Reckoning With Rumination: Cash

Anxiety and depression often share a particular habit known as rumination. To ruminate means to go over in the mind repeatedly and often casually or slowly certain thoughts in which you compulsively remind yourself of what is wrong.

These are negative thoughts on steroids. Compounded by repetition and habit, rumination can become very damaging to your mental health. People with depressive and other mental illnesses often have a similar trait: many suffer from excessive and compulsive negative thoughts that distort reality. Thus, rumination involves an endless loop of negative thinking that can exacerbate depression and other mental illnesses.

Rumination has been described with the illustration of getting a song stuck in your head. You know, the annoying song you really don’t like that much but it keeps coming back to your mind over and over: row, row, row your boat. You’re welcome.

It’s important to note that it’s not only the negative thinking but the obsessive replaying in one’s mind the same negative thoughts over and over again that constitutes rumination.

Research from Yale University has shown the harm rumination can cause. The research found not only can rumination make depression and anxiety worse, it can also lead to binge-drinking and binge-eating as sufferers attempt to use these negative coping patterns to distract themselves from their obsessive thoughts, according to Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D, a psychologist and professor at Yale University.

Many years ago when I was in college, a fellow student said to me, “Man, you think too much.” I dismissed this out of hand. Thinking is a desired and positive aspect of higher learning, therefore, all thinking is good. Unfortunately I hadn’t, at that point, taken a logic class so I was completely unaware that my conclusion was a logical fallacy. How can a person think too much, I reasoned?

It’s because I was focused on thinking as a whole, while my colleague was referencing negative thinking patterns.

And of course, he was right. I did indeed “think too much” with the negative side drowning out the positive side. He didn’t use the word, “rumination,” but that was exactly what he was describing to me. I had a negative thinking pattern that was causing me to become more and more depressed and withdrawn.

How to Fight Rumination

Recognizing Rumination

In order for us to fight rumination, we must first be able to recognize and identify our own rumination patterns. This may sound obvious, but when we have developed a habit of thinking we often resort to it subconsciously. It’s important to be able to recognize the rumination pattern in your thinking. You can’t fight something you don’t even realize you are doing.

Challenge Your Ruminations

When we do recognize we’re ruminating again, we must call ourselves out on it. We must find a way to battle the negative thoughts. Often when I find myself in this pattern, I find it helpful to say out loud, “Stop it!”

But stopping isn’t enough. We must also replace these automatic thoughts with ones that are more positive in nature and challenge our own thinking patterns.

One of the best ways to do this I have found is replacing our negative ruminations with Scripture. A promise book is an ideal way to do this. You know, the books or lists that give you a promise from Scripture for each situation. Speaking the Scriptures out loud is a great way to fight rumination.

Another thing that helps me is listening to the old hymns of the church, since they are so replete with truth and beauty.

David Burns, in his bestselling book “Feeling Good,” refers to this as “verbal judo.” I think of it as being a defendant in a criminal trial.

Put Your Ruminations On Trial

You have the prosecutor (your own mind) leveling accusations against you, and you have your own defense attorney (also you) who argues against what the prosecutor is claiming about you. In this case you are both prosecutor and defense attorney. You must vigorously defend your client (yourself) against any and all accusations.

This may sound like the common spiritual illustration of Christ being our defense attorney while the devil is the prosecutor. However, in this case the illustration is not of a spiritual nature, but a psychological one in which the battle is against oneself.

This might seem a little funny at first, pushing back against your own self, but remember, there is a side of you that will destroy you if you don’t take the necessary steps to survive. You will find as you begin to look at these patterns that it becomes easier over time to recognize your ruminations and develop specific arguments against them.

Mental health recovery can be a constant battle with our own self-destructive and negative thoughts. Begin pushing back today so that ruminating doesn’t harm your mental health.