Should You Call Overthinking a Medical Issue?

Thanks to advances in medicine and the increasing awareness of people, many mental abnormalities are now classified as disorders. And while this is a good piece of news for the millions of mental health patients in this world, many people now harbor misconceptions regarding what is and what is not a mental illness.

Overthinking falls in the latter category as, even though it signals disturbed mental health, it is not a diagnosable mental disorder by itself. Instead, medical professionals relate it to mental conditions like anxiety, depression, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), and the ilk.

However, this does not mean that you should take overthinking in a casual light. Though not a definite medical condition, it is still a menace for anyone suffering from it.

The habit of thinking over things cautiously and meticulously is an attribute that all of us possess. And this trait typically comes into the picture when we make critical life decisions such as choosing a college, applying for a job, picking a life partner, etc.

However, there are some individuals that subconsciously apply this characteristic to almost every decision in their life. For them, unintentionally sending a wrong but harmless text to someone can trigger a slew of negative thoughts. And it can take days before they can get over the trauma of offending that person, even though that is not the case at all.

Experts aptly call such people overthinkers. And their policy of deeming even the most mundane of thoughts as life-altering, by tossing and turning them repeatedly in their minds, is called overthinking.

Now, overthinking, or ruminating as psychologists call it, is not as bad as people make it out to be. In fact, there are times when pondering over something for long can yield profitable results.

But, problems arise when it starts interfering with an individual’s daily life. They start feeling hesitant towards a lot of things and, ironically, worry about how their inactivity will cause even more problems.

This article discusses some essential insights that every overthinking individual should be aware of. Hence, if you can relate to the description of an overthinker as mentioned above, you should read this article through.