Why You Can't Switch Off

You might be looking forward to finishing work and thinking, “Right, I can relax now.”

But you get home and it's like you can't relax.

You sit down, but your mind is still on. It starts bringing up all the things you have not had time to think about during the day. You might go for a walk because you think it will feel good, but your brain is still thinking about all the things and filling in all the spaces.

Then you get home and you don’t really feel any better from the walk.

It can feel like the more you get bombarded with this constant thinking, the harder it is to stop. So you put on a podcast, listen to music, watch something, scroll, or keep busy, just to get a break from it.

And probably nobody even knows.

You might look really successful in your life from the outside. You can be out for dinner with people, smiling and laughing, having a good conversation. But on the inside, you are having a whole separate conversation with yourself.

Like making sure you are saying the right things or trying to interpret what people are saying and thinking about how you came across.

You might be looking around at everyone else and thinking, “How are they doing it?”

You know you are overthinking. But knowing doesn't seem to be enough.

You may have tried meditation, breathing exercises, exercise, or other techniques. Some of them probably work to varying degrees. But often the thinking continues right through the practice anyway, or comes right back as soon as you finish.

It’s like your mind has become so used to being on that it doesn’t like being off.

You can’t really imagine sitting there being peaceful in the silence. You might not even be sure whether people really can be comfortably bored.

So you keep yourself busy. You might be extremely productive. You might have the cleanest house in town. Or you might be someone who has watched every series on Netflix and knows exactly which ones to recommend.

But a lot of these activities still keep the thinking mind active, even in a small way. So we are not always getting the mental rest that we really need. And it can become a cycle.

The more time we spend away from quiet and without thoughts or distractions, the harder it can feel to spend time there. It can feel really weird. So the thinking fills the space again.

The more you think, the more you think.

You can have a great life, and still be spending the majority of it in your head.  And overthinking can start to affect other areas of life too: your sleep, work, relationships, energy, and ability to enjoy things you know you used to like.

You might even be wondering, “I actually know better, so why can’t I change? What am I doing wrong?”

But you can’t think yourself to more confidence. You can’t reason yourself out of every reaction. You can’t tell yourself to relax and actually be relaxed. Because thinking about something isn’t always enough to change how the rest of you responds to it.

This is why I see the work as two things.

One is understanding what is happening and working out, in your actual life, what can help you start turning the spiral around.

The other is working with what is happening underneath the thinking.

Conversational hypnotherapy is an eyes-open conversational process. You are completely conscious, aware of everything around you, and fully in control. But we can work with the part of you underneath the thinking that has been working so hard.

So you can think when you need to think, and stop and actually relax when you do not.

I offer counselling and conversational hypnotherapy in Camberwell and online. If you would like to talk about what is happening for you, you are welcome to Book your free 15-minute conversation or explore how counselling and hypnotherapy can help. 

Ready to book a session? Book a session

Prefer to watch?: Click here