Socrates was onto something when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But the overly examined life isn’t so great, either. In fact, many people, particularly women, have a bad habit that’s in their head but can have a detrimental effect on their physical and emotional well-being. It’s called rumination, a tendency to chew on, brood about or obsess over a stressful situation or problem in a repetitive, cyclical way so that you end up feeling worse and worse about it.
“Rumination involves dwelling repetitively and at length on negative thoughts, often related to failure, rejection, humiliation, loss or retaliation,” explains Steve Ilardi, an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and author of “The Depression Cure.” The problem is, rumination ramps up activity in the brain’s stress response circuitry, including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which controls your fight-or-flight response, Ilardi notes. As a result, your brain and body are flooded with the stress hormone cortisol when you’re in rumination mode. “There’s considerable evidence that a core neurological driver of clinical depression is the brain’s runaway stress response — it just won’t shut down,” Ilardi explains.
[See: Am I Just Sad — or Actually Depressed?]
Indeed, research has linked this tendency toward overthinking with numerous harmful behaviors, particularly overeating and drinking too much alcohol, as well as health consequences such as an increased risk of developing depression, anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and other toxic effects. A study in the February 2017 issue of the journal Anxiety, Stress, and Coping found that when people ruminate after a stressful experience, it takes them longer to recover physiologically (based on skin conductance tests), compared to those who use distraction tactics. Previous research in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that people with a tendency to ruminate experience exaggerated and prolonged increases in their blood pressure and heart rate in response to mental stress, which may contribute to sustained increases in blood pressure over time.
A Downward Spiral in Thinking
The trouble is, rumination leads you to think about situations with increasing negativity because when you’re in a distressed mood, negative thoughts and memories are more accessible in the brain and you use them to interpret what’s happening now, explains Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California–Riverside and author of “The How of Happiness .” “This can give you a distorted, pessimistic perspective on your life. Overthinking also drains your mental resources, which can interfere with your ability to solve problems. So you end up caught in the tangle of rumination and no insight is gained. Instead, rumination makes you feel worse.”
Adult women ruminate and brood more often than men do, which may partly explain why women are more vulnerable to depression, according to research in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. A study published the December 2017 issue of Psychiatry Research found that people who experienced early life stress — such as physical punishment, emotional or sexual abuse or general trauma — have a higher likelihood of developing the brooding type of rumination over time. Meanwhile, other research suggests that people who score high in measures of neuroticism or obsessive-compulsive disorder may be particularly susceptible to rumination.
Unfortunately, “most people who engage in rumination don’t know they’re ruminating; they think they’re problem-solving — not being able to distinguish between the two is part of the problem,” says Michael D. Yapko, a clinical psychologist in Fallbrook, California, and author of “Keys to Unlocking Depression .” “If it doesn’t lead to a timely and effective course of specific action, it’s rumination.”
[Read: Depression Risk: How It Differs for Men and Women.]
How to Kick the Habit
The good news is there are plenty of things you can do to break the rumination habit — and protect your physical and emotional well-being. The first step is to identify if you’re ruminating, Ilardi says. It’s smart to periodically check in with yourself and see what you’re thinking about: Are you replaying unproductive thoughts in your head? Do you feel a mounting sense of being overwhelmed by your problems? Or do you find yourself reacting to what’s happening around you in a way that doesn’t make sense because you’re dwelling on something else that’s bothering you? These are all signs that you may be stuck in rumination mode.
If you find yourself struggling to fight off the inclination to ruminate, distract yourself because there’s no sense in trying to solve problems when you’re in the throes of a negative mindset, Lyubomirsky says. Instead, it’s better to shift your attention — perhaps by exercising, going for a walk in nature, listening to pleasant music or making plans to see a friend.
A study in a 2015 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America found that going for a walk in nature (but not in an urban environment) reduces rumination and activity in a part of the brain that’s linked with an increased risk for depression. Besides short-circuiting the negative thought loop, “the positive emotions engendered by the distraction can unbias your thinking, opening up a more objective and more positive perspective on your troubles,” Lyubomirsky says.
Meanwhile, set problem-solving hours for a time of day when you can have some peace and privacy to consider what’s bothering you and what you can do about it. Perhaps it could be 15 to 20 minutes in the late afternoon or early evening, but not before bed (so you don’t set yourself up for a sleepless night). “If you set aside a time to do it, it’s easier to let it go for now,” Lyubomirsky says. If ruminative thoughts cross your mind in the meantime, practice mindfulness: Notice your thoughts and watch them as if they were clouds passing across the sky, without feeling compelled to engage in them or judge them, Yapko advises. Simply bring your attention back to the here and now.
[Read: Protecting Your Heart From Negative Emotions.]
When problem-solving time arrives, swing into brainstorming mode. You can do this on your own (with a pad and pen or at your computer) or verbally with a trusted friend. (Just be careful that you don’t swing into co-rumination — talking excessively about your problems — together.) Either way, articulate what you think the problem or issue is, then think about how you’d like it to change and what you can do to begin to move in that direction. “Action is the antidote to rumination,” Yapko says. “You need to ask: What can I actually do about this?” Once you’ve pinpointed your goal, it helps to outline specific steps that will take you there. If you can’t do anything to change the outcome, consider what you can learn from the situation that might help you in the future. Then move on…
Ultimately, by breaking a rumination habit, you’ll ease your own stress level (since rumination is really a form of cognitive stress, Lyubomirsky notes) and improve your ability to cope with challenges, large and small. Your mood will no longer be at the mercy of your negative thoughts. And you’ll be putting yourself back in the driver’s seat of your life, which is where you deserve to be.
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Am I Just Sad — or Actually Depressed?
Depression Risk: How It Differs for Men and Women
The Hazards of Rumination for Your Mental and Physical Health originally appeared on usnews.com
