Have you ever felt like you cannot just stop thinking about something? A feeling where your thoughts keep racing in your head, and you just feel like you cannot escape this train of thoughts. This article may shed a light on what this feeling is like. The topic of what you are ruminating about can be anything… Maybe it is about your grades at school, or about a crush who has just rejected you. What you are going through is defined as rumination. I will discuss the definition, causes, and consequences of rumination in this article and end it with some tips that can help you.

This article will cover the following points:

• What is rumination?
• Causes of rumination
• Consequences of rumination
• Tips and Tricks to stop ruminating

What is rumination?

Rumination is defined as unpleasant thoughts, feelings, personal worries, and distressing situations that are repeated, long, and recurrent. There are several types of rumination (e.g., depressive rumination, anger rumination, worry rumination, ruminative brooding and so on). We will touch upon two types of rumination in this article, namely depressive rumination, and ruminative brooding. Depressive rumination focuses on constant thoughts surrounding the symptoms, causes, situations, etc. of depressed feelings and distress [9]. Similarly, ruminative brooding is a repetitive way of thinking that occurs passively, and the person constantly focuses on the bad parts of their life or themselves [4,8,9].

One thing that is important to mention is that there are different types of classifications that exist in the literature. For example, an interesting finding is that there are consistent gender differences in rumination. To illustrate, a meta-analysis found that women are more likely to ruminate compared to men. However, the authors noted that the effect of this varied in turn within age groups: it was small for adults and bigger for adolescents [3].

Causes of Rumination

Now that you know what rumination is, the next question that begs the answer from the articles is why this occurs. Why do people think too much and stay fixed on one thing? Note that we are not going to state every single cause of why rumination occurs, there are infinite reasons, but here are the main ones stated in literature:

• Parental styles - One study found that parents who demonstrate parental overprotection may contribute to their children’s ruminative thinking. The relevant article suggests that the parent’s style of thinking does not allow, or condemn, their children to have certain life experiences, which prevents them from learning coping strategies focused on action. Instead of going for active ways of coping, they go for passive ways such as rumination and/or worrying [7].
• Control Theory - This theory focuses on the idea that rumination occurs due to inconsistencies that occur throughout the goal progress. Many theories revolving around self-regulation suggest that people usually compare their current progress to the wanted one. When the comparison results in an unwanted way, the person can do different things to solve this inconsistency (e.g., lower the goal). Similar to this, Martin and Tesser [1] thought that ruminative thoughts actually show people’s attempts to decrease the inconsistency. Rumination will leave the picture once the person resolves the inconsistency by either achieving the goal or by abandoning it for another one. It should be noted that this happens when the immediate environmental demands do not satisfy what is absent. For instance, if you did not get to go to your dream university due to your grades being low you may constantly think about what went wrong and think about the university all the time. You may think about it even when you are playing games on your phone or writing an essay for a class. Whether rumination becomes harmful or not depends on how you behave with what you have. For example, you may try to get into the university again by working for a year and if you do get in then the rumination will help to solve an inconsistency. However, if you do not solve the inconsistency then rumination will make you feel worse and you will constantly keep going back to why it did not work out [1].
• Negative emotions - It is assumed that ruminating about something causes people to demonstrate negative emotions. Additionally, control theory suggests that negative emotions can contribute to failure in goal attaining processes. When this negative mood continues, you are more likely to give up on the wanted goal which results in the inconsistency continuing [1].

Consequences of Rumination

• When a person ruminates, the emotional state is amplified and prolonged. For example, if you have been rejected by your crush you might ruminate about the reasons why they rejected you. This may make you feel angrier and sadder [10].
• It can decrease your ability to solve problems in an effective manner. You may get more information about why you are feeling a certain way, but this does not mean you will find the solution to it easier. You might have a more negative perspective on the matter which can inhibit you from thinking in a complex way. For instance, if you are ruminating over a grade and a friend of yours is mad at you at the same time it can be harder for you to think about the best way to win your friend back. You may act more careless because of your negative mood, and it will affect your judgments about the situation. Therefore, these judgements will affect what kind of solution you come up with [6,10].
• Some studies have pointed out that ruminating also hinders central executive functions and focusing capabilities [5,10].

Tips & Tricks to stop ruminating

Now that you are aware of why rumination occurs and what effects it can have on you, here are some tips to decrease rumination. Remember, if it keeps you away from performing everyday actions it might be helpful to talk to a professional about it.

• Practising mindfulness - There are some studies which suggest mindfulness may counteract rumination. You can redirect your attention to present senses instead of being stuck on worries [1,2].
• When you find yourself ruminating, try to see what triggered you to think about it constantly. Uncovering the source may help you find a solution for your problem.
• Try to do other activities in order to not think about what is making you feel bad. For example, call a friend, clean your room, cook or go out.
• If rumination becomes a problem that hinders your day-to-day actions, you can opt for therapy and talking to a professional.

Want to learn more? Here are some recommendations:

1. How to stop ruminating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlpYu2938cs
2. What is Rumination and What can help? https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Cj7bPFoBC4T07UvdQNrTP?si=0872271196174bba
3. What is rumination? https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wSQiYV8Gu2vo68uAncmZb?si=3daa339e43884517

References

1. Borders, A. (2020). Rumination and Related Constructs: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment of Thinking Too Much. Academic Press.
2. Borders, A., Earleywine, M., & Jajodia, A. (2010). Could mindfulness decrease anger, hostility, and aggression by decreasing rumination?. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 36(1), 28-44.
3. Johnson, D. P., & Whisman, M. A. (2013). Gender differences in rumination: A meta-analysis. Personality and individual differences, 55(4), 367-374.
4. Lopez, C. M., Felton, J. W., Driscoll, K. A., & Kistner, J. A. (2012). Brooding rumination and internalizing symptoms in childhood: Investigating symptom specificity in a multi-wave prospective study. International journal of cognitive therapy, 5(3), 240-253.
5. Lyubomirsky, S., Kasri, F., & Zehm, K. (2003). Dysphoric rumination impairs concentration on academic tasks. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27(3), 309-330.
6. Lyubomirsky, S., Tucker, K. L., Caldwell, N. D., & Berg, K. (1999). Why ruminators are poor problem solvers: clues from the phenomenology of dysphoric rumination. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(5), 1041.
7. Manfredi, C., Caselli, G., Rovetto, F., Rebecchi, D., Ruggiero, G. M., Sassaroli, S., & Spada, M. M. (2011). Temperament and parental styles as predictors of ruminative brooding and worry. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(2), 186-191.
8. Schneider, S., & Brassen, S. (2016). Brooding is related to neural alterations during autobiographical memory retrieval in aging. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 8, 219.
9. Watkins, E., & Brown, R. G. (2002). Rumination and executive function in depression: An experimental study. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 72(3), 400-402.
10. Watkins, E. R., & Roberts, H. (2020). Reflecting on rumination: Consequences, causes, mechanisms and treatment of rumination. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 127, 103573.

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