Understanding Overthinking, Anxiety and the Cycle of Rumination
By Dr. Karanvir Singh
Sometimes, a conversation ends in five minutes, but your mind continues having it for five hours. You replay what you said, imagine what someone else meant, and search for certainty that never seems to arrive.
Priya is driving home after a routine meeting with her supervisor. The conversation went reasonably well. Her supervisor thanked her for completing a project and mentioned that one section could have been clearer. Priya smiled, agreed, and returned to work. But now, sitting at a red light, she remembers the supervisor’s expression. Was she disappointed? Did the comment mean her work was not good enough? At dinner, her husband asks about her day. “It was fine,” she replies, although she barely hears his next question. Later, she opens the project again, rereads her emails, and mentally rehearses what she should have said. At midnight, she is still awake. She tells herself that once she understands exactly what went wrong, she will finally relax. Instead, every answer seems to produce another question. By morning, she is exhausted from a problem that may never have existed in the way she imagined.
What Priya is experiencing may reflect rumination, a pattern of repetitive thinking that keeps attention focused on distressing experiences and their possible meanings. Unlike constructive reflection, which can lead to a decision or useful action, rumination often circles around the same uncertainty. The mind attempts to solve emotional discomfort through further analysis, but the process may sustain distress rather than resolve it.
Psychologists Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Blair Wisco, and Sonja Lyubomirsky (2008), writing in Perspectives on Psychological Science, reviewed evidence connecting rumination with increased negative thinking, impaired problem solving, and depression. Their review also discussed associations with anxiety. Importantly, the researchers distinguished repetitive rumination from more adaptive forms of self reflection.
Not every thought requires an answer, and not every uncomfortable feeling requires an investigation. For Priya, a useful shift might begin with asking, “Am I learning something new, or am I repeating the same question?” If action is needed, she can identify one reasonable next step. If no new information is available, returning attention to the present may be more helpful than continuing the mental debate.
Overthinking can become particularly exhausting when the search for reassurance begins interfering with sleep, relationships, or everyday functioning. Anxiety counselling can help people recognize repetitive thinking patterns, develop greater tolerance for uncertainty, and respond differently to distressing thoughts. The goal is not to eliminate thinking, but to recognize when thinking has stopped being useful.
My name is Dr. Karanvir Singh. I am a psychotherapist, organizational psychologist, and researcher with over twelve years of experience supporting people through pain, uncertainty, transformation, and renewal. My work is not simply about symptoms or diagnoses; it is about people and the complexity of what it means to live, connect, and try to make sense of ourselves in an often unkind world.