Intuition and overthinking

I've always been quite the overthinker, and that's down to gut feelings. As much as I'd like to see the best in people, if my intuition told me from the start that someone was a little off, I can't help but assume they have ulterior motives, are lying, etc. 

So where do these feelings come from? What even is intuition? The Russel Futcher blog said that gut feelings are based on patterns we've identified from our past experiences. Your subconscious is continuously processing information that you aren't consciously aware of, and when it makes a link or creates a pattern, that is a gut feeling. You know when something clicks in your head and you get that "ohhh!" feeling? It's your conscious mind learning something that your subconscious already knew. 

So your brain is always predicting what will happen next. That's why when you meet a new person, you might think that they seem a little 'off', even if they haven't actually done anything wrong… yet. Your brain is comparing this person to people you've known and not liked in the past, and if a pattern forms, your intuition will let you know. 

As you get older your intuition and the reliability of your gut feelings will improve. Experience gives you more things to make patterns with, and so you will be wrong less and less. This is why teenagers often overthink more than any other age group: as a young child you're too naive to second guess anything and just assume that everyone is great, but as an adult you don't have to overthink, because the experience that your intuition already has is enough to make you just know. However as a teenager, you're aware that not everyone is good, but you can't really rely on gut feelings yet, so overthinking is born. Constantly going back and forth and back and forth, arguing with your own brain and never reaching an answer. 

How do you stop it? Sorry if you came for some advice, because I couldn't tell you. It's the uncertainty that is the worst for me, because if you genuinely don't know the answer, you just have to wait it out until the person (it's usually a person) you're thinking about proves you right or wrong. The analysing of the simplest conversations, zoning out as you ponder… it is a terrible feeling. However, with time your intuition/gut feelings will improve, and you'll truly be able to follow the saying "Trust your gut".