Many years ago, I clearly remember celebrating a strange victory. I had only spent one day overthinking a problem.
I was triggered by the end of another situationship. I could feel them pulling away. Something had changed, but I didn’t have the answers. I was stuck in that painful limbo space.
For that day, I had done what I always did. I replayed conversations in my head, searched for hidden meanings, imagined different scenarios, and mentally rehearsed what I would say if I could turn back time. I checked my phone more times than I could count and searched YouTube for answers. By the end of the day, I was mentally exhausted, yet as usual, no closer to an answer.
What made this time feel like a victory was that the spiral lasted only one day. That might sound like a long time, but for me, I knew it was progress. My normal pattern was spending a week or more consumed by a single problem (or a single person).
I remember thinking, “If I can reduce it to one day, surely I can reduce it to even less.” That inner knowing ended up changing everything. And as it turns out, I could.
Potential rejection, ambiguous people, mistakes, and uncertainty were my biggest triggers. Whenever they showed up, I would spiral and find myself completely consumed by my thoughts, meaning I often felt anxious, distressed, and desperate for answers.
Although somehow, on the outside, I really did seem like a confident friend and colleague that had it together.
To cope, I would try to fix the problem in my head, talk about it endlessly with certain people, research and check things non-stop, and analyze the situation from every perspective imaginable. No matter how much thinking I did, I rarely felt any better.
Eventually, after losing myself too many times and doing a fair bit of soul searching, I became aware of my mental habits and the impact they were having on me. I knew something needed to change. I was able to step back enough to see that I was spending too much time in my own head and that it was becoming a problem. I branded myself a professional overthinker.
Recognizing your overthinking is a win. It means you’ve moved from being on autopilot and trapped inside your head to being aware of this all-consuming habit.
That said, in my experience, so many people that openly call themselves professional overthinkers don’t feel able to stop a spiral.
A crucial part of overcoming overthinking is recognizing the specific overthinking styles you fall into.
Overthinking styles are the different ways that overthinking shows up. They’re not about the exact content of your thoughts but the pattern your mind follows when it gets stuck.
Here are seven styles of overthinking. Which one or two do you relate to the most?
Worry
Your mind quickly jumps ahead to all the things that might go wrong in the future. You’re not only imagining problems and worst-case scenarios, but you’re also planning and trying to prepare or prevent them, and this is most often related to ‘what if’ hypothetical scenarios.
Helpful question: Is this a real problem I need to deal with right now or a hypothetical worry my mind is trying to prepare for?
Rumination
This is when your mind keeps going back over and over the past. You recall things that upset you or try to make sense of things that have gone on. You replay conversations, decisions, or mistakes, trying to figure things out. In this case you are analyzing what you should have said or done differently and why things went the way they did.
Helpful question: Am I learning something new, or am I replaying the same information again?
Threat Monitoring
You’ll know this is happening when you feel yourself on high alert. This is you if you’re someone that scans your internal or external world for something being wrong. Instead of relaxing into situations, you’re always watching for signs of danger, rejection, or things going off track, even in normal everyday moments.
Internally, you notice every sensation or mood and think something bad is happening, or externally, you’re looking for signs and red flags.
Helpful reminder: Just because my mind is looking for a threat doesn’t mean there is one.
Fix-It Mode
This one disguises itself as positive (and at times, it can be). It’s when you feel like you have to solve your thoughts or feelings straight away, as if you’re a problem that needs fixing.
You don’t just sit with uncertainty. You start analyzing it from every angle, convincing yourself of different explanations, weighing up all the alternatives, and trying to “think your way” into the right answer.
It can even turn into overthinking self-help itself, where you endlessly try to figure out the perfect mindset or solution butstill end up giving your attention to the trigger instead of actually feeling better or moving forward.
Helpful question: What if I didn’t need to solve this right now?
Self-Criticism
We are our own worst critic. This is when you give yourself a hard time, put yourself down, and dismiss your own value. Instead of just noticing a mistake, change, or issue, your mind starts judging you for it, telling you that you should have done better, or that something is wrong with you because of it, and it is usually relentless.
Helpful question: If a friend were in my position, would I speak to them this way?
Self-Focused Attention
This is an interesting one and for me has strong crossovers with threat monitoring. It is essentially becoming very self-conscious.
This style is when your attention turns inward too much. Instead of being present in the current moment, you become overly aware of yourself—how you’re coming across, what you’re saying, or how you’re being perceived by others.
You might wonder whether you’re sounding intelligent enough, whether you’re being awkward, whether you’re talking too much, or whether the other person likes you. In social situations, it can feel like you’re constantly watching yourself through the eyes of others.
Helpful action: Gently redirect your attention outward toward the present moment and environment.
Intrusive Thoughts
This style includes thoughts, images, urges, or mental scenarios that seem to pop into your mind out of nowhere. They can be strange, uncomfortable, embarrassing, or even disturbing. One moment you’re getting on with your day, and the next your mind throws an intrusive thought at you.
Intrusive thoughts are a normal part of being human. Almost everyone experiences them from time to time. However, some people have an intrusive thought, find it odd, and move on. Others get hooked by it and that’s when the overthinking takes over.
Helpful reminder: A thought is not a fact or a reflection of who I am.
As you read through the seven styles, you may recognize yourself in one, several, or all of them. That’s completely normal. There is no simple right/wrong, and there is certainly no good/bad. The goal here is never to perfectly categorize your overthinking. Instead, it is to use this as a tool to understand the patterns your mind tends to fall into or move between.
I truly believe that once you can recognize your overthinking style, you can begin to step out of it or at least respond to it in a more helpful way by finding the right strategies and interventions for that specific pattern.
Next time you find yourself in a spiral, pull this list up and ask: What style of overthinking is this? That question alone is often enough to interrupt the mental loop and bring you back to yourself and the moment. That moment of recognition might seem small, but it’s often the first real step out of autopilot and back into control of your own mind.
I used to celebrate only spending a day overthinking one situation. Now it usually doesn’t even last that long. The main difference is that I can notice it much earlier and recognize it for what it is: a familiar overthinking style rather than something I need to solve or fix.
About Carly Ann
Carly Ann is an online psychotherapist & podcast host specialisng in self-esteem. She works with people who appear happy but struggle with self-doubt, anxiety, and repeating patterns in relationships or social situations. Carly Ann helps people understand the deeper roots of their problems, break unhelpful cycles, and build a steadier sense of confidence and self-respect. She is passionate about sharing the tools and insights many of us were never taught. Website / Instagram / Podcast: Lessons in Self-Worth
