Mental Overweight, The Consequences Of Overthinking

If you feel like your body is constantly tired, stiff, or in pain, you may be overweight. Now, we are not referring to an increase in physical volume, nor to an increase in your head circumference, but to mental overweight. To an excess of negative, inert and unproductive thoughts.

During the day, we imagine, understand, reflect, create, calculate, make decisions … In short, we live thinking. But not all thoughts are valid or useful, in fact sometimes we think too much in a useless way and we produce a glut of useless thoughts.

If we bring up ideas that do not contribute anything, nor do they lead us anywhere, in the end the mind ends up being exhausted. It becomes heavy, it corrodes, it becomes blocked and it gives up exercising other enhancing processes.

Thoughts are the basic unit of the mind

As we can see, thinking is part of human nature. In fact, it is one of the processes that differentiate us from other living beings. Now, our thinking, contrary to what is usually considered, is mostly not conscious. Rather the complete opposite.

Let’s think of an iceberg. The tip of it or what is uncovered on the surface would be conscious thought. Meanwhile, the ice that is submerged, which is the majority, constitutes the unconscious part.

According to Dr. Michael Shadlen, principal investigator at the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Brain Behavioral Institute in Columbia (United States), “the vast majority of the thoughts that circulate in our brain occur below the radar of conscious awareness, which means that even though our brain is processing them, we are not aware ”.

Therefore, the quality of our thoughts determines our day to day. Depending on the conscious and unconscious ideas that cross our mind, this will be the result of our development.

Junk thoughts fatten our minds

Stephen Fleming, a professor at University College London (UCL) conducted an interesting study in 2010. He found that people who thought more about their decisions, who over-analyzed things without reaching clear conclusions, had more cells in the prefrontal cortex. .

Now, what at first we can consider as “positive” in reality is not. Because what there is is an excess of cells that do not fulfill clear functions. In fact, when comparing EEGs with people with schizophrenia or autism, the same phenomenon was seen.

The conclusion they reached was the following: thinking is good, but not excessively and less if what we do is fall into meaningless loops.

“Trash” thoughts

Trash thoughts are those whose recurrence exhausts us because they do not provide us with any type of benefit. They are empty and even toxic reasoning . And they are originated in our conscious mind. That is, mental overweight is not the result of repressed mental processes, impulses or desires; but the fruit of deliberate elaboration.

They are superfluous and unnecessary, so instead of providing us with greater self-knowledge and cognitive advantages, they energetically deplete us and slow down the rest of conscious processing.

They prevent us from being creative, understanding, or learning new skills. They block us and paralyze other virtues.

So when we are mentally overweight, our thoughts act like junk food. And they cause physical consequences that can even be analogous to obesity. Among them, physical exhaustion, which causes difficulty in walking or making physical efforts.

Also problems breathing normally, increased sweating, generalized pain in the joints or even skin disorders such as acne.

Causes of mental overweight

There are many types of toxic thoughts, but some that we resort to most often are the following:

• Criticism: when we reproach, judge or condemn another person, we are actually vetoing ourselves. There is a devaluation of our self-esteem and all our impotences are projected onto the other.
• The pity: victimhood is one of the obstacles that our mind puts on us so that we cannot progress. The change happens to get out of that self-felt pain and not get involved in harmful, negative, frustrating or powerless thoughts.
• The assumptions: the only job that assumptions have is to wear us out. Conjectures, riddles or figurations only damage and generate mental overweight almost automatically. How do we try to find out what someone thinks of us, if many times we are not even capable of knowing it ourselves?
• The conditionals: “if I had done this, now …”, “maybe I should have gone …”. If at the time you did not do it, do not torment yourself. What done is done. Now you can only learn from it. Those thoughts only judge you and end up self-destructing.

How to slim the mind?

To avoid being besieged by mental toxicity, thoughts should not be allowed to dominate us. That is, it is necessary to learn to control them. And for this you can put into practice the following tips:

• Rest your mind – Meditation is a great exercise to try to attract only positive ideas. However, let’s not spend more than half an hour or an hour a day on this task. Dr Tracy Alloway of the University of Stirling tells us that meditating too much can also be negative.
•  Other artistic practices, such as painting, can help release tension and replace junk thoughts with more productive ones. Reading, movies or attending workshops and seminars also make us rest mentally.
• Eliminate social toxins : Identify the social relationships that may be harming you. For example, if you surround yourself with people who are too gossipy and critical, you will end up doing the same. Find a more enriching environment that transmits strength, energy and positivity.

• Thought stop : put a stop to that toxic recurrence. As paradoxical as it may sound, focus your best on those negative ideas. And after a few minutes devoted entirely to them, cut them radically and sharply. Empty the mind.

If negative thoughts are had from time to time, their physical impact is practically negligible. But if they are constantly present, they can inhibit our abilities and diminish our quality of life.

People who are mentally overweight seek to withdraw from their own reality and overlap their inner emptiness with the personal wealth of others. They are individuals who need to unload their unproductive thoughts and get rid of all the unpleasant emotions that they produce. Let’s not let them contaminate us.

If we take care of the quality of our thoughts, we will be taking care of the quality of our life. Let’s not forget it.