Overactive Mind
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Overactive Mind

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Posted by M4rc on March 11, 2009 at 05:00:15:

Who on here has an overactive mind?

My guess is a lot of you do. I know definitely I do! I think (no surprise there then) and I’m sure you would agree, that an overactive mind fuels insomnia.

I have a lot of friends, however only one of them suffers from sleep problems, and he too has an overactive mind! He has never told me “I have an overactive mind” but I can see it. It’s quite obvious, as I imagine mine would be to others. Id bet we are probably the only 2 people in our friendship group that have ‘to-do lists’. You folks got a ‘To-Do list’? I always have a to-do list, either in my wallet or saved on my computer but I always have one. I never really get a break from it either, I never manage to complete all the tasks on my list and have an empty list, with nothing to do because when I do seem to have completed all the tasks on my list, Ill think and think until I remember something, or create new points to add to it. Silly things; anything from remember to put my car in for a service in 2 months time, making sure I have enough cash to do so, to, remembering to get some more earplugs from work (ha ha) Basically all the little things in life, the things some people worry about constantly until they’re suddenly struck with a terminal illness and they regret worrying about the little things in life. You hear about the people who become cured promising to themselves they will never worry about the little things ever again, they will live life to the fullest, but I bet they do worry about the little things again, because it’s hard, if not impossible to change. I think they were so pre-occupied with their illness at the time that the little things really did become little and insignificant, until they were cured, some time goes by and bang they find themselves worrying about little things again.

This is just one characteristic of an overactive mind. The need to be in control and on top of things all the time, and in all honesty it’s not that bad a characteristic to have, it can be advantageous. I’d still like to tone it down a little though.

I think the other main characteristic of an overactive mind is the ‘over analysing’ part! I analyse a lot of things, people’s expressions, reactions, opinions, how they deal with certain situations, etc. I can watch a good movie or soap, but never be fully sucked in because I am aware of the acting, so as-well as enjoying the scene I am also, almost sub consciously analysing how well they acted out the scene, was their acting believable? Is it how someone would react in real life if that incident happened? Do you know what I mean? I don’t think analysing its uncommon, I think it’s the difference between watching the Dark Knight for the first time and your first reaction being “That was a brilliant film” –not analysing too much. Or saying “That was a brilliant film and Heath Ledger's acting was really good” –quite a lot of analysing, still normal though. However I go past that, I watched it and because I’d already heard Heath Ledgers acting was good, I over-analysed his acting in particular and kind of paid less attention to the actual scenes he was in.

So when I am having trouble sleeping, usually at my flat…..but ill not go back into that story……I notice that my mind is too active to ‘fall’ asleep. I don’t think about anything in particular because iv written it all down so I can stop thinking about those, But I still feel my mind going at 100mph touching on random thoughts here and there that don’t really mean anything. And because of my tendency to over think and over analyse things, ill begin to over analyse the fact that I’m still not sleeping. The road to seeing 3am.

I don’t really have a point I’m trying to make here, sometimes its nice to just give people food for thought (or is that just being contradictive haha) all I really wanted to do was see if people feel the same way as me, or maybe even make some people realise that the reason for their insomnia, may be simpler than they first thought.

I suppose it would be nice if there was an easy way to tame the mind, med free, maybe CBT but for now i can live with it i guess. It had some advantages, but i would like to experience what its like to not worry about things until they happen.

Thanks for reading

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