Quieting the Mind: What Our Bodies Can Teach Us About Overthinking

If you’ve ever spent a sleepless night replaying a conversation in your head or trying to predict every possible outcome of a situation, you know how exhausting overthinking can be. It may seem like productive, conscientious problem-solving but often leaves us more anxious, uncertain, and exhausted than before.

In Don’t Believe Everything You Think, author Joseph Nguyen offers a fresh perspective on the difference between a thought and thinking. As part of our wiring for survival, the mind often defaults to worst case scenario—but things are not always as they seem. We get trapped when the amygdala takes over and we mistake thinking for knowing.

In my book, Somatic Awareness: Leading with Body Intelligence, I explore this same dynamic starting with the body. While the mind can spin stories endlessly, the body speaks in sensations—simple, grounded signals that point to what’s actually true in the moment. When we drop out of our heads and into our bodies, we find a kind of intelligence that doesn’t analyze or argue; it simply knows.

Here’s the key insight both books share in different ways:

We can’t rely on thinking alone to experience emotional freedom and find the way forward.

Instead, we must engage the mind-body connection.

That’s where somatic awareness comes in. When we learn to Notice, Name, and Navigate—the 3N Model™ I teach—we begin to recognize overthinking as a signal rather than a state we are confined to.

Here’s how you can begin to work with overthinking using the 3N Model™:

• Notice: Where does overthinking show up in your body? A tight jaw? A fluttering chest?

• Name: What’s the emotion beneath the mental chatter? Fear? Uncertainty? The desire to control?

• Navigate: Get curious and compassionate with yourself. Take a deep, grounding breath to settle the flurry of thinking in your head so clarity can emerge. Back that up by thanking that part of you that is trying to ‘keep you alive.’

When we practice this, thinking returns to its proper place as a helpful tool rather than an overactive manager. Peace begins in the body.

Picture a shaken snow globe. Somatic awareness helps the activation settle—not by silencing the mind, but by working with the mind. Silencing the mind is a form of fighting it—and what we fight only grows stronger. Acceptance doesn’t mean liking something; it means making peace with what is. We don’t have to like something to accept it. From that place of grounded peace, decisions come more easily, creativity flows more freely, and relationships deepen because we are more fully present.

The next time you catch yourself overthinking, take it as an invitation. Step out of the loop in your head and into the truth of your body. You may just discover that what you’ve been searching for isn’t another thought—it’s a moment of embodied knowing.