Overthinking feels like working. It’s really just waiting in a nicer chair.

Turning something over produces the full sensation of effort: you are tired afterwards, you have been busy, it feels responsible. The tell is that the loop keeps returning to the same point without adding anything new. At that stage more thinking is not analysis, it is delay with good posture.

Give it a limit. Fifteen minutes with a pen, then the smallest real action: send the message, book the thing, ask the question, write one line. Action produces new information and thinking alone cannot. If the loop runs most nights and will not stop, that is worth mentioning to somebody.