The Real Reason Overthinking Feels So Damn Addictive
When your brain needs art, not analysis, give creative processing a try.
In my early 30s, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and put on suicide watch.
I expected to be allocated a CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) therapist like the other inpatients with anxiety, depression, and complex PTSD.
More structure. More thinking. More reframing. Cool.
Instead, my psychiatrist said this:
“You're very in your head. Leaning into that won’t help right now. Let’s try a creative approach.”
She prescribed Art Therapy.
I was sceptical, flat, and resistant. Thinking is so valuable so why wouldn’t I lean on it? Plus, everyone else is doing the other thing - why am I different?
But I was curious enough to show up and see what it was like.
My art therapist put up with my initial resistance and grumpiness with kindness and patience. It felt like I’d regressed to a sullen teenager, but we stuck with it.
Over the sessions, I noticed the shift, and creative processing has become a recovery tool that’s helped me repeatedly since.
Art gave me a way out of my worst self-destructive loops.
It showed me how many habits, assumptions, and limits I’d put on myself.
Why I assumed the time restrictions to a creative exercise.
Why I only used some of the paper, even though that wasn’t suggested.
Why I chose a certain colour or texture over another, when I had the whole palette available.
Those insights were priceless, and only the beginning of a huge transformation.
They helped me see how I could change my painful perspective and exist differently.
Plant the seed for bigger changes ahead
I spent months doing Art Therapy, using all forms of art-making materials.
It wasn’t about creating “good art” but expressing and highlighting what was going on inside. and reflecting on the choices I did or didn’t make.
It was enlightening and laid bare how I saw myself and where I held back.
We later introduced CBT, ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy), and trauma-related treatments like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) therapy - this combination saved my life.
But Art Therapy planted the seed for agency and true expression of what I couldn’t openly share.
It showed me resilience isn’t always about thinking differently in the most direct or obvious way.
Sometimes it’s about creating differently so you frameshift from a deeper, unconscious place.
I used art as therapy after my beloved dad died a few years ago. It helping me express and process the complex grief and darkness that descended upon my life.
These experiences inspired me to train as an art-based coach to complement my neuroscience and psychology background.
For Overthinkers, stuck in endless thinking loops that overwhelm, more thinking or logic often doesn’t help.
You need another channel that taps into a different part of your brain, body, and habits.
We overthink because we believe it helps - but we're lying to ourselves
Why do we end up in self-sabotaging habits like overthinking?
Because at some level, they help us feel in control. We believe they’re useful.
There’s even a short-term reward: running through mental scenarios gives you a dopamine boost because you think you’re preparing, spotting blind spots, or generating solutions. Useful things, right?
But it’s a trap!
It’s classic negative reinforcement.
The tiny dip in anxiety when you overthink convinces your brain the habit works, so you repeat it, even though the real problem remains unsolved.
Over time, the loop, not your resilience, strengthens as your go-to coping strategy. The reward comes from the habit, not the effort to act and solve the problems you’re thinking about.
Rumination - the technical term for those mental loops that run repeatedly - doesn’t resolve anything.
It’s an avoidance habit that tricks you into feeling safe, because nothing in your head challenges the theory.
The real problem? You stay stuck, and it prolongs your stress response.
Your brain stays in “unfinished business” mode, keeping the file open on the desktop and draining energy in the background.
This is why you feel so bloody exhausted.
It’s a high-energy, low-output habit.
Research shows chronic rumination raises anxiety, increases cortisol, and slows decision-making.
The more you spiral with all the “whys and what-ifs,” the less capacity you have available to act.
Your problems compound and opportunities wilt whilst you cycle in place.
We believe overthinking keeps us safe and smart.
What is really does is keep us stuck.
The real way out isn’t more thinking, but creating
If you’re wired to be an Overthinker, your instinct is to double-down on the logic route.
More lists, more analysis, more “what-if” scenarios. These are valuable but only at the right time.
Real resilience doesn’t come from tightening control. It comes from shifting perspective and noticing how you’re getting in your own way.
That’s where The Empowerment Dynamic (TED), from author and executive coach David Emerald, offers a useful reframe.
It flips the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT), a psychological model which describes the unhealthy roles we unconsciously slip into under stress.
In DDT, you’ll usually find yourself stuck in any one of three roles:
Victim: Why is this happening to me? I can’t handle it.
Persecutor: This is all your fault. Why can’t you cope?
Rescuer: I have to fix everyone else. If I don’t save them, they’ll reject me.
TED turns these into healthier, proactive roles:
Victim becomes Creator,
Persecutor becomes Challenger,
Rescuer becomes Coach.
Instead of helpless spirals, blame, or over-functioning, you step into a more experimental mindset, taking constructive action, learning through doing.
The Overthinker often sits in the Victim role, paralysed by loops, and waiting for clarity that never comes.
We get annoyed at ourselves or others that we’ve got these problems to solve, feeling helpless or put upon.
But the antidote is shifting into the Creator role, leading with curiosity, small experiments, and actions that break the spiral with evidence.
That’s what my psychiatrist was nudging me towards when she suggested Art Therapy.
Instead of more worksheets, I answered key questions through creative expression and reflection on my approach, decisions, and what I’d created.
She knew I didn’t need more structure, words, or analysis.
I needed to inhabit a new way of existing and creating a way forward without enforced rules.
So, it’s not about thinking longer or harder.
It’s about letting your hands and body do what your head can’t.
And when you give space to creative processing – through scribbles, clay, movement, and play – hidden emotions, truths, and choices surface, that are being drowned by your analytical side.
With the full picture, you act with true insight instead of staying stuck.
Do This: The ARC Overthinker’s Image Practice
So how do you shift from Victim role and into the Creator when you’re in an Overthinker spiral?
It doesn’t take a grand transformation.
Set aside some time and space for a small experiment that bypasses words and thoughts and lets your nervous system use a different channel.
I’ve even done this with lined, ruled paper and a ballpoint pen or two. Keep it simple.
My art-based coaching teacher Anna Sheather has a wealth of creative exercises.
Here’s one inspired by her:
Awareness
Catch yourself thought looping but don’t force an answer.
Grab a piece of paper and mark-making tools and find a quiet spot.
Spend a few minutes scribbling or making marks that represent how the loop feels or needs to be expressed.
Try not to self-censor – it might be structured, stuck, or chaotic and messy.
There’s no right or wrong here. Go with what needs to be put onto paper.
Reconnection
Step back and look at what you’ve created.
Notice shapes, colours, textures, how much of the page you have or haven’t used etc. What feelings or emotions came up?
Ask yourself:
What does this image say in this moment?
Where am I in the image?
What is missing from this image?
Reflect on what you haven’t named yet but need to label to move forward.
This shifts you from spiralling thoughts to visual reflection - an alternative way to make sense of or find meaning from what’s going on.
Containment
Do something practical.
Choose one small, tangible action to complete from your image reflection – note when and how you’ll do it so it’s concrete.
Decide what you’ll do with your image – fold it, pin it, or destroy it.
Close the loop by marking an end to this creative processing session.
By completing this exercise, the thought looping gets externalised and is processed without going around in circles.
It teaches your brain you don’t have to get stuck in spiralling thoughts but can do something practical with them.
This is the habit shift into Creator mode and taking informed action.
This week’s permission slip
Creative processing isn’t about making “good art.”
You don’t even need to explain it, share it, or keep it.
It’s about making marks on paper, creating sculptures or forms, or chucking something out in front of you just to get the weight out of your head.
Creative processing isn’t about talent.
It’s about deep, emotional relief and meaning making.
It’s about giving shape and structure when we don’t have the words to say how we really feel or can’t express what we want to say.
So, you don’t have to think your way through every problem or issue.
You’re allowed to draw, move, or play your way forward through honest reflection.
As writer Mary Oliver shared in Instructions for living a life:
“Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”Mary Oliver
That’s what creative processing and art expression really offers you.
Key takeaways
Overthinking feels useful, but it quietly drains you over time.
It keeps your brain in unfinished-business mode, replaying the same old scripts without a real outcome or solution.
Resilience doesn’t come from looping harder. It comes from shifting your approach.
Creative processing in all its forms, whether clay, colour, scribbles, or play, gives your nervous system a way to move blocked energy without demanding an answer first.
It’s why that psychiatrist I saw many years ago didn’t suggest more thinking but instead gave me art.
She was right then, and it’s continued to be an excellent recovery strategy.
For Overthinkers, the smartest move isn’t to think more. It’s to create, experiment, and let your hands do what your head can’t.
You’ll be surprised at what you discover, and that’s what’ll get you unstuck and into meaningful action.
P.S. How have you leaned on creative processing or art to get unstuck when your brain gets into overthinking loops? Hit reply or share in the comments.
As a poster boy for overthinkers, I’m deeply grateful to you, Sabrina, for sharing this. I’ve carried “self-destructive loops” for years, tucked away in a proverbial desk drawer, only to pull them out when something triggers those old memories. Your work on Build a Better Brain is a gift. Thank you for creating a space that helps people like me break free and move forward.