Rumination is thinking about negative emotions and problems over and over again, as well as their causes and effects. Those negative thoughts that come back to you over and over again can make your feelings of depression or anxiety worse or cause them to start in the first place.
If someone is depressed and dwells in the past, they are more likely to remember more negative things that happened to them in earlier times, they interpret situations in their current lives more negatively, and they are more hopeless about the future.
People who are focused on problems also find it hard to move past them so they are unable to concentrate on finding solutions.
Ruminating can make people feel miserable, even if they don’t have depression or anxiety. People can get stuck in a loop where the more they think about something, the worse they feel, which makes them think about it even more.
There was a study at the University of Liverpool in the UK that looked at how a person’s current situation and past events can lead to depression and anxiety.
Peter Kinderman, Ph.D., and his team of researchers found that the most important way that stressful events in a person’s past caused them to become depressed or anxious was by making them think about the problem and blame themselves for it.
As Kinderman said in a statement, “depression and anxiety are not simple conditions and there is no single cause. Even though we can’t change someone’s family background or the things that have happened to them in life, we can help them change the way they think and teach them healthy ways to deal with stress.”
Here are some things that mental health specialists believe you can do to break the cycle of ruminating on the past.
1. Take your mind off of the bad things that are going on by doing things that will make you think about better memories.
2. Try to remember times when things went smoothly even when they were hard. You can ask family or friends to help you remember good times in the past, when things went well. You might be able to change the way you think about this.
3. Moving around and doing physical activities can also help, especially if the move takes you to a place that makes you feel good. It can be walking in a park, sports or even fixing something in the house.
4. Try to sort out different problems or break down the bigger issues into smaller segments. Take care of one problem at a time. Describe each step in your plan as fully as you can. Note it down. Once you’re ready, start moving forward by taking small steps at a time.
Therapy may be necessary for severe rumination.
Some persons who ruminate and suffer from certain mental diseases such as depression, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder may find the strategies mentioned above useful, while others will require more structured care.
Rumination therapy and addressing underlying mental health issues frequently coexist. Rumination can be lessened with treatments for disorders including OCD, anxiety, and some forms of depression. These treatments include cognitive behavioural therapy, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medicine, light therapy, and journaling your experiences.
Please talk to a mental health worker if you are having trouble with persistently negative thoughts that are upsetting and causing problems.
There is help out there.
Reference: Psychatry.org
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