Going on walks has been one of the most therapeutic habits for me in the past 7 years. Sure throwing on a podcast is cool, but the real benefit is actually when your mind isn’t stimulated by anything. Just a walk where you’re alone with your surroundings and your thoughts. Thoughts that have been sitting in the background get to come to surface. You get the opportunity to face things you’ve been overthinking, and experience anxieties you’ve been suppressing. The main idea here is that when we overthink and have anxiety, our being is trying to communicate something. It’s inviting us to fix a problem or pay attention to how we feel about something. If you continue to ignore these signals, then these internal attitudes might intensify. You’ll overthink more and have more anxiety. To me, overthinking is an inefficient, automatic problem solving method that our minds resort to. (It’s a spectrum but it’s very common). Even if it’s inefficient though, it’s still a method nonetheless, because there’s no other stronger alternative (since you’re not offering a different problem solving method to your mind). In fact, your method may be suppression or avoidance. (which may make the situation worse). As uncomfortable as it is to face your internal thoughts and anxieties, you’ll likely feel better after doing so. BUT you’re more likely to address these attitudes when you’re not overly stimulated or distracted but media. Something similar happens when you sit in a room quietly with your own thoughts. When my inner world became a safe place to express my opinions, anxieties, frustrations, and problems—I started to grow a closer relationship with myself. I trusted myself more. One of the benefits of therapy is creating a safe space to express. This safe space can happen internally. You just have to train yourself to create it. But this won’t happen if you’re too distracted. Just like it’s hard to get good sleep in a highly noisy environment. - Jem Veda