Not feeling well? You might want to try giving your thoughts a check-up. You’ve probably already heard about how overthinking things stalls you out and can even impact your relationships or how you perform at work. But did you know overthinking hurts your health?

Let’s find out how.

You’re Immobilized

When you’re overthinking, you’re not acting. This might seem fairly obvious. This becomes a severe problem when you find yourself overthinking to the point where any decision seems hard, and you might even stop making the decisions you really need to, such as those about eating right or getting enough sleep. This kind of immobilization over time will start leaving you feeling run down, and can even suppress your immune system, making you more prone to illness.

You Stop Thinking Well

You’d think with overthinking, this is the one thing you’re getting right. After all, you’re always thinking! The problem here comes from overthinking about the same things. Obsessing on one thought crowds out other thoughts. A study from Stanford showed that people caught up on one thought weren’t able to access other parts of their brain easily, which lead to creativity and innovation.

Ovethinking hurts your health

You’re More Tired

Who has energy for anything else when you’re putting everything you’ve got into constant rumination? There simply isn’t anything left for other activities.

You Stop Eating Well

Let’s face it, a cycle of worrying thoughts leads people to one of two extremes pretty much guaranteed. Either you’re overthinking so much you stop eating
altogether, or you wind up stress eating everything in sight as a way to derive comfort from the anxiety this causes. Neither is good for you.

You’re Not Sleeping

Anytime your brain keeps circling around on the same thing, it becomes impossible to relax. This is probably the most common result of overthinking: the absolute inability to sleep well at night. If you’re tossing and turning because your brain won’t turn off, you’re definitely overthinking something. Lack of sleep hits you hard. Your cognitive skills go down, you start losing physical coordination, and even might make yourself physically sick over time.


All in all, overthinking hurts your health and there isn’t a single health benefit to overthinking. Overthinking is something you need to become aware of. When you catch your thoughts circling endlessly, the quickest way out of it is to force an interruption. Think about something else. Do something. Physically get up and move. You don’t need this stress, and it’s certainly not worth losing your health over.