What is Rumination? (and how to stop it)

Have you ever found yourself repeatedly thinking about something, and feeling either “stuck” or like thinking is just making things feel worse as you dig yourself into a deeper hole? That might be rumination. 

Rumination is when your mind gets stuck, replaying scenarios or trying to answer anxious “what ifs,” in an attempt to reduce anxiety, but it actually ends up making it louder. Sometimes it can feel like spinning your tires in the mud – you're working hard, but you’re not getting anywhere. And sometimes, while it does feel like we’re getting somewhere, when we zoom out, it’s just one question after another, each one feeling like we have to solve it before we can move on. 

We can ruminate about all kinds of things, but many people ruminate about: 

• Past mistakes. It can feel irresponsible not to dwell on our mistakes, as if we’re not taking accountability or doing anything to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But rumination has nothing to do with responsibility and accountability; it’s more like stewing in guilt, disappointment, shame, embarrassment, and regret. 

• “What ifs.” It can feel proactive, responsible, and empowering to look at things from every possible angle and come up with a game plan. But really, we’re sacrificing the present moment to plan for made-up scenarios that might not ever happen. 

• Making decisions. It can feel like we’re being responsible when we analyze every aspect of a decision before moving forward. But rumination doesn’t bring us closer to a decision because it isn’t productive. It doesn’t help us to solve problems or gain clarity on a choice; it just drags us deeper into a pit of indecision as we try to figure out how to avoid potential regret. 

• Social situations, both past and anticipated. When something feels “off” after a social interaction, it can feel helpful to try and get to the bottom of it. But in these situations, rumination doesn’t ease our anxiety; it makes it worse by finding things to worry about, like whether someone misunderstood your joke. 

No matter what we’re ruminating about, the point remains the same: rumination feels productive and responsible, but it doesn’t really get us anywhere, and usually just makes us feel worse. 

So why do we do it? 

Well, other than the fact that it feels helpful, some of us might be more drawn to rumination because it seems like the antidote to uncertainty and, if we’re honest, despite bringing us down, it can be entertaining (c’mon, don’t lie!). 

There’s nothing like a “relaxing” evening of replaying your entire day to see if you said something weird or offensive.

Rumination feels like we’re answering questions and getting closer to some kind of clarity, but this never happens. But our brain is convinced that it will happen. Our brains are convinced that if we just keep digging, we will find gold. Keep thinking about it and everything will eventually come together and make sense. Our brains can’t stand uncertainty and will cling to any possibility of creating certainty and predictability.  

Many people report ruminating most when they’re bored or about to go to sleep. Rumination gives our brain something to do – in fact, rumination activates the Default Mode Network (DMN), the part of our brain involved in daydreaming and reminiscing. For some, it can be like a guilty pleasure; we know that it’s bad for us, but we also don’t want to stop.  

Rumination might be a protective mechanism. 

Not only would certainty and predictability make us feel safer, but rumination might also serve to search for, identify, and neutralize potential threats. For example, our brain might scan the conversations we had throughout the day to determine if anything felt off and identify a path forward. 

Based on the areas of the brain that are active while ruminating, research has determined that rumination serves as an attempt at emotional regulation.  

Rumination really is “all in your head,” as your brain is literally wired for it, and genuinely thinks it’s helping. 

So, what on earth can you do about it? 

Before we get into that, I really want you to think about what it means that your brain is wired to ruminate. Getting out of rumination is going against what your brain wants you to do and rewiring your brain. You just can’t expect to try something once and change your brain. This work looks more like going to the gym – you might not notice anything at first, but if you stay consistent and keep training, eventually you’ll see progress. 

Purposeful distraction  

To be clear, I’m not talking about avoidance here. I’m talking about getting out of the Default Mode Network (DMN) when it isn’t serving you. Purposeful distraction is doing something intentional, that pulls your focus out of your head, and back into the present moment. When we do this, we cut rumination off, we free up cognitive capacity (mental load) and engage with the present moment more meaningfully.  

Research suggests that the distraction you choose should be relevant and meaningful to you.  So, try not to pick something like scrolling on your phone. Instead, turn on a movie you’ve been meaning to watch, call a friend, bake some cookies, play your favourite video game, go for a run, complete a cryptic crossword... you get the idea. 

Cognitive defusion 

Cognitive fusion refers to when we are overly entangled and connected to our thoughts, treating them as literal truths, rather than passing mental events, like cars driving past you on the road. Fusing with our thoughts can cause them to feel like our identity. Defusion is loosening that grip, unsticking your thoughts from your identity.  

For this technique, when you notice a thought come up, say to yourself: “I am noticing the thought that...”. This process slowly untangles you from your thoughts, training your brain to see them as cognitive events that happen, and don’t necessarily have meaning.  

Focus on problem-solving

Rumination feels like problem solving, but it isn’t. We already know this. But we can redirect our thinking into problem-solving mode by asking ourselves these questions: 

• “Is this helping me right now?” 

• If yes, “what is the next actionable step?” 

If you determine that it isn’t helping you right now and/or you can’t come up with a clear next step, the next technique might help! 

Put it off for later 

If you catch yourself ruminating and can’t identify any helpful next steps, write it down and tell yourself that you will come back to it later. Most of the time, people say they don’t end up coming back to it. Some even schedule “worry time,” and put off all their anxious thoughts until their designated worry time. Once the time comes, most of those thoughts feel irrelevant. 

Sit with the emotional experience 

Pause and reflect on what you’re feeling, both physically and emotionally. Do you have tension in your chest? Butterflies in your stomach? Emotionally, do you feel dread, shame, guilt, anger, sadness, loneliness, confusion, etc. Sit with those feelings rather than jumping in to try and figure out what they mean. Rumination can often serve to avoid our emotions – we are trying to think our way out of feeling. Welcoming the feelings can reduce the need to think our way out.  

Mindfulness 

Practicing mindfulness can help us learn to 1) see thoughts as just thoughts passing through our mind, and 2) redirect our focus back to the present moment. My favourite meditation for rumination is leaves on a stream. In this meditation, imagine a stream or river you’re familiar with (if you can’t think of a specific flowing body of water, create one in your mind). Imagine there are leaves floating down the stream, disappearing into the distance. Imagine each leaf is a thought that pops into your mind – good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, etc. What if I sleep in tomorrow? - there goes a leaf! Did I say something rude during that meeting today? - there goes another one!  

This sushi train metaphor does a great job of explaining the concept behind the leaves on a stream meditation! 

Journaling 

Writing down our worries can be a great way to not only get them out of our mind, but also process why they’re bothering us. For example, as you’re writing about the worry that you said something offensive to your friend, you start writing about how you really value that friendship and worry about losing it. Sometimes this gives our brain the closure it needs to let us move on.  

Disengagement scripts 

These are things that you can say to yourself (in your head or out loud) that communicate to your brain that you will not be answering any further questions.  

• “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t”/”Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t” 

• “Thank you, brain, for letting me know. I don’t need to think about this right now.” 

• “I am not answering that question.” 

• “More please! Bring on the scary questions!” 

• “I don’t need to answer this right now.” 

The key to this technique is to bring yourself back to whatever you were doing before the thought popped up, and don’t answer it! Your brain needs to know that when you say “not now”, you mean business. 

Turn the worry into a song 

This is another great way to defuse (remember cognitive defusion!) from the thought and take away its power. Sing it to the tune of Old McDonald or try one of those AI apps that create songs with your lyrics/ideas. Take away it’s meaning, take away the fear = take away its power! 

Watch out for doubt! 

This flavour of anxiety loves to cling to doubt. When you’re trying to disengage from these anxious thoughts, anxiety is going to bait you with doubt.  

But what if you’re misremembering the conversation and you actually used a slur... wouldn’t it be irresponsible not to figure this out?

Do. Not. Answer. (And yes, reassuring yourself that you would never say something like that counts as answering the thought, and opens the door for more doubt).

You’re right, she laughed at your joke. But wouldn’t you also laugh even if you thought it was rude? Wouldn’t it be awkward not to laugh? Do you think it was a genuine laugh or a fake one?

Nope. You’re not answering that either. 

But what if you don’t prepare for that conversation with your boss and you say something embarrassing? It would be silly not to go through the different scenarios and what you would say. 

You got it – DO NOT ANSWER! 

Anxiety will try to make you doubt your capabilities, convince you that you’re being irresponsible by not answering, and remind you that a bad thing might happen if you don’t prepare/review/analyze. 

Most importantly, remember that pulling yourself out of rumination is not easy! 

Trying to control what we think is hard, especially when the thoughts feel urgent and stressful. Give yourself some grace. This work is a practice, not a miracle. It will take time but as you work on it, you’ll notice that you’re less pulled into those thought loops.  

This is hard work, but you can do hard things! You are capable of sitting with uncertainty without trying to fix it or figure it out. You can handle tough situations, even without practicing ahead of time.  

And don’t forget to keep your eye on the prize: living more fully. 

The biggest problem with rumination is that it pulls us out of real life. Remember that the goal is to engage more meaningfully with the present moment by catching rumination and redirecting our focus to real life.