Why we overexplain and what to do about it
Illustration by Ayesha Punjabi
by Aleenah Ansari
Picture this: You’re supposed to meet a friend for dinner after work, but you end up getting caught up in your inbox and impromptu meetings on your way out of the office. When you finally sprint into the restaurant and sit down with your friend, you explain the entire story of the conversations you had with your manager that day, why public transportation is so unreliable, and how frustrated you feel with your job overall. Your friend looks back at you, smiles, and says, “All that matters to me is that you’re here now.”
This response of yours may be considered overexplaining, which occurs when you provide extraneous details about a topic. This can be a product of anxiety or even low self-esteem if you don’t feel worthy of being heard.
“When people grew up in homes where they didn’t feel heard, they may not have grown up with opportunities to express their feelings and needs,” says Israa Nasir, founder of digital mental health brand Well.Guide and therapist.
Nasir says that overexplaining can also be a product of power dynamics and the pressure to earn someone’s attention. This can also manifest as avoidance — by not speaking up or sharing what’s on your mind — which can have negative effects in personal relationships as well as in your career.
If oversharing is a product of anxiety, Nasir suggests working with a therapist or healthcare practitioner to understand the root cause, whether it’s self-esteem or growing up in an emotionally neglectful environment. You can also journal along the way to better understand your own feelings and habits.
“It may help to ask a therapist or mental health professional about what tangible changes you can make to better understand your words and feelings,” Nasir says. “This can help you see changes over time.”
Ayesha Punjabi
If oversharing is a product of a racing mind, it could be useful to have a tool or practice that can help you channel that energy somewhere.
“You can take steps to regulate your internal body state by taking a couple of deep breaths, having a fidget toy to keep your hands occupied, or walking and talking,” Nasir says. “Learn your own regulation system so you can think and speak about what matters to you.”
If you want to start working on oversharing, there are three things that you can try, the first being to work on your active listening skills. This could involve maintaining eye contact, having more open body language, or reflecting back what you hear when you’re talking to someone.
“If you take a pause and learn to listen intently, collect your thoughts, and speak, you’re able to concisely communicate what you have to say,” Nasir says.
Nasir says that it may also help to take a moment to guide someone listening by saying something like, “That's a good point, let me think about this” or “I have two thoughts on this.” There are also books all about communicating more effectively, like On Writing Well by William Zinsser.
“I also find it helpful to structure stories by starting with a key takeaway first,” Nasir says. “This is especially helpful when you’re navigating a conflict, which is when we tend to overexplain more.”
Whether it’s a personal relationship or at work, it takes time and practice to manage anxiety that you might be feeling in your body. It’s something you can develop through day-to-day conversations, so start with one tip to implement and go from there. This could be understanding the root cause of why you overexplain through journaling and check-ins with a mental health practitioner, guiding your listener by starting with key takeaways first, or finding a regulation system that works for you.