What does "living inside your own head" mean in this paragraph?

Question

Can you explain for me the expression "living inside your own head" in this paragraph?

The practice of living in the moment while being aware of reality is a good and natural state of mind, but being self-conscious, living inside your own head while being excessively conscious of your appearance or manner, is a bad and unnatural side effect of your socialization. It is the result of having heard too many comments that you should “think about what other people would think of you” and having seen your own face too many times in manmade mirrors

Answer 1

Being inside one's own head is a general metaphor for introspection, "reflective looking inward", as well as for over-thinking or over-analyzing something.

It is being used in your passage to mean self-consciousness, in the sense of

feeling undue awareness of oneself, one's appearance, or one's actions.

The writer is warning people that being too conscious of (or over-thinking) their appearance and manner is a side affect of socialization.

In fact, the writer uses "self-conscious" just before they introduce this idiom and "excessively conscious of your appearance" right after.

See this related post on "get out of your own head".

Answer 2

I believe that its meaning is: its ok to see yourself and check yourself in your head as the world sees (or perceives) you vs. living in your head allowing the tapes of others opinions of you run over and over in your help. Therefore, worrying way to much about what everyone else thinks of you and thier perception of you vs. being confident in your own self no matter what to be ok .

Answer 3

you are living in your own created world to the point that the real world does not matter as much as the one you imagine for yourself. For example, a girl does not have a boyfriend and there is tremendous pressure by others to not be alone. She makes one up. Maybe sending herself flowers. But she gets to the point that this imagined boyfriend and the "life" she has with him is more important than going out into activities where she may meet a real man. A person who's child has died and the parent can not stand being with out the child. So they keep that child alive in their head.