Rumination is often a symptom of depression and/or anxiety disorders as well as a primary symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Both Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and when necessary medications, like Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI), have been shown to be effective in reducing or eliminating rumination.
Preventative measures for Rumination - Unstick your brain
Without proper anxiety management tools, intrusive thoughts can ruminate in the brain like running on a hamster wheel of the same worry.
At Cognito, we are helping people add to their mental health toolkit. Tools like box breathing, journaling and mindfulness can make all the difference in preventing rumination.
It’s important to have the knowledge of mental health symptoms so you can better understand and react when these symptoms occur. At Cognito, we want everyone to know: What is rumination? What causes ruminating thoughts? And most importantly, How to stop ruminating?
What is rumination?
Rumination is often a symptom of depression and/or anxiety disorders as well as a primary symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Both Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and when necessary medications, like Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI), have been shown to be effective in reducing or eliminating rumination.
Different from emotional processing, rumination is your brain getting stuck with the constant repetition of anxious thoughts. A precursor to anxiety as well as a symptom, rumination can start out with the brain trying to find a solution to a problem but then becoming preoccupied thinking about the same thought repeatedly. By ruminating, you become fixated on only the negatives.
Rumination is an example of perseverative cognition which means brooding over continuous negative thoughts about the past and future. This circular thinking differs from healthy introspection because there isn’t movement towards a solution or acceptance. People who ruminate often report not being able to stop “dwelling on their problems.”
At Cognito, we help people learn the tools to identify anxious rumination and break the cycle.
Not sure if you’re ruminating? If you keep revisiting a problem but are feeling worse and no closer to acceptance or a viable solution, you may be experiencing rumination.
What causes rumination?
- Traumatic events can lead to a cycle of rumination, especially if there is a lack of appropriate support
- Thought loops and replaying scenarios over and over.
- Problems that are complex, emotionally triggering and without obvious solutions can be overwhelming and cause rumination.
- A history of stress or symptoms of anxiety, depression, or OCD are directly related to causing ruminating thoughts.
- A pattern of rumination can repeat itself and become the default way your brain responds to stress.
How to stop repetitive thoughts?
5 tools to get out of your head and stop dwelling
- Distract yourself: Instead of hyper fixating and repetitively circling the same problems, focus on something else like a favourite activity to break vicious thought spirals
- Avoid triggers: If most of your ruminating thoughts involve a certain subject, be conscious of the scenarios you find yourself in. If social anxiety manifests obsessive rumination like “Everyone at that networking event thought I wasn’t very smart,” then avoid large social gatherings with strangers until you’re better equipped to cope.
- Exercise: Exercise is an important first line of defence against many mental health symptoms and can also function as a healthy distraction.
- Thought interrogation: Replacing automatic thoughts, with conscious ones. By identifying your ruminating thoughts and acknowledging they are exaggerated and not helpful can interrupt perseverating.
- Meditation: By meditating you can calm your body and mind. Meditation provides mindfulness and self reflection, while also distracting your brain from intrusive racing thoughts.
Get out of your head
Not to be confused with rumination syndrome, where sufferers repeatedly regurgitate undigested food, rumination and ruminating thoughts are repetitive anxious thoughts spirals that don’t lead to a conclusion.
Although many people experience ruminating thoughts, or obsessive thoughts, they are a symptom of an underlying mental health concern. Like depression, anxiety or ADHD, get help diagnosing your symptoms by reaching out to local mental health resources or complete a free clinically proven mental health assessment at getcognito.ca
At Cognito, our goal is to equip our patients with a mental health toolkit that has the right resources for every job.
