A somatic and embodied approach to getting out of your head
Most people I work with at Embodied Living Therapy don’t come in saying, “I overthink.”
They say, “I’m exhausted,” or “I can’t shut my brain off,” or “I know what my patterns are but I still feel stuck.”
Overthinking can be subtle, especially if you’re someone who is self-aware or used to being “in your head.”
As a therapist, I often guide the people I work with to consider what overthinking might be protecting them from. Because when your mind won’t let something go, it’s usually not searching for a better answer, but it may be trying to hold you at a distance from a feeling it senses could be overwhelming, painful, or hard to make sense of.
What Overthinking Looks Like in Real Life
Overthinking can look like being thoughtful, reflective, or even emotionally intelligent on the surface. But internally, it feels very different.
You might recognize yourself in some of these:
You replay interactions long after they happen, picking apart what you said or what someone else meant.
You feel stuck when making decisions, going back and forth until even small choices feel overwhelming.
You try to understand your emotions by analyzing them instead of actually feeling them.
You find yourself asking “why” over and over again, but the answer is elusive.
You feel mentally busy all the time, but when you slow down, there’s a sense of numbness or disconnection underneath.
You might even have moments where you think, “I’ve already worked through this. Why is this still coming up?”
That last one is especially important. Because it points to the difference between thinking about your experience and actually processing it.
Why Overthinking Keeps You Stuck
Overthinking often develops for a very good reason.
At some point, feeling something directly may have been too much. Maybe it felt overwhelming, unsafe, or simply unfamiliar. So your mind stepped in to help.
Thinking creates distance. It gives you something to do with the intensity.
Instead of feeling sadness, you analyze why you feel that way.
Instead of feeling anxiety, you try to solve it.
Instead of feeling anger, you explain it away.
The mind becomes the manager of your internal world. But the problem is that emotions do not resolve through analysis. You can understand your patterns inside and out and still feel caught in them. That’s because the part of you that needs attention is not the thinking part.
It’s the part that lives in your body.
The Signs You’re Disconnected From Feeling
When overthinking becomes the default, there’s often a quiet disconnection from the body.
You might notice:
You struggle to identify what you’re actually feeling unless you think about it first.
When you try to slow down, your mind speeds up even more.
You feel a low level of tension in your body that never fully goes away.
You crave clarity, but the more you think, the less settled you feel.
You keep searching for the moment where everything “clicks,” but it rarely does.
This is the loop. Thinking is trying to do the job of feeling. And it cannot complete that job.
Shifting Out of Overthinking Starts With the Body
Most advice around overthinking focuses on changing your thoughts. Challenge them, reframe them, replace them. That can be helpful to a point. But if your system is activated or holding unprocessed emotion, your thoughts will keep coming back. The shift happens when you bring your attention out of your head and into your body. Not in an abstract way. In a very direct, moment-to-moment way.
Five embodied practices for overthinking
1. Catch the moment you leave your body
The first step is noticing when you’ve gone fully into thinking. It might feel like spiraling, looping, or trying to solve something urgently.
Instead of following the thought, pause and ask yourself:
“What is happening in my body right now?”
Not what you think about the situation. What you actually feel. You might notice tightness in your chest, a pit in your stomach, or tension in your shoulders. This is where the shift begins.
2. Stay with sensation instead of escaping it
For many people, this is the unfamiliar part. When a sensation comes up, the reflex is to move away from it by thinking.
Instead, see if you can stay.
Not forever. Just for a few seconds longer than you normally would. See if you can describe the sensation. Is it heavy, tight, achy, warm, cold, restless?
You’re not trying to change it. You are just noticing.
3. Let the emotion be there without explaining it
Often, once you stay with sensation, an emotion starts to emerge. It might be subtle. It might not even have a clear label at first. This is where many people go back into thinking. They try to figure out where it came from or whether it makes sense.
See if you can skip that step.
Let the feeling be there without turning it into a story. Emotions move when they are felt. They tend to stay when they are analyzed.
4. Use movement to break the loop
If you feel stuck in your head, your body likely needs some form of movement. This does not have to be intense. A slow walk without your phone. Stretching your arms and back. Even gently shaking out your hands.
Movement helps discharge the activation that thinking is trying to manage. It gives your system another pathway to process what is happening.
5. Move gently and build trust with your body
If you’re used to overthinking, this is a gentle reminder that there is likely a very good reason for this. Starting to pay attention to your body can feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable at first. But this doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re practicing something new.
Start with small moments. A few breaths. A brief check-in. A short pause during your day.
Over time, this builds your capacity to feel without becoming overwhelmed or needing to escape into thought.
At Embodied Living Therapy, I help high-achieving adults, professionals, and entrepreneurs in Pasadena, downtown Los Angeles, and Echo Park navigate trauma, burnout, and anxiety.
