Everything else in our life can be going well, but if there is ever an area of life that we tend to overthink, it’s love. As Shakespeare joked, “The course of true love never did run smooth,” and many of us cannot help but overthink the other party’s thoughts and responses.

Rewire: Change Your Brain to Break Bad Habits, Overcome Addictions, Conquer Self-Destructive Behavior by Richard O’Connor Especially now that we are in the peak age of technology, being left on ‘read,’ ghosting, and other technology-related behaviors can make finding love much more complicated. Even so, Kristen Ruth Smith does not think love is doomed.Watkins E, et al. (2020). Reflecting on rumination: Consequences, causes, mechanisms and treatment of rumination.

Kaiser BN, Haroz EE, Kohrt BA, Bolton PA, Bass JK, Hinton DE. "Thinking too much": A systematic review of a common idiom of distress. Soc Sci Med. 2016;147:170-183. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.10.044 The brains of depressed people look different to non-depressed people- oh this must mean faulty brains caused depression. It pulls factual evidence on women's pay, women's rights etc. and states it as the cause for depression or overthinking. I could do that with anything, oh women eat porridge for breakfast, the porridge must be causing the overthinking.

I was really tempted to cut it loose right at the beginning when she quoted a Bible proverb. But I decided to give it a shot, hoping I would be proved to have worried for no reason. Had she also mentioned she's a blogger, then I would have surely pulled the plug, but she didn't mention that and I hadn't looked it up. This is very important in the post-truth world. Critical thinking, objectivity and reason are getting seriously downgraded and without an understanding of the thought process and a change in how we operate, we are going the wrong way down the evolutionary trail. Bob Miglani used to be anxious about his life, overwhelmed with work, and in constant worry about his finances. When the world is burning, it would be disingenuous to imply that parking all of your worries and watching Netflix is necessarily a responsible choice. If you have the time and means, for example, volunteering for a cause that you're thinking about a lot – say, your local foodbank or a climate change group – can add purpose to your days. The distinction here, Smith says, is between worry and concern.

She entered Illinois State University before transferring to Yale. She graduated summa cum laude in 1982 with a degree in psychology. After earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the faculty at Stanford. She later moved to the University of Michigan, before returning to Yale in 2004.Michl LC, McLaughlin KA, Shepherd K, Nolen-Hoeksema S. Rumination as a mechanism linking stressful life events to symptoms of depression and anxiety: longitudinal evidence in early adolescents and adults. J Abnorm Psychol. 2013;122(2):339-52. doi:10.1037/a0031994