Inside Marcy's Mind

From Brain Loops To Calm: Practical Tools To Break Overthinking

• Marcy • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Ever replay a tiny moment until it feels huge? We go straight at overthinking—the late-night loops, the shower replays, the “did that mean something?” spirals—and break down why your brain does it and how to make it stop running the show. Not by shutting thoughts off, but by choosing the right tools when worry dresses up as logic.

We start with a reframe: overthinking isn’t a flaw; it’s your brain trying to protect you with pattern recognition and care. The problem is timing and intensity. You’ll hear how the loop forms—analyze, imagine, doubt, feel worse, repeat—and why thinking harder rarely delivers the certainty you crave. Then we pivot to what actually works: action or acceptance. From sending a clarifying message to admitting you don’t have new information, these choices restore calm because they restore control.

You’ll learn four practical tools you can use today. Name the spiral to create distance. Ask, “Do I actually have new information?” to stop dead-end thought. Set a thinking container with a timer so your brain gets boundaries, not endless spin. And get into your body: stretch, walk, breathe deeply, and reset your nervous system. We also take aim at mind reading. Silence isn’t rejection, delayed texts aren’t verdicts, and someone else’s mood is not your responsibility. If someone has an issue, it’s their job to communicate it. That reframe saves hours of pre-punishment and keeps your energy for real conversations.

Finally, we rebuild self-trust. Swap “What will they think?” for “What do I think?” Practice, “I can handle whatever happens,” and mean it. You’ve done it before; you can do it again. The goal isn’t to stop thinking—it’s to stop letting thoughts drive. Subscribe, share this with a chronic overthinker who needs a reset, and leave a review with the tool you’re trying first.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to Inside Marcy's Money. My name is Marcy Backis, and I am your host. There is zipping music. In today's episode, we are gonna be talking about overthinking. How to stop overthinking everything. The brain does this, and we're gonna kind of talk about that. But uh I'm on my road trip. I'm in a hotel doing this right now on my laptop, so it takes me a little extra here and there. I um I just a lot. It's been a lot. It's been I left on January 11th. I left on my 38th year of sobriety date, January 11th, and then I celebrated my 65th birthday in Vegas with my girlfriends and had a great time. And we laughed, we ate, we walked, we shopped, we went out to a phenomenal dinner for my 65th birthday at Prime Steak in the Bellagio where you can see the fountains. It was just lovely. We had a beautiful dinner, nice and slow. We got to dress up, we took an Uber Black there and an Uber Black back. We were fancy girls. It was fancy time. It was really nice. And I thank all of my friends who came out and took the time and uh and my friend Annette, who hosted us all. It's a lot to host uh five women and yourself, being six and two dogs. And we've done we did some walks, we did some talks. Uh, there was a lot going on. And I think everybody had a really good time, and I'm sure everybody was really happy to be back to their own bed and no sherry, well, sharing with someone else, but you know what I mean. Anyways, uh thanks for indulging me and letting me share about my trip. I am now in Moore Park. I'm headed to my best friends today, and I'm gonna stay there for a couple of days, have a nice lunch tomorrow, and then I'm gonna spend three days with my oldest, Kyle. Then off to Disneyland, then off to Mary's, and then off to a week cruise. So I got a lot more going on. I'll catch you all up on that next week. But are you an overthinker? I am an overthinker. I don't overthink everything. I'm not that overthinker of an overthinker, but I overthink things. I run through them ad nauseum in my head. So, how to stop overthinking? All right, let's talk about overthinking. If you replay conversations in the shower, rethink texts after you send them, lie awake wondering if that tone was weird, or analyzing something from three years ago, like it's a cold case, welcome. You're among friends. This episode is not about just stop thinking. If that worked, none of us would be here. What it's about is why overthinking happens, what it's actually trying to do, and how to interrupt it without turning into a monk who lives in silence. I'm Marcy Backis. This is Inside Marcy's Mind. And today we are telling our brains to calm the, you know what, down. Just calm down. What is overthinking? What actually is it? All right, let's first let's reframe this. Overthinking is not a character flaw. It's usually a sign of intelligence, awareness, pattern recognition, and caring. Who knew? I if you had asked me what overthinking was, I don't think I would have told you it was a sign of intelligence or awareness, pattern recognition, or caring. Caring, I might have got. I don't know. Your brain is trying to protect you for heaven's sakes. Oh my God, save me from myself, brain. The problem is it has terrible timing and zero chill. Overthinking is usually fear wearing a fancy outfit. It shows up as what if I said the wrong thing? Did that mean something? What if this goes badly? Your brain is scanning for danger, danger, Will Robinson. If you don't get that reference, I'm sorry. Watch some lost in space. But your brain is scanning for danger, emotional danger, social danger, future regret. Helpful? Sometimes. Exhausting? Always. And if you want to talk about exhaustion, listen to my this week's episode of Aging Ape for Sissies. We talk about exhaustion. So definitely overthinking can be helpful from time to time, but it is always exhausting. If you if you're overthinking, it usually means you don't have enough information. And that's your brain scanning, scanning for more input, more information. And that's not to say you need to think harder. There's a loop and we get stuck in it. Let's talk about that overthinking loop. It usually goes like this hmm, something small happens. You analyze it, analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, analyzing. You imagine outcomes. Oh, I am the biggest imaginer of outcomes. You question yourself, you feel worse, and then you start to analyze that. Congratulations, you're stuck. You are stuck in the loop, the overthinking loop, the loop that goes round and round and round and round and round and round in your head. It can be exhausting. It's definitely annoying. Why does it feel impossible to stop? Well, your brain thinks if I can just figure this out, I'll feel better. How many times have you said that to yourself? A lot of it comes from wanting to feel better. It's not about being right, it's not about any of those things. It's just not having that stress, feeling better. So if I can figure this one out, I'll feel better. But thinking doesn't create certainty. Action or acceptance does. Let me say that again. Thinking doesn't create certainty. Action or acceptance does. I've been working on that. Acceptance of things you cannot change is key. And I need to remember it more often, but I'm trying. So action or acceptance does. You're using so you're using the wrong tool. It's like trying to fix anxiety with a spreadsheet. Okay. So again, overthinking feels productive, but it's not. It's motion without movement. So overthinking something, going over and over and over and over again with it, you think you're getting somewhere. You're not. It's motion without movement. That wheel, that a lot of people call it, I'm on the hamster wheel. Well, where do you where does the hamster get? Nowhere. And that's exactly where we get. We get absolutely nowhere. Motion without movement. All right, now, how do we interrupt that overthinking in real time? Now let's get practical. Here are some tools you can use in the moment, not after a retreat or a podcast binge. Okay, tool number one, name it. Name it. Say, I'm overthinking. Say it out loud if you can. All right, Marcy, you're overthinking, you're overthinking. Naming it creates distance. You're no longer in the thought, but now you're the observer of the thought. Okay. If you're in a spiral, that will slow it down. So name it. Say, I'm overthinking. All right, that's number one. Number two, ask this question Do I actually have new information? If the answer is no, thinking more won't help. You've reached the end of the road. That is so helpful to me because I've got something that's playing over and over in my head right now. And you know what? I don't have new information. So thinking about it more isn't going to help. And it's just going to annoy me and it's going to drive me crazy. So the answer is no, thinking more won't help. You've reached the end of the road. Hit the road. Sorry. All right. So if you answer yes, you can go to number three. Set a thinking container. Say, I'm allowed to think about this for 10 minutes. Set a timer. When it ends, you stop. I know that sounds trite, but it's effective. Give yourself the time to really dive into a good 10 minutes to chew, nah, think about it. And then when it's over, you're going to say that same thing. Do I have any more new information? No, I've thought about the new information that I had, I've chewed it up, it's done. Brains love boundaries. They don't love endless spirals. Brains do love boundaries. Those endless spirals will get you every time, won't they? Well, number four, get out of your head and into your body. Overthinking lives in the head. Relief lives in the body. Take a walk. Do some great stretches. I am really into stretching these days. It's always a little scary because when you're stretching, you think, okay, if something bad can, am I gonna pop something, something gonna go, something gonna give. But done slowly and methodically, stretching can be very helpful. Breathe deeply. Breathe deeply. And don't forget to exhale as deeply as you breathe in. Do something physical. I don't care if it's walking through TJ Maxx. Do something physical. You don't need a solution, you need a reset. All righty. So that was one, the that was our how to interrupt overthinking, if you forgot what we were doing. So number one was name it. Number two is ask this question. And the question is, do I actually have new information? Number three is set a thinking container, give yourself a time limit to ponder this. Tool number four, get out of your head and into your body. Okay, so those are the four. The next thing is stop trying to read minds. And I uh honest to God, I think I'm Zolof, the mind reading guru. You're not a mind reader, you are a guesser, a creative one at that, but still guessing. If you're not talking to the person, if you're not getting the information firsthand, you are not a mind reader. Sorry, there was a yawn. You are a guesser, but it's still guessing. So repeat after me. Silence does not equal rejection, a delayed response is not a message. Sometimes it is. Someone else's mood is not your responsibility. That one is key. Someone else's mood is not your responsibility. Most people are not thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are. And I say that lovingly. Reframing things is a really great thing to do. If someone has an issue with you, it isn't their job to communicate it. You don't need to pre-punish yourself just in case. Let me read that again. If someone has an issue with you, I said that wrong the first time. I knew I did, and I had to do redo it. So let's hear this again. We're in our reframing. If someone has an issue with you, it is their job to communicate it. You're not a mind reader, remember? You don't need to pre-punish yourself just in case. Wait for the punishment if you deserve it. If you don't, you've just wasted all that thinking and all that time. If someone has a problem with you, it's their job to communicate it. And hopefully they communicate it in a way that you can have a back and forth. Being yelled at is not communicating. So, and you messages are not communicating. They're blaming. So, as long as if someone has an issue with you, they're able to do it in a productive way, you can figure it out. You can reframe and walk through it. Trusting yourself again. Overthinking often shows up when you don't trust yourself. Is that it for you? You don't trust yourself because maybe you've messed up before. So let's rebuild that. We're gonna start here. We're gonna ask, what do you what do you, what do I think about this? We're not gonna think, what will they think? How will this look? What if I'm wrong? What do I think about this? Just what feels right to me. You don't need certainty, you need self-trust. Practice this sentence. I can handle whatever happens, I can handle whatever happens. I can handle whatever happens because you can. You always have. Again, just like Dorothy clicked those heels, she had the power all along. You always have had the power. All right. Well, if your brain is loud today and you're in a spiral or you're in a roller coaster and you're coming back around and around and around, that doesn't mean anything is wrong. It means you care. It means you're aware. It means you're human. The goal is not to stop thinking. The goal is to stop letting thoughts run your life. You are allowed to pause, you are allowed to rest your mind, you are allowed to not solve everything tonight, today, right now. I am Marcy Backis. This is Inside Marcy's Mind. And here's your reminder: not every thought deserves your attention. Some just need to pass on through. I'll see you next time.

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Marcy Backhus

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