Why we Overthink

You send someone a message. They see it. No reply. Five minutes. You are fine. Ten minutes pass. You are still fine. Thirty minutes pass. Congratulations. You brain has now opened a full investigation.

Did I say something wrong? Was that "okay" too okay? Should I have used an emoji? Should I give delete for everyone? But there would be a message that says that they have deleted this message. Should I tell them that I have accidentally sent a wrong message? Was the period at the end of the sentence aggressive?

They would have been having their notifications on and they should I have seen my message and would have thought "Ohh this girl...eww I don't even remember her name she is so annoying and childish"…? Are they angry? I am sure that they secretly hate me no matter how sweet they sound to my face...

Did I make them uncomfortable? Did I give them reasons to hate me?
Shit...It has been 40 mins since I texted...I have to delete my existence and move to another country

The person might simply be taking a shower. Or someone else might have opened the message. Meanwhile your brain has already came up with the worst possible scenario. That is overthinking.

Psychologically overthinking involves repetitive, difficult to control thinking often in the form of ruminantion about the past it worry about the future. The strange thing is that sometimes that feels productive.

Your brain convinced that if you think about something for a long time then you will eventually find an answer. Except that for the list times there are no answers for our brain.

Now why do we do this? One explanation involves threat detection. Our brains are highly sensitive to potential danger and uncertainty. Historically noticing possible threats could be usefull for survival. Unfortunately your brain does not always understand that an unread message is not a tiger.

Basically your brain hates saying I don't know. So it starts generating responses. What if this happens? But...what if THAT happens? Okay ..but maybe the tone was wrong and what if someone told you THIS?

Congratulations...you have gone from "My friend has not replied yet" will be changed to "No one likes me and the only tolerate me...I am going to die alone and cold".

There is a difference between What can I do about this and Let me think about the same thing 73 time just in case.

If there is something you can fix it then go and fix it. If you need information then get it. If you need to apologise then go and say sorry.