Have you ever repeatedly replayed past conversations, trying to understand what went wrong? Or have you ever felt anxious about upcoming or past events and excessively thought about the event or related emotions? If so, you may have also experienced some difficulty stopping these negative thoughts, making this a tough cycle to break. If this sounds familiar, you may have experienced rumination. Rumination is a common yet difficult mental habit many individuals experience at some point in their lives. This blog will review what rumination is and ways to break free from its challenging and, at times, vicious cycle using CBT.
What Exactly is Rumination?
Rumination is excessive, repetitive thoughts about the same event or feelings that often lead to negative emotions such as anxiety and sadness. Common themes of rumination include:
● Past events
● Future events
● Current mood
● Relationship challenges, often involving blame or a lack of fairness
● Your perceived flaws or mistakes
Unlike problem-solving, rumination does not involve a focus on solutions. This difference is worth emphasizing because ruminating can sometimes feel like you are solving a problem or spending your mental energy productively. It can feel helpful, for example, to dig deep into the whys of a given situation. However, in reality, rumination often leads to adverse outcomes and can take a significant toll on your mental health. This can include increasing anxiety, sadness, or stress, or growing self-criticism and general difficulty in letting go of challenging thoughts or emotions. Rumination can even stop people from engaging in enjoyable activities, such as being present with loved ones, which can lead to isolation.
Additionally, the long-term effects of rumination can include:
● Worsened mental health conditions
● Prolonged negative mood (e.g., worry, sadness, and anxiety)
● Increased risk of harmful behaviours (e.g., substance use and poor eating habits)
● Increased risk of high blood pressure
● Inadequate sleep
● Relationship challenges
It is important to underscore that rumination is not a mental illness in itself. Still, it is a common symptom of numerous mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as stressful or traumatic life events.
Why Do We Ruminate?
As humans, it is normal to try and understand why something occurred the way it did or why you are feeling the way you are. By replaying situations or thoughts in your head, you might be trying to grasp where things may have gone wrong or what you can do in the future to prevent them from happening. Moreover, everybody’s triggers for the cycle of ruminations are different. Some may trigger ruminative thoughts through daily stressors, while others’ ruminative thinking may be triggered by a person, place, or thing that reminds them of a stressful experience. It is important to learn your triggers and how to cope with them effectively.
While rumination may provide brief relief, as you feel the more you understand a situation, the better you can manage or prepare for it in the future. However, rumination often creates an unhelpful cycle of increased stress, anxiety, and sadness and sometimes physical symptoms, such as headaches, muscle tension, and difficulty sleeping. These unfavourable symptoms, in turn, contribute to more rumination and additional increases in mental health symptoms (anxiety and sadness) and physical symptoms. Through this vicious cycle, rumination can feel like an endless mental treadmill, stuck in a loop of repetitive, unhelpful thoughts and feelings.
CBT Interventions to Stop Rumination
Learning how to interrupt the cycle of rumination is a worthwhile step to enhancing your mental health and overall life satisfaction. Many effective CBT techniques can help you overcome this, but the first crucial step is to recognize when rumination is occurring and that it is not helpful. Once you label your thought pattern as rumination, consider using one of the following interventions to break the rumination cycle.
Journalling - Writing down your thoughts can help you gain perspective and process your thoughts and emotions. Journalling can help you identify patterns in your thinking or identify triggers that might lead to rumination.
Self-disclosure - Talking to a trusted friend or loved one can help you shift your perspective and stop further rumination. A friend might be able to help you recall past positive experiences or times when things turned out well. Finding a person that does not co-ruminate or increase your rumination is essential!
Worry Scheduling - Choose a set time in your day for a “worry session.” Designating BT a specific time for worry can help contain rumination, preventing it from disrupting your day-to-day. Over time, you may find that the urge to ruminate outside your designated time decreases.
Problem-Solving - Often, we may ruminate about a problem that requires problem-solving. When this is the case, it can be helpful to schedule a time to problem-solve or work out a problem when you are no longer ruminating. When problem-solving, it can be helpful to break down large problems into smaller parts and tackle one issue at a time, possibly with a specific plan of action.
Mindfulness - Practicing mindfulness and meditation can help you bring your attention to the present moment without judgment. By practicing mindfulness, you can practice interrupting the cycle of rumination and focus on the here and now.
Distracting activities - This may include going for a walk, watching a movie, working out, or even singing! It can be hard to sing a song, for example, and engage in repetitive thoughts. By engaging in activities, especially enjoyable ones, that occupy the mind, you may be able to break the cycle of rumination.
CBT Sessions - Counselling can help you explore the underlying causes of your rumination and provide valuable tools to help you manage it. In CBT, this may include thought-challenging and developing positive thought patterns. It might also be helpful to identify what your rumination triggers and themes are to create tailored coping mechanisms to decrease anxiety and improve mood.
In sum, the cycle of rumination can have a significant impact on mental health (anxiety & sadness) and well-being. Nevertheless, we can practice numerous useful CBT strategies to break free from this cycle, cultivating a resilient mindset and living a more fulfilling life.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2020, March 5). Rumination: A cycle of negative thinking.
American Psychiatric Association.
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