Journal prompts for overthinking
Overthinking is going over the same thought again and again without arriving anywhere new. The 14 prompts below interrupt the loop three ways: they turn "why" into "what happened" and "what next", they move you a step back from the thought, and they give it a set time so it doesn't take your whole evening.
How to use these. Write the looping thought once, then pick one prompt from any group below. Stop when you've written your next step. If you catch yourself rewriting the same paragraph, close the page.
Catch the loop
You can't step out of a loop you haven't noticed. Name it plainly first.
What's the thought I've gone over most today? Write it once, then put the pen down for a breath.
Answer this with JoyRoughly how many times has this come back since this morning, and what was I doing each time?
Answer this with JoyWhich part of this could I solve, and which part is a question with no answer?
Answer this with JoyFrom why to what next
"Why did I say that?" rarely has an answer you can use. "What exactly happened?" and "what could I do?" often do.
Instead of asking why, what exactly did I say or do, and what happened right after?
Answer this with JoyWhat would a next step look like if it had to be small enough to do tomorrow?
Answer this with JoyIf I explained this to a stranger in three sentences, what would those sentences be?
Answer this with JoyLook from further away
A few minutes in the observer's seat, writing about yourself by name, from a year away or through the eyes of someone who likes you, takes some of the heat out of a thought.
Write about this moment using my own name instead of "I": "[Name] keeps going over..."
Answer this with JoyOn this date next year, what do I think I'll remember about this, if anything?
Answer this with JoyWhat would someone who knows me well, and likes me, say I'm missing?
Answer this with JoyGive it a time and a place
Telling yourself to stop thinking about something doesn't work for long. Telling it when it can come back sometimes does.
When tomorrow can I give this 15 minutes on purpose, and where will I sit to do it?
Answer this with JoyWhen the thought comes back tonight, what will I do instead of going over it again?
Answer this with JoyWhen going over it helps, and when it keeps you stuck
Repeated thinking isn't the problem by itself. What matters, according to a review of the research, is the kind.1 Dwelling in abstract terms, like "why does this always happen to me", can keep low mood going. Going over the same thing concretely, like "what happened, and what could I try", can help people solve it.1
That difference is the whole idea behind the second group, which swaps every why for a what.
Distance matters too. People who recalled an angering moment from an observer's view, instead of reliving it, could ask why it happened with less of the hot emotion coming back, across two experiments.2 The research on that kind of step-back reflection has grown since, and the Socratic questioning page covers what a later review found.
Example entry: "Loop: did I come across as rude in the group chat? What I wrote: 'Can't make it, sorry.' What happened: two people replied with a thumbs up. Next step: none needed. If it's still bugging me tomorrow at lunch, I'll ask Sam."
- "Why did I say that?": What exactly did I say, and what happened next?
- "What if they think I'm...": What would I see if they did? What have I seen so far?
- "I can't stop thinking about it": When tomorrow will I give it 15 minutes?
When the loop takes hours
If the same thoughts take up hours of most days, keep you from sleeping, or come with low mood that won't lift, a journal isn't enough on its own. Cognitive behavioral therapy has specific tools for rumination and worry.
The thought record is one of those tools you can try by yourself tonight.
Questions people ask about journaling for overthinking
How do I stop overthinking at night?
Don't fight the thought in bed. Write it in one line, add the time tomorrow you'll look at it, and close the notebook.
If it comes back, it has an appointment.
Is overthinking the same as anxiety?
They overlap. Worry mostly points at the future ("what if"), and rumination mostly replays the past ("why did I"). Researchers treat both as kinds of repetitive thought, and the same shift from abstract to concrete applies to each.1 For worry about the future, see the prompts for anxiety.
Can journaling make overthinking worse?
Yes, if the journal becomes one more place to replay the same question. A rule of thumb: if an entry asks "why" more than twice, switch to a prompt that asks "what happened" or "what next".
Related
In the journaling section: journal prompts for anxiety, journal prompts for self-discovery and the full set of journal prompts.