Overthinking and the Restless Mind
Why the mind wanders—and what to do when it spins out of control.
Have you ever stayed awake at night, looping through the same thought again and again—an awkward conversation, a mistake at work, a worry about tomorrow? You want to let it go, but your mind won’t cooperate. It’s as if your body is bracing for a threat, even though you’re safe in bed.
Why We Ruminate
“Rumination is the ability to disengage from what is immediately in front of us and reflect on our past or project into the future.” - Dr. Richard Davidson, DL Episode 8
Our ability to engage in “mental time travel”—to replay the past and imagine the future—is actually one of our greatest gifts as a species. It’s what allows us to learn, plan, and create a sense of purpose.
But the same capacity can turn against us, hijacking our attention with anxious loops.
Why does this happen? Two reasons stand out:
Evolutionary threat detection. For most of human history, noticing danger kept us alive. Being hyper vigilant and thinking through our potential threats likely gave our ancestors a better chance at survival.
Our brains are contrast detectors. We notice what stands out—what’s different. And because negative events are less common than the countless neutral or positive moments in our day, they grab our attention more forcefully.
This means that when you find yourself ruminating on the negative, it may actually be evidence that most of your life is unfolding smoothly. The mind fixates on the outlier—the one harsh word, the one misstep—against a background of ordinary harmony we barely register.
When a Gift Becomes a Trap
The problem arises when this stress circuitry stays switched on. In small doses, the fight-or-flight response helps us adapt. But chronic activation floods the body with stress hormones, disrupts sleep, and erodes well-being. The same mechanism that helped our ancestors survive now keeps us stuck in cycles of worry.
As we discussed in an earlier post on burnout, our nervous systems weren’t designed for the constant barrage of notifications and information we handle in today’s age.
“We are incredibly good at detecting threats and incredibly bad at discerning which threats are emotional or psychological and which threats are physical. Meditation puts us in the driver's seat. It gives us the perspective to step back and investigate. Is this healthy? Is this an adaptive response or is it not quite right for this particular context?” - Dr. Cortland Dahl, DL Episode 8
A Shift in Perspective
This is where contemplative practices come in. They are not a cure-all, but ways to regain perspective. In Buddhist psychology, the root of much suffering is not seeing clearly. When we practice meditation, we’re training the ability to step back, notice what the mind is doing, and ask simple but crucial questions:
Is my body reacting as if I’m in danger when I’m actually safe?
Is this thought useful right now?
This small shift—stepping back from identification with our thoughts—changes everything. It helps us discern when mental time travel is serving us, and when it’s just noise.
Looking Ahead
In our next two Dharma Lab episodes, we’ll explore practical strategies for working with this restless energy: ways to harness our mind’s remarkable abilities in service of awareness, insight, connection, purpose, and overall flourishing.
It’s important not to label parts of our minds as “good” or “bad”: “The very same mechanisms in our brain and body that are often hijacked and can cause suffering, we can harness those same mechanisms for flourishing.” - Dr. Richard Davidson, DL Episode 8
For now, the next time you catch yourself ruminating on the negative, try flipping the frame: it may be less a sign of failure and more a reminder that, in the background, countless things are actually going right.
Warmly,
Cort + Richie
🎧 Tune in later this week on the podcast for the full conversation. We’ll share more stories, science, and simple ways to understand and further explore our minds.
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Thank you. Very useful to think about the possibility that many things may be going 'right'.
Super useful post. Thank you. Also very excited you are focusing here in next few episodes too. Looks super useful.