Constant Overthinking: Retrain Your Mind

A beautiful practice to pause between thoughts. Many of us are used to thinking all day long. One thought, straight on to another, and another. Over time, this can cause a great deal of stress and anxiety. This mindfulness practice will teach you how to create small gaps between thinking, which can retrain your mind away from overthinking.

Practice this regularly to calm your nervous system.

Transcript

Welcome into this practice. It's going to be so supportive for an overthinking mind. Today we are simply going to be setting the intention to create gaps in our thinking and firstly just noticing what comes up for you as I say that. So even before we get into our practice before we get into the meditation that idea of creating gaps in your thoughts is that something you've ever done before? Or does it feel as though there's just a constant stream of thinking thinking thinking thinking stories narratives to-do lists that are going on and that perhaps you don't set the intention to create gaps? Now how successful we are at creating those gaps can really vary and please do not be harshing yourself at finding this difficult especially if you're doing this for the very first time or you're new to this but even just setting the intention of I do not want a constant stream of thinking to be going on in my mind for that to not just be seen as that's what is okay that's what I want to happen because as you'll probably feel it actually has the ability to make us really unwell when we are constantly constantly constantly thinking. So let's keep it simple a simple mindfulness practice today to just start to do this especially if you've been wandering in the mind all day long and find a comfortable position we won't be here for too long so perhaps sitting upright allowing your spine to straighten elongating the spine, Purling the belly in and allowing the crown of the head to pull up towards the ceiling doing this all in a comfortable way not a forced or stiff way allowing your hands to rest on your lap or by your side and we're firstly going to ground down into the body so closing your eyes if that feels better and bringing your awareness all the way down to the base of your spine to your legs your thighs and your bottom so that part that's connected to the chair or the mat you're sitting on this real kind of anchoring base level to the body and as you breathe allowing yourself to take some conscious breaths I want you to just see if you can really recognize that sense of where your body meets the chair or the mat beneath you this place that is quite far away from the head it's quite nice to be somewhere that's quite far away from the head and if you can just place your awareness your consciousness there and allowing the breath to breathe you so we're letting go of anything forceful here this is a surrender there's no push here allow your breath to breathe you and just watch as the breath rises and falls perhaps working with it to slow down but not forcing I want you to imagine that your mind has this tendency to be a little like a video playing all day long flitting between one video to the next almost like one reel to the next a little bit like how we might scroll on social media one thing to the next to the next this is how the thinking brain can often work and so you just imagine that with each video that plays in the mind you just start to create some space you might physically see yourself spacing it out as though it was something physical like wooden blocks that are getting spaced further out you might see it like reels of videos on your phone whereby you just see yourself having a pause having a gap before scrolling to the next one this beautiful pause between the next the gap what would it be like to have bigger gaps between your thoughts does it almost feel like a secret space to rest a space that wasn't there before but it's okay to find this difficult so we might use something to anchor as though if we're going to think about something let's make it simple to encourage the gaps so as you're making the gaps bigger in your mind and thoughts pop in as they would as they probably have already seeing if where we land where the thoughts land is just on what is happening in the here and now so often that might be what you can see but of course your eyes are closed so it might be just something really simple you pulling the attention simply to the here and now to the senses as you're creating bigger gaps time time between your thoughts and i'm going to leave you for a few moments doing this if you want to do this with your eyes open if that feels easier with things to look at to land on whilst you're in the gaps then please do so i'll give you some time to really practice this making the gaps just gently a little bigger if only for a fraction of a second well done so just beginning to bring our practice to a close and coming back to the breath as you do so and if nothing else the breath is always the anchor i want you to be gentle on yourself today if that was hard if you felt as though you didn't really create these gaps it doesn't matter it's okay just the idea of creating gaps in your thinking maybe all you need to do today in order to gently start to heal overthinking so maybe placing a hand just on your chest before we finish thanking yourself for showing up today and shaking out the hands maybe moving the feet bringing that energy back into the body blinking the eyes open if they were closed and come back to this practice anytime you need and allow yourself to go ahead and put this more into practice for the rest of your day now

Reviews

Will take time but working on it. Thanks Scarlett 🙏🏻

Lovely. Calming and soothing. I am a big overthinker, causes anxiety, and have diligently been practicing on mindfulness this year (2026) to find the gaps and soothe my nervous system. I am practicing the Insight Timer 12 Day Nervous System Reset Challenge and happily found you. Will meditate with you again. Thank you Scarlett 🙏🏼❤️✌🏼