Thanks Turgon for bringing it up from my side as well!
I think Peterson has indeed some interesting and important points there. I also think he is right that food, and especially enough in the morning, can have a great effect on how much you can control that tendency and how much it can take over.
Another thing I noticed, at least for me personally, is, that this over thinking tendency has indeed a lot to do with anxiety. I also noticed that there is a certain point until one can still quite easily not "let it take over". After that point is missed, it is much harder to calm the over active mind down again. For example, it is not uncommon that I find myself starting to over think and micro analyze stuff, and when I allow myself to let this go on for too long, it is very easy to get completely identified/obsessed with it. The scary thing is, when one is at the point of obsession, everything else important around you starts to fade in the background, as though that thing you are over analyzing about, is all that matters now and is of importance and everything else is unimportant.
Usually when I notice that something I'm thinking about can easily go over board, I have to consciously say to myself "you will stop thinking/doing that very soon and concentrate on (and do) something else". If I don't do that and ruminate too long, it is hard to get out of it again. I also think it has a lot to do with a disciplined mind (or rather the lack thereof). Basically it is thoughts that run amok.
A couple of strategies that I try to implement to better handle that tendency are, which could be summarized to shift focus/attention/actions:
- regular meditations
- doing a cold shower when it gets over board or starts to get obsessive an preferably read something afterwards or meditate
- deliberately trying to closely read/follow/see what others are going through and how I can help them, and then doing it, even if it is just a couple of words of encouragement. The forum is a great way to do that!
- daily physical and mental work. A daily job is definitively a good thing there as well as work on forum related stuff!
- deliberately force myself to read a book for at least one hour with as much attention to the content as possible
All of the above can work like magic to calm down this ruminating over analyzing tendency.
I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I think that that tendency could also be described in wrong centers taking over the actions of another. The sex centre in particular could play a part here, or not. And/or the thinking centre taking over another centre of rather the other way around?
Also noticed that this tendency has a lot to do with control and obsession. Something wants to to control how things play out in the future, by micro managing the present, so that nothing surprising can happen that could threaten "it" in the future.