I struggle a lot with obsessive rumination (par for the course with OCD) and this book was very insightful. Good mix of research and practical strategies for dealing with thought cycles.

Excellent book for anyone with anxiety. I highly recommend this if you’re looking for strategies to help calm your brain and body. Very helpful

I definitely do obsess over things that happen and also tend to rethink about resentments and mistakes often, so this book was really great for me. It gives practical advice on how to notice you are falling into a pattern of just following whatever your brain thinks at the moment. The author does a great job saying you are not your thoughts. It is possible to just accept obsessive, negative, or irrational thoughts and shut them down.

This will take practice. The idea that thinking everything through is necessary is not true. If you just repeatedly think about something does not lead to better decision making. It has the opposite effect. Instead it causes dread, anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed. So, that makes complete sense to me.

The next big point was about constantly assigning blame to others behavior as though we are mind readers. Then this can lead to resentment and anger. We often think our perception is the only one and it is often wrong. It would be much better to simply let others think as they like and not have to be ‘right’. That sounds easy, but I think it is often hard to do, but it would make life much easier.

Last, liked suggestion that you come up with a saying that you repeat that is productive. If you are stuck in a negative thought pattern, remind yourself you can handle it, want to be calm, and can stop doing this. It is possible to look at things in a different way.

The only suggestion I have is I wish the book had the reading part and a separate section for the exercises to practice. That would make it easier to have a section to refer to and practice the exercises.

Thank you NetGalley, Nancy Colier, and New Harbinger Publications for a copy of this book.

I would have rated this book 5 stars if it was setup in a more practical way. There is so much good stuff, so much wisdom and common sense there, but when presented in this textbook-like format with no way to easily browse back, find and re-read a certain topic of interest...sigh...there is no way that this book could be practically used as a standalone book. I feel it's not a great reference work. Perhaps only for therapists as complementary to sessions.

The exercises are all over the place and could have been put together in a separate booklet. Such a shame. I really appreciate everything that I've read, but I won't remember most of it, because of the way the text (isn't) organised.

Free ARC by Netgalley.

Would you like to learn how to exit from repetitive thinking, rumination,and destructive self criticism?
All you need are some tools , to bring about some self-compassion, peace of mind, and to have a more joyous life !!

SIGN .ME .UP!!!

The newest research , and easy to read book is called , CAN’T STOP THINKING by Nancy Colier!
How do we respond to our life?
Life is not always pleasing or painless.
This book shows us how to relate to our thoughts. You know those bouncing, rollercoaster ,
terrifying,
disastrous ones?
“Disastrous thinking is the thief of joy!”
The horror of these thoughts are only thoughts. They don’t exist anywhere except within our mind. “Our thoughts are NOT us!!”
This book, Can’t Stop Thinking, offers you powerful tools to shut off the excessive thinking. Imagine that for a few moments. (Yes, think about it :) )
Our minds are not always the appropriate tool to improve our life.
The exercises in this book are designed to help you to observe and navigate your mind.
Through awareness , you will find a better way of living , you will also find a sense of peace that surpasses all the understanding of the negative thinking.
The author provides personal stories and exercises to use yourself.
I feel this book is very timely especially during this COVID 19 pandemic era.

Special thanks to NetGalley and New Harbinger Publications, Inc. for sharing this digital review copy with me in exchange for an honest review.

#CantStopThinking #NetGalley

As someone who overthinks, I was looking forward to reading this book.

The author does a nice job of providing a quick overview of overthinking and how easy, and destructive, it is to get stuck in the cycle of obsessive thinking. She provides information on mindfulness and various tips to help the reader move beyond their unhealthy thinking. The author provides various tasks throughout the book to give the reader a chance to apply the concepts. There are lots of personal stories, which readers will likely find relatable. If you suffer from overthinking, this could be a helpful book to check out. While it won't provide a quick fix, it does give a lot of food for thought on reducing negative thinking.

This was an ARC by Netgalley.

This book partially gave me what I expected: I wanted ideas on how to stop ruminating, examples as well as exercises, this is all that awaits you. Examples were good, most of them reminded me of myself or someone close to me. However, I didn’t enjoy the exercises that much because I had the feeling they would work better only if you did them on a therapy session. When I tried doing them on my own, I would often end up skipping or ignoring them, then returning to them until I have completed them. Had these exercises been created differently, it would have been less complicated for the reader.

In addition, I enjoyed certain ideas in the book. Until reading the book, I didn’t realize how much thoughts can be burdening and overwhelming, especially when we are creating the problem out of nothing.

I am happy I had the chance to read this book and learn something new which I will try to implement in the future.

I just reviewed Can't Stop Thinking by Nancy Colier and I truly cannot say greater things about this book. Nancy touches on the struggles of anxiety and depression and uses countless analogies that help bring light and understanding to someone struggling. This is one of the best anxiety books that I have read in quite sometime, and also helpful that it is published after the COVID19 pandemic. #CantStopThinking #NetGalley

Can’t Stop Thinking is a self-help book aimed at chronic thinkers and ruminators. It aims to discuss the negative powers of rumination and how to break free from destructive thought patterns.

Nancy Colier writes with passion and conviction about the topic of thinking. She provides many bulleted lists of questions you can ask yourself and mental exercises you can use. It made many good points about how powerful thinking can be and advocated for the readers agency in changing destructive thinking. This was a quick read that felt like a conversation with the author.

I think this book could have been improved with a stronger editing hand. Every description is a long list. For example, “Thinking is inarguably useful, necessary, creative, and miraculous... Thinking is the source of invention, imagination, problem solving, and organization, to say nothing of putting together a grocery shopping list.“ Many of the sentences are too long with an incorrect usage of commas. Clinically, I think there is a good foundation in this book but I wish it would have expanded into deeper territories explaining more of the science and research and providing more exercises. Dr. Hallowell’s book, ADHD 2.0, is an excellent example of a clinical book written for the general population.

This would be a great book for someone experiencing rumination who is looking to feel seen and heard.

I received a free copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

‘Can’t stop thinking’ is a quick, easy read exploring the ins and outs of the kind of overthinking that makes the world feel like it’s ending immanently. I picked this book up because I’m constantly in one cycle of obsessive thinking or another and thought it couldn’t hurt to get some pointers.

The book provides a gentle introduction into the use of mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy to help the reader disconnect from their unhealthy thoughts, and become more aware of when their thoughts are more harmful than helpful.

I really enjoyed the chapters talking about self-imposed victimhood, because shamefully they felt like a real reflection of my negative headspace.
‘With all our righteous rightness, we succeed only at building ourselves a cage of anger, dissatisfaction and victimhood in which we then have to live’.
I felt that. Going into reading this book I expected it to be simply filled with tasks to complete, but I was actually faced with a narrative that made me realise there were more than a few instances where I’d previously thought my diligent overthinking was ‘thinking carefully about the situation’ but now realise was actually ‘stupid and anger-provoking’. It felt good to be hit on the head with some common sense, backed up by the warm promise that it’s both normal and avoidable.

I found that the narrative provided plenty of opportunities for self-reflection, but I think it would have benefitted from a structure on how to implement the strategies in everyday practice as is suggested. This is largely left up to the reader, which could benefit those looking for positive suggestions as opposed to an entire rehaul of how they approach thinking.
I also felt that the bulk of the text centered on providing arguments for why changing your thinking is a positive, and perhaps slightly lacked in ways to actually go about this changing. While mindfulness and ACT are genuinely good approaches I felt that they weren’t the main focus of the narrative at times.
I would recommend this book to anyone who suffers from chronic overthinking as it (ironically) gives you plenty to think about in terms of positive change. While it, like many other self-help books, will not be the answer to all of your problems, it’s an excellent beginners guide to reducing the impact of your negative thoughts.