest and during overthinking. How resting-state brain activity and our capacity for reflection can be affected by overthinking and rumination.
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If something in this text resonates with your own situation and you would like to make a change in your life, you are welcome to book a first session.
