Two Things You Can Do To Stop Ruminating

The term ruminate means to run a thought over and over in your mind. This is the figurative definition. The literal definition refers to cows regurgitating their food to chew it over and over. Rumination is not a diagnosis all to itself, we see it in depression and anxiety. Rumination causes people to get stuck in their thoughts and even feel stuck in the negativity of their condition. Typical negative depressive ruminations may be things like: why do I always get the short end of the stick? Why can’t I be happy like everyone else? Anxious ruminations tend to be worrying about things that happened in the past like analyzing past situations and worrying about what kind of impression you left, or what did that person mean by that. At the time she said what she did, you didn’t think that much of it, but when you get to the end of the day and start ruminating over the interaction, what the person said takes on a completely different meaning. And it’s usually a negative meaning. In both scenarios, it’s repetit