THE RESTLESS MIND: FREEING OURSELVES FROM THE HABIT OF OVERTHINKING

November 1, 2026

On the field of Kurukshetra, the greatest archer of his age let his bow slip from his hands. Arjuna’s limbs trembled, his mouth went dry, and his mind raced through every possible outcome of the war. He saw widows weeping, families destroyed, and the curse that follows the slayer of his own kin. No arrow had yet been let off, while the battle was already lost inside his head. Krishna answered with clarity: “Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana…” (Bhagvad Gita 2.47) (You have a right to your actions, but never to their fruits.) The enemy stood within Arjuna, in a mind that lived entirely in a future that had not arrived. This is the mystery. The faculty that built cities and composed scriptures can turn upon its owner. We lie awake rehearsing a conversation that has not happened, or replaying one that cannot be changed, and we call this thinking. It is a loop, and its price is paid in sleep, health and peace. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LOOP Susan Nolen-Hoeksema of Yale devoted her career to rumination, the habit of replaying distress without moving towards a remedy. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, she and Carol Morrow followed university students through the aftermath. Those who brooded over their feelings were more depressed ten days later, and again seven weeks later, than those who turned to active pursuits. The disaster was identical for all. The response to it made the difference. Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard questioned 2,250 adults through a smartphone application and published their findings in Science in 2010. Minds wandered away from the task in hand 46.9 percent of the time, and the analysis indicated that the wandering preceded unhappiness. Nearly half of waking life, it seems, is spent somewhere other than where the body stands. WHAT THE BRAIN REVEALS Neurology has begun to map this restlessness. In 2001, Marcus Raichle of Washington University described the default mode network, a set of regions including the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex that grows active when the mind turns inward and drifts. In 2011, Hamilton and colleagues reported that in depressed patients, heightened activity in this network accompanied maladaptive rumination. However, the same research also offers hope. That year, Judson Brewer and colleagues at Yale found in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that experienced meditators showed reduced activity in the default mode network across several different meditation practices. Britta Hölzel and her colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital scanned the brains of beginners before and after an eight week course of mindfulness training, during which they practised about half an hour daily. Grey matter concentration had increased in the hippocampus, which supports memory and emotional regulation. Restlessness is a habit of the brain, and the brain can be retrained. WHAT DO OUR TRADITIONS SAY Patanjali writes in his Yoga Sutras: yogas chitta vritti nirodhah Yoga Sutra 1.2 (Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind) The import of this sloka is that through the practise of yoga, one can connecet with the inner essence and experience oneness. This experience also stills the fluctuations of the mind. Stopping these mental waves allows a person to stop identifying with transient thoughts and experience their true, unchanging self. When Arjuna confessed that the mind is as hard to hold as the wind, Krishna conceded the difficulty and then named the remedy: “It can be mastered through practice and detachment.” (Gita 6.35) The Dhammapada opens with the teaching that Mind precedes all states, and that suffering follows a troubled thought as the wheel follows the ox. Guru Tegh Bahadur ji, in a shalok recorded at Ang 1429 of the Guru Granth Sahib, counsels that anxiety over what lies beyond our power is futile, since nothing in this world abides. Christ spoke on the mount in the same spirit: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34) Saint Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds.” The Psalmist condensed the whole discipline into a single line: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) THE STUDENT WHO CLOSED THE DOORS In the spring of 1871, William Osler, a young medical student in Montreal, was gripped by anxiety over his examinations and the life beyond them. He opened a book and read a line from Thomas Carlyle: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” The sentence steadied him. Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, a Canadian physician went on to become one of the “Big Four” founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians. He taught his own students to live in day tight compartments, closing the doors on yesterday and tomorrow as a ship seals its bulkheads against the sea. THE PATH OF RELEASE Begin by asking one question whenever the mind starts to churn: what action will this thought produce? If the answer is none, name the thought a loop. Thinking ends in a decision, while worry ends only in exhaustion. Next, sort every concern into what you can influence and what you cannot. Act on the first with full energy, and release the second without bitterness. This is the Gita’s action without attachment, made practical. Third, for a short while appoint a worry half hour, slowly shortening its time frame. In 1983, Thomas Borkovec and his colleagues at Pennsylvania State University found that chronic worriers who confined their worrying to a fixed daily period gradually worried less during the rest of the day. Choose a time in the late afternoon, write every anxiety on paper, and give each your full attention. When a worry intrudes at midnight, tell it that it has an appointment tomorrow at five. Finally, practise stillness. For eight weeks, sit each morning for ten minutes in silence and watch the breath. Let each thought pass like a cloud across the sky. Repeat a sacred word, Waheguru, Om, Ram or any Name that brings reverence, and then add inwardly: “Whatever I cannot change, I place in Your hands.” A Zen tale speaks about two monks, whose vows forbade physical contact with women. While travelling they came across a young woman unable to cross a river. The elder, understood her condition and carried her safely across. Both went on. However, hours later younger monk burst out in protest at his teacher’s act of breach of vows. The elder replied, “I left her at the riverbank. Are you still carrying her?” Most of our distress is of this kind. The event passed long ago, and the mind carries it still- even ruminates upon it. When the weight is set down, the same night that once brought torment brings sleep, and the peace we sought is found to have been present all along, beneath the noise. Do understand that some reflection on the past is healthy as it helps us not to make the same mistakes. However, as Ernest Hemingway and Alfred A. Montapert explain:The mind that circles a problem mistakes motion for progress. Parneet Sachdev, IRS is the Chairman of Real Estate Regulatory Authority and a leading author.