Overthinking or Overprotecting?

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 “Overthinking” is one of those words we use when we don’t understand what the body is doing.

It sounds like a flaw.
Like too much intellect.
Like a personality problem.

But most of the time, it’s not thinking that’s excessive.

It’s protection that’s active.

Sometimes we don’t overthink.
We over-protect.

We gather information.
We scan for risk.
We check our bodies.

Because something novel happened.
Something uncertain.
Something that needs mapping, exploring.

Novelty heightens awareness. That’s biology.
Uncertainty activates vigilance. That’s survival.

The system wants to close the loop.

I saw this play out recently in my own family.

A family member lost three chickens to what looked like a flu. 

It was sudden. It was distressing. It was real grief.

Then came the next layer.

Bird flu.

She googled symptoms.
She read about transmission.
She learned what to watch for in humans.

And then she felt a sore throat.

This is where people usually say, “See? You made it worse by looking.”

But that’s not what happened.

Her system encountered loss and potential danger.
It did what intelligent systems do.

It gathered data.
It scanned for risk.
It checked the body.

A sore throat isn’t proof of illness.
It’s often vascular and autonomic tone shifting under stress.
Attention alone can amplify sensation.
Heightened awareness can make subtle signals louder.

The body wasn’t malfunctioning.

It was asking, “Are we safe?”

Once she had the list.
Once she knew what to monitor.
Once she understood the variables.

The loop closed.

The system relaxed.

Now she could feel the devastation for what it was 

 grief 

without living inside the fear of unknown contagion.

We saw the system.
We honoured the system.
We didn’t shame it.
We didn’t override it.

And because we didn’t fight it, it resolved.

That’s the part we miss.

The problem isn’t the process.

It’s when we’re taught to fight it.

When someone says, “Stop overthinking,” what the body hears is, 

“Don’t protect yourself.”

So it protects harder.

When someone says, “Calm down,” what the system hears is, 

“Your vigilance isn’t allowed.”

So it escalates.

Most overthinking isn’t rumination for fun.

It’s unfinished safety work.

Once the system knows enough,
it relaxes.

Not because you forced it.
Because it completed its task.

We don’t need to suppress the protective impulse.

We need to let it do its job 

and then let it stand down.

That’s not weakness.

That’s homeostasis.

That’s intelligence.

And sometimes the most healing thing we can say to ourselves is:

“You listened perfectly.”