Body-First Healing Podcast

Somatic Practice for Overthinking, Rumination, & Mental Loops

• Britt Piper • Episode 36

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When your mind will not stop looping, replaying, or trying to figure something out, it can feel almost impossible to step out of the cycle. In this episode, Britt shares why this happens through the lens of the nervous system, explaining how overthinking can become a survival response when the body is activated and searching for safety or control. She then offers a somatic practice to help you work with the physiological process underneath the mental loops, so you can feel more grounded, supported, and less caught in the spiral. Take 20 minutes of your day to get out of your head and into your body. Save this episode and come back to it when you need it.

This episode offers a preview of the Body-First Healing Program. Inside the program, we gather every Monday for a Nervous System Gym call to practice regulation in real time. Learn more and apply at bodyfirsthealing.com/program.


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Overthinking Explained: Why You Get Stuck in Mental Loops

Somatic Practice for Overthinking and Rumination

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Welcome to the Body First Healing Podcast. I'm Britt Piper, Survivor Turn Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Aut. If you feel stuck in old patterns, overwhelmed by your emotions, or disconnected from yourself, you're in the right place. Each week, I'll share practical somatic tools, personal stories, and conversations to support you in building a more regulated and embodied life. Because you can't talk your way through healing, you have to feel your way through. Together, we'll explore what it means to come back to yourself and create a life that feels safe enough to fully live in. I am so glad that you're here. All right, so today's episode is a somatic practice. You guys have been loving these episodes. I honestly have really enjoyed putting them together for you. Now, today's practice is specifically for moments when your mind just won't stop. We've all been there, right? When things are looping, when they're replaying, when we're trying to figure something out over and over again. And no matter how much you think about it, you can't seem to get out of the thought, out of the loop. So this episode is going to meet you there. And it's not going to meet you there by trying to stop the thoughts. Okay. I'm sure you probably already know that by now, but by working with what's underneath them. Before we move into our practice, I first just want to help you understand what's actually happening in your body. I want to give the context. Because overthinking and rumination is not random. It's not that you care too much. Overthinking is a nervous system strategy. When your system perceives something is unresolved or unsafe or uncertain, it mobilizes energy, stress hormones, adrenaline, cortisol. And for many of us, that energy doesn't get to move through the body. Instead, it gets pulled up into the head. And for many of us who maybe learn that expressing our feelings, expressing our emotions wasn't safe, then that energy doesn't get to move through the body. And instead, it gets pulled up into the head, into the mind. Now, this is what we call top-heavy activation. Energy that was meant to move through action, through expression and completion, it can get stuck in cognition. So when this happens, the mind takes over by trying to solve, trying to predict or control. But here is the truth overthinking is an underfeeling problem. And it's not because we're doing something wrong, but because somewhere along the way, it didn't feel safe to feel what was underneath. So your system has gotten really good at thinking instead. And those thoughts are not the problem to solve. They're actually really protective. They are your system trying to take care of you, trying to prevent pain or even create safety or predictability. So in today's practice, we are actually not going to fight the thoughts. Instead, we're going to support the body that's underneath them. And we're going to do that by giving that activation somewhere to go so that your mind doesn't have to keep carrying it all alone. All right, guys. So let's get into our practice for this week. So I'll just invite you now to go ahead and just find a comfortable position, whether you are sitting, lying down. Okay, and then when you're ready, I'll just invite you to bring one hand to your forehead. And I'm going to do this. If you're watching on video, you can see me do this. And then take the other hand and put it against the back of your head. Okay. And just let the back hand kind of rest at the base of your skull. This is right over your occiput, which is where the cerebellum in the brain sits.

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Okay.

How to Integrate This Practice Into Your Daily Life

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And the cerebellum is the part of the brain that controls the body, that governs the body. So this is where heart rate, respiration, circulation, okay, all of our sensory systems really kind of operate from here. And then that hand on the forehead is where the prefrontal cortex is, which is our thinking cognitive brain. So can we just allow our hands to just be here? Okay, and this is something that your body already knows how to do. I mean, just think about when we're overwhelmed. We kind of instinctively hold our head, right? Like we might place our hands on our forehead when we're feeling confused or overwhelmed. We might cradle our head, cradle our neck. And the reason that we impulsively and subconsciously do this is because it creates what we call containment. It gives the system and the body a sense of boundary or support or being held. All right, I'm going to go ahead and lower my hands here just as I'm talking to you. And there's also something, okay, happening physiologically here. Your hand on your forehead is supporting the front of the brain, okay, where so much of that overthinking lives. And then your hand at the back of your head is supporting that cerebellum and the brainstem, which are deeply involved in regulation and survival responses. So this hold that we're doing right now can begin to create a kind of co-regulation with yourself. And when you do this, this should help the nervous system to settle. It should help the energy that's really kind of compartmentalized up in that thinking brain begin to redistribute. It should help the mind to not feel so alone and holding everything. Now, one thing I want to mention is that if your arms are getting tired, this is where kind of leaning back or laying back can be helpful. Or you can rest your elbows on your knees or on a desk or table in front of you. Okay, and then as you stay here, can we just start to notice? Okay, no forcing, no changing. We're just feeling the contact of our hands. Maybe bring attention to the warmth of your palm, the gentle pressure, and just allow the breath to be natural as we're just observing this support. All right, so let's go ahead and take a nourishing breath. We don't need to force it, just whatever naturally comes in for you. And we can gently start to release our hands down. And if your eyes aren't open, we can go ahead and just bring those back to the present. And then I'll just invite you now to just begin to look around your space. And we want to do this just very gently, very slowly, allowing our eyes to land on something that's neutral, or maybe even pleasant to notice. So for me, I'm looking to my left and my office doors. There are these big metal archway doors, but there's glass on the door, and the glass is fluted. And so I'm just noticing the patterns through the fluted glass, the refractions of light, and the windows on the other side where I can see the shape of them, but I can't quite see them clearly. So just allow your eyes to take in whatever it is that you're noticing, and then we're just going to allow the eyes to move again. Okay, to someplace new, to something new in the space around you. Okay, what we're doing here is orienting. We are orienting through our senses, and our senses are one of the primary languages of the nervous system. So right now we're helping your system to recognize that you are here. Not in the problem that your mind might be trying to solve, but you're here in this moment. Okay, so now I just want to challenge you to find three things in your space. Just let your eyes rest on each one. Okay, and we're gonna do this slowly. So for me, I'm noticing the drapes next to my window and just how the light is shining through them. I'm also noticing a box on the ground of my office, and it's these superhero capes that my kids love to play with. So just seeing some of their, you know, toys in here and the things that they play with in this space just brings me a lot of warmth. And then I'm also just noticing behind me out the back window of my office, just the trees kind of gently swaying in the wind. It's a bit of a windy day. And as you notice these three things, can you start to also just track what happens in your body? So for me, I'm noticing just a deep inhale. The belly felt, and that breath felt really nourishing just down into my belly. Also notice that my voice has changed and become a bit more calm. My eyes feel softer, my shoulders have kind of come forward and they're relaxing a little bit. Yeah, and just overall things feel like they're slowing down. There's like a half yawn here, but I'm not yawning all the way, probably because I'm talking into a microphone. Yeah, but definitely just some overall settling. All right. So now let's move in to our next part of the practice. Okay, and here we're just gonna gently bring our awareness again back inside and just noticing where the overthinking lives in our body. Okay, so if you've been struggling with something that you've been ruminating over, that you've been thinking a lot about, just can't seem to get out of the loop. Even as you just gently touch into whatever that is now, what do you notice in your body? Because again, this is not just all in our head. Okay, it's in the body patterns that show up. Maybe it's tightness in your chest. Maybe there's a buzzing behind your eyes, maybe there's a knot in your stomach. And the intention here is just to notice, okay? We're not trying to fix it. We just want to observe and acknowledge how the body and the nervous system is speaking to us right now. And as you're noticing, you might even say, just internally to yourself, like, of course, this is here. Of course I'm feeling activated. Of course, a part of me is trying to figure this out. Of course, there is a part of me that's trying to protect me. And then just let yourself feel the intelligence of that, the care in that. Again, we're not trying to push away what feelings are emerging here. We're not trying to override it, we're just letting it know it doesn't have to do this alone anymore. Okay, so as we're touching into this area of activation, we're now going to do a facilitated pendulation. And pendulation is a format that we follow quite a bit in our Monday calls in the Body First Healing program. Every Monday in our group program, we have a nervous system gym call over Zoom. And it's where we get out of our head and into our body and we work with the nervous system to expand our resilience, to expand our capacity to move through life and stress and challenges. And we're often following that format of pendulation, which is bringing our awareness and our experience in the body and nervous system from one of deactivation, which is rest and digest, and then pendulating into activation, which is fight, flight, shutdown, freeze, fun, functional freeze, and back and forth. Right? So it's this kind of rhythm and this dance that we do in order to expand our capacity. So with that in mind, can you again just gently touch into that area of activation? Okay, how is your body experiencing this overthinking? How is your body showing you it's activated? And then can we begin to shift our attention to something more neutral in the body? Something that feels easier to be with. Maybe it's your hands. Maybe your legs feel neutral, even just your toes. Perhaps it's your sit bones or the surface beneath you. Okay, so just notice that area of neutrality or that area of settling. And then just be with this for a few seconds and we'll just see kind of what happens next. And now again, can we bring our attention back to the area of activation? Wherever that tension, that tightness, that activation is in the body, has that intensity gone up or gone down. And now again, we're going to bring it back to the area that feels easier to be with, the area that feels neutral. So, what we're doing right now by moving this back and forth very gently, very slowly, and you can even slow this down more outside of listening to this episode, is we're just letting the body and the nervous system learn that it can move or oscillate between these two states. Okay, that it doesn't have to stay stuck. And this is the work of creating flexibility in our nervous system. Okay, and that is what is a predictor of regulation and resilience. Having a nervous system that can flexibly move in and out of activation without getting stuck. All right, so now what we're gonna do is we're gonna begin to bring our attention down, okay, into the lower body. And we call this an expansion technique. Because, as I've mentioned, overthinking is top heavy activation up in the brain. By bringing and expanding our attention downward to other parts of the body, it actually releases pressure in those parts that are more locally activated. So, for the sake of our practice today, I'll just invite you to notice things like your hips, your legs, your feet. Just notice how they feel from the inside out. Is there nothingness, numbness, is there buzzing? Is there tension? Is there collapse? Is there is there mobility? And then what I might invite you to do here is to gently press your feet into the ground or into whatever is beneath you. Okay, and we're just gonna gently do that, and then just feel into that. Notice the support, notice the weight, the groundedness, the stability. Also bring your attention to the engagement of the muscles in your feet, in your ankles, calves, shins, and large leg muscles. And as you do that, start to visualize or almost imagine that the energy in your head now has somewhere to go. Down through your neck, into your chest, into the belly, the hips, the legs, the feet. And we're not forcing it, right? We're just inviting this energy to move, to flow through. Okay, and you might even gently press your legs or shift your weight forward to help your body really feel that pathway. Okay, and this is how we create coherence. And coherence is when there is flow in the body rather than fixity. Right? When we're overthinking, all of the activation is fixed and stuck up in the top of the body. Coherence creates more space for all of the body to help process and metabolize, or what we call discharge, all of the stress hormones, the adrenaline and cortisol that is pumping through your system. Now, by doing this, okay, again, we are expanding the support of our body, but we're not shutting down the mind. We are expanding the system and expanding our capacity. All right, so now let's do a little bit of integrative touch. Okay, you can go ahead and rest the feet if you already haven't done that. Okay, so I'll invite you now to just bring one hand to your chest and then one hand to your lower belly. Okay, and what we're working with again here is upper body and lower body. And then just feel into that. Okay, notice if you feel a connection between the two parts, between the two hands, and it can be even just subtle, even small. Is it the breath? Does it feel like flow, circulation? Is there a visual energetic field that you can imagine? Just allow yourself to stay here for a few breaths. All right, my friend. So as we begin to bring the practice to a close, this is just a short, gentle, sweet one today. I'll invite you now to just notice your body again. And just observe like, have there been any shifts, any softening? And remember, okay, overthinking was never ever the problem. It was your nervous system trying to protect you. And what we're doing now is we are just giving new options. Okay. Now, before I go, I want to give you guys just a few simple ways to work with this in your daily life. Okay, and just remember these practices do not have to be perfect, but the consistency is really what matters here. Okay, first thing that we can do. Is just name gently when you notice the loop. Okay, can you name it gently? You can say something internally like, I'm thinking. And again, we're not trying to stop it. We're just trying to create a little bit of separation and space, right? Expanding. And we're not trying to stop it. Okay. We're just trying to create a little bit of separation and space, which then allows again the rest of the body to expand into some of that support. The second thing you can do is again, you can drop into your lower body. That's an expansion technique. Okay. Can you press your feet into the ground? Can you feel your leg muscles? Can you bring your awareness down and out of the head? Okay, to bring in more coherence. The third option here was the brain hold, or what we often call a head cradle. Okay, so one hand on the forehead, that prefrontal cortex, and another hand at the base of your skull where that cerebellum is. And this allows your nervous system to feel held instead of alone inside of the activation. We also today worked with orienting to your environment, okay, looking around, using the senses to explore and finding something that's either neutral or pleasant. This takes you out of what feels overwhelming in the body, and it just helps you have an external orientation before going back in and feeling and expressing. And then the last practice here was validating the part of you that's thinking instead of fighting it. So that might sound like acknowledging it by saying, this is a part of me trying to protect me. And the reason why that helps so much is because the shift doesn't come from control. Again, it comes from relationship. All right, my friends, if this work resonates with you, remember this is exactly what we go deeper into inside of the Body First Healing program. It's a space where you're not just understanding your nervous system, you are learning how to work with it in real time. So if you want to join us in the program, just head over to bodyfirsthealing.com to learn more. And until next time, please, please, please remember that you can always come back to your body. It knows how to feel what your mind is already trying to solve. I will see you again here soon on the Body First Healing Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning into the Body First Healing podcast. If this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you subscribed, left a review, or shared it with someone that you love. I'll see you back here next week, and until then, be gentle with yourself. You're doing the best you can with what you have, and that is more than enough. Just a quick note this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always consult a qualified provider for personal support.