Rumination

Toby, a marketing professional, has had a difficult meeting with her team. She felt that her ideas were not heard, and her co-workers feel like they actively dismiss her suggestions. Later that evening at home, Toby found herself replaying the meeting in her mind, often condemning herself for what she did not do. “Why didn’t I speak up more? Did I sound stupid? What if my coworkers don’t respect me?” The thoughts circled around in her head, making it very difficult for her to fall asleep.

When our mind gets caught in a loop of replaying moments, conversations, and worries over and over again, that is known as rumination. Rumination is a constant repetitive and unconstructive thoughts that can leave us feeling trapped, exhausted, and disconnected from the present moment, because we become stuck in a mental trap. Rumination can increase vulnerability to mental health issues, forcing us to keep maintaining negative emotions and prevent problem-solving because we are focused on the what-if rather than on the actual problem (Watkins, 2008).

Signs & Symptoms of Rumination

Rumination often feels like being mentally stuck in a loop, unable to escape from distressing thoughts. It frequently involves replaying past mistakes, regrets, or fears about the future. Common signs of rumination include:

• Repetitive Thoughts: Thinking about the same event, conversation, or worry over and over, often without coming to any resolution.
• Focus on Past Failures or Mistakes: Constantly analyzing what went wrong in a specific situation and feeling unable to let it go.
• Negative Self-Talk: Harshly criticizing oneself for perceived failures, leading to feelings of shame or inadequacy.
• Difficulty Shifting Attention: Finding it challenging to move on from a negative thought, even when trying to engage in other activities.

It Feels Like It Will Not End

Ruminating is exhausting and emotionally draining. It can feel like being trapped in an endless cycle of worry, where each thought leads to another without any real conclusion or relief. You may feel

• Anxious, because you cannot relax or enjoy being in the here or now. You continue to worry about the future or regret about the past, fueling anxiety and depression.
• Disconnected, because you keep the focus on internal thoughts rather than the external world – you create an internal monologue for yourself to may not necessarily be true
• Hopeless, because rumination rarely leads to solutions, leaving you feeling helpless or stuck in a prison of distressing thoughts that you may feel there are no ways out of.

Rumination tries to get our mind to rewrite a past we can not change.

What Can We Do Instead

Like Toby, if you find yourself in a similar loop, the first step is to notice. It can be incredibly helpful just to recognize when we are ruminating and simply to name it: “I’m stuck in a loop right now.” This awareness gives us a bit of distance from the overwhelming thoughts, and research such as that done by Querstret and Cropley (2013) and Zhang et al. (2021) found that mindfulness interventions significantly decrease rumination.

After you discover you are ruminating, be kind to yourself. Soften your self-talk, soothing your emotions rather than trying to instigate or inflame them.

If you are still ruminating, try redirection. Rumination tends to focus us inward on what is wrong, so we can shift our focus outward to begin loosing its’ grip. This may mean taking a walk, paying attention to the colors of the leaves, playing with your cat or dog, anything that can reconnect you into the present moment, even if it is for a short while. Reconnecting to the present helps break the cycle of rumination, as research by Lyubomirsky and Layous (2013) highlights the benefits of engaging in positive activities as a way to disrupt rumination and enhance mood.

The goal is not to make the thoughts disappear completely – the goal is to change your relationship with your thoughts. Recognize the pattern and choose actions that help brins us back to the here and now.

References

Lyubomirsky, S., & Layous, K. (2013). How Do Simple Positive Activities Increase Well-Being? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(1), 57-62. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258128096_How_Do_Simple_Positive_Activities_Increase_Well-Being

Querstret, D., & Cropley, M. (2013). Assessing the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on levels of cortisol and psychological distress in non-clinical populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Stress and Health, 29(4), 233-245.