Cogito, ergo sum.  “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes, 1637).  But what if I think and think and think, to the point that I feel as if I’m almost not?  Or at least I think to the point of driving myself crazy?  Rumination is what we call it when you get stuck in a mental loop of worry or problems that seem to have no end.  It’s frustrating, hard on your health, and takes the joy out of your day.  Unfortunately, in our stressful world, it is also becoming quite common.  With an epidemic of anxiety taking hold of so many people, rumination is a frequent experience.  So in today’s post, I want to identify the difference between productive thinking about a problem versus rumination and share some expert’s tips on how to free yourself from this unpleasant thought loop de loop.

While rumination is not itself a mental health disorder, it is a symptom often associated with anxiety and or depression.  Examples of rumination include playing an unpleasant conversation over and over again in your mind.  Or when you can’t stop thinking about what went wrong in a presentation at work.  In some ways, rumination is an obsessive thought pattern focused on a negative idea or experience that lacks flexibility or perspective.  While we all worry and overthink, it becomes rumination when these thought loops are frequent, ongoing, and interfere with your ability to concentrate and engage in other thoughts or feelings.  It’s like a car without brakes, going and going without an ability to stop.  In addition, it often involves repetitive thoughts about things that you can no longer change.  In essence, rumination is a continual exposure to a negative experience that keeps reinforcing the negativity.

Certain people are more prone to rumination, research finds.  Women tend to ruminate more than men, as do people who tend to be perfectionistic or insecure (check check, and check…).  And rumination is also common with people with certain health issues, such as people with chronic pain, cancer, or who have suffered a heart attack.  In these cases, it’s understandable to fixate on how things could be different or whether you’ll be ok. For people with mental health conditions such as OCD, anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder, research shows those who ruminate tend to experience worse depression for longer.

Psychologists offer certain strategies that can be helpful to break the constant stream of your distressing thoughts. The first step is to ask yourself, what is the problem here?  Identify the specific problem and make a list of strategies that you could engage in to improve the situation.  Take the passive experience of reliving a thought or feeling and turn it into an active problem solving activity.  Once you have given consideration to what can be done, let yourself know that you have gotten what you needed out of the repeated thoughts and they are no longer of any use.  Then, when they reoccur,  give yourself permission to let them go by redirecting them. Studies show that when socially anxious people redirect their attention using word games or focused attention on an active thought process, they report feeling more positive about social interactions. Talking to a friend, listening to music or a podcast, or exercising also helped to take the attention away from the rumination and lessen the level of distress. In other words, you have to give your mind something to keep it busy and help it disengage from the ruminative loop.  Reassure yourself it is no longer helpful to keep reminding yourself of what cannot be changed.

Another strategy is to actively avoid your triggers.  Notice when certain rumination is activated and use your mute button, clicker, or block feature to set a boundary.  Often when we scroll through social media or watch a movie or television show, we actually do more harm than good.  We expose ourselves to triggers we don’t have to!  Be careful and conscious in your choice of what you are engaging with.  Studies show that social media can often trigger rumination about our appearances or other social comparisons that can activate anxiety.  We become passive observers of other people’s experiences, which leads to feeling left out or rejected or “less than” in many ways.  We fill in the blanks of what we don’t know with the content of our personal concerns and insecurities.  Pick something uplifting and positive that takes more active engagement, such as playing music, creating in some way, or moving your body.

Sometimes it helps to give yourself worry time.  Designate a period of 10 to 30 minutes to let yourself think about the distressing experience.  This helps to contain your thinking and relieve the pressure.  Adding an active activity such as journaling about the situation can also help to diffuse it.  When the timer stops, you actively let go, but know you will always have tomorrow’s time to think about it, should you desire.

Of course, sometimes the intensity of rumination is too large to be diverted from.  This might be a signal that you may need a higher level of treatment intervention.  Engaging with a therapist to explore your distress may be a good next step, and even a trial of medication can be of help. Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) have been used in a very effective manner to unlock our brains from obsessive thinking and allow us to use other coping tools in managing stress.  Often when people experience trauma, repetitive thinking is a process in which our minds replay what happened in an effort to process the trauma.  Having a supportive and safe environment to explore your experience is helpful to identify what is a beneficial form of remembering versus a reinforcing reliving of helplessness.

Spending time thinking about issues or ideas that are problematic is not in itself unhealthy.  It helps us prepare for a situation we may face again or lead us to make a choice to leave a job or behave in a different manner.  Ultimately it is the quality of our thinking and how it makes us feel that is important to pay attention to.  Having a thought is a natural occurrence.  But a key element in taking care of ourselves is recognizing our power to have a thought and then choose how we how we engage with it.  

Think of your negative thought as spoiled milk.  You take a small sip, experience the unpleasant taste and know it is spoiled.  Would you then keep sipping it to evaluate how spoiled it is while wondering how you could have let it get spoiled and thinking of how you are a terrible person for having spoiled milk in your refrigerator?  Or, would you rather take a sip, experience the unpleasant taste, and choose to go to the store to buy new milk, instead? In other words, maybe we psychologists have a different perspective than old Descartes.  While having a thought may be proof of our existence, how we choose to engage with our thoughts is proof of our humanity?  Now I’m overthinking it.