How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut (2024)

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How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut? ›

The author offers strategies to learn how to leverage your intuition as a helpful decision-making tool in your career: 1) discern gut feeling from fear, 2) start by making minor decisions, 3) test drive your choices, 4) try the snap judgment test, and 5) fall back on your values.

Listening to your intuition typically feels like 'you might want to go this way' versus 'go this way or else',” Lodato says. “Overthinking generally refers to repetitive, unproductive thoughts where people 'ruminate' about the future or 'worry' about the past,” she offers.

Some common signs of a gut feeling are: “Butterflies” or stomach nausea. Clammy or sweaty palms. Tension or muscle tightness.

“The main difference is that intuition is really about sensing something, it's not really thinking about it. Anxiety is often sort of about overthinking something,” Kilduff says. “Anxiety may even try to override your intuition and take over.”

Relationship anxiety is typically characterized by persistent and intrusive worries that lead to high levels of distress. It often centers on 'what if' scenarios and creates a negative narrative. Gut feelings, on the other hand, are usually fleeting yet powerful and clear.

Diet. Improving your diet can help boost your gut health and may be able to help with anxiety. Researchers have found that high quality diets — including those containing more fiber, omega-3, and “good” bacteria called probiotics — may be linked to a lower risk of anxiety, stress, and depression symptoms.

Insecurity comes from a place of fear and anxiety, it can feel sudden and urgent. [Intuition] is a softer message [...] it could still be protective but it might not be as immediate or hijack your entire system.

Our gut feelings are important and ensure that we pay attention to the most relevant aspects of our environment. It's important to remember, however, that gut feelings are not always correct. That's not the point of them. Gut feelings will not give you clear right or wrong answers that you can then rationally evaluate.

When your intuition is warning you? ›

When your intuition warns you, act immediately to increase your safety – leave the area, set a boundary, cross the street, call a friend, or lock a door. Sometimes acting on your intuition can feel awkward, embarrassing, or even stupid. Never let these feelings stop you from being safe.

One of the ways to harness your intuition is to first recognize when it is sending you a message. The signals of intuition are emotions like fear and anxiety, but also physical sensations—like feeling tense and persistent thoughts, dreams, and suspicions. One of the most overlooked signals of intuition is confusion.

Gut feelings lead you in a clear direction

Anxiety, on the other hand, tends to focus on the future and often has less definition. With anxiety, you might find yourself worrying about all manner of concerns, particularly those you can't change or control.

Paranoia comes from thoughts and belief systems, sometimes delusional, which causes mental and emotional discord. It's usually fear based and destructive. A gut feeling is intuition at work, your brain is solving a problem, mainly unconsciously based on previous experience.

Counsellor Jeff Guenther says that an important thing to keep in mind when differentiating between gut feelings and insecurity is that "insecurity comes from a place of fear and anxiety, it can feel sudden and urgent and is typically trying to warn you that something bad is going to happen to you".

If you feel anxiety and overwhelm it's very likely fear. If you feel certainty and calm then it's very likely intuition.