A Reset for Overwhelmed Thoughts
- Mar 18
- 2 min read
Get stressful thoughts out of your head, sort what matters, and create space for calm.
Have you noticed you feel overwhelmed and preoccupied by your own thoughts?
Do you have the same thoughts swirling around your brain over and over again?
Do you feel like your thoughts distress you and make you feel tense?
Try this strategy:
Grab a piece of paper and write down all the negative & stressful thoughts that keep swirling in your head. Just make a point-form list of them; this isn’t a journaling exercise. Try to be specific.
Over the next day or so, keep adding to the list as you notice thoughts that hadn’t occurred to you to add before.
The next step is to place an asterisk * beside every thought on your list that you actually can’t do anything about. These are the things that you’ll work on: accepting your powerlessness and letting go of the anxiety or stress that they cause.
On a separate piece of paper, again list the things that do require something of you to allow you to accomplish them, so they can leave the vortex in your brain. Underneath each one, write down what you need to do for the accomplishment to take place and how much time is required. If a task will only take you 15 minutes, that’s very different from something that might take weeks, months or years. Next, taking into account how much time each will require, set a goal for when you want to have each of these done.
Even just having these things written down, rather than spiralling in your head, can help reduce the pressure & tension. You’re then able to employ some self-talk that can also help. For example, if you keep ruminating on a task that will take weeks to accomplish, you can say to yourself, “Ok, I already have a plan for this, and there’s nothing I can do right this minute to work on the plan, so I can let go of thinking about it right now.” Or, “Ok, this task will take 15 minutes, so I’m just going to power through my feelings of overwhelm and just get it done because once it’s done, I’ll feel so much better!”
It might sound like a lot of work, but it really only takes a few minutes, and you don’t have to do everything at once. It’s worth the investment of time to feel less agitation and more peace of mind.
Support Is Available
At Peaceful Minds Psychotherapy, we offer trauma‑informed therapy, including DBR, for adults and teens. Sessions are available in‑person and virtually across Ontario.
