How to get out of a Rumination Cycle

Rumination and Worrying can keep you stuck

With new wars erupting and AI continuing to rapidly change and affect our society, it's not abnormal to worry about the future and what will happen next in life.

But when worries start to take over our thinking and consume our thoughts, this may be indicative that we are in a rumination cycle.

In the counselling room, I have heard clients sharing feelings of a sense of darkness or heaviness from what they are taking in when they hear the news. You may worry about your future employment, job prospects, or just feel a sense of despair in general.

Alternatively, you may also worry about something you said that you regret, your past choices and mistakes, or lost opportunities and life paths not chosen and how they may continue to affect you today.

All of these may cause you to enter into a rumination cycle in which worries can feel difficult to stop and the cycle can be hard to exit.

What is Rumination?

According to the American Psychiatric Association, rumination "involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences." Rumination can feel like we are problem-solving as we turn over an event, question, or feeling in our mind for a lengthy period of time. In actuality, rumination does not produce a solution, and instead will likely increase our anxiety and distress.

When you are in a rumination cycle, you can feel stuck and unable to move forward—there are no easy solutions to an unknown future or to change a past that has already happened, but at the same time, you find yourself in a never-ending loop with these thoughts.

What can I do when I find myself stuck in a rumination cycle?

1. Pause, STOP, check-in with your body: Although worry and rumination feel like a head process, it is a whole body process that is triggering alarm bells in your body. These alarm bells are saying "fire, fire" to your nervous system, but in actuality, there is not a fire. We need to help our body turn off the alarm bells. In this moment, body regulation strategies, like shaking out your body or having a warm or cold shower, may help you come back to a more regulated state.

1. Label and identify the Pattern: Name the pattern of being stuck in a rumination cycle. Without judging yourself, notice "I'm in a rumination loop." Labelling is very powerful as it takes us away from the content and looks at rumination as a pattern or a thing we do, rather than being stuck in trying to solve the issue at hand which is looping. We can then start to notice more quickly when we are stuck in a rumination cycle in future times.

   
   

2. Choose joy and pleasant events - In this vein, if you are worried or struggling with rumination, I encourage you to lean into planning moments of joy and doing activities each day that give you a feeling of warmth, neutrality, contentedness, wonder, curiosity, and connection. This could be walking a trail or visiting the ocean, watching a funny movie, having coffee with an old friend, or drinking your favourite tea. These are available to each of us, and the more we choose them, the more time we end up spending in a different mood state, away from rumination and worry.

   
   

3. Remember we are not able to predict the future (or change the past) - uncertainty is the norm and not the exception for human beings on this planet over the generations. A lot of things we thought we would have by 2026 haven't happened (where are our flying cars?) and a lot of things have happened that we did not expect (COVID-19 caught most of us by surprise, I would guess!). I also like to remember that past generations lived through world wars, depression, forced migration, the Cold War, and more, and still created music, poetry, created families, and developed careers. Reminding ourselves that uncertainty is normal can be helpful to pause on our worrying as a way to figure out what is going to happen—no one has that power.

   
   

4. Ask yourself: what story or message will be helpful for me right now? When worrying strikes, consider what alternative stories could come to help you. Encouraging messages like "I can get through this." Or stories that remind you of times when you have overcome uncertainty or times of hardship, reminders of how your ancestors have overcome hardship can also help.

   
   

5. Problem solve and take action on what's in your control. Worrying alone cannot usually solve anything and is fairly ineffective as a strategy to accomplish things. However, we can notice if we can take action on some content of our worries. Perhaps our worries are nudging us to take action on some area of our life that we have been avoiding and do have power to change.

   
   

   For example, if we are worried about our finances (will I lose my job?), we can take this time to create or revise our budget. Or perhaps our concern for world events can spur us to action, by writing to those in power to speak out for important changes like further laws to protect victims or to advocate for our government to use their power to advocate for peaceful solutions to ongoing conflict.

Take the Next Step Towards Clarity and Peace

If you find yourself caught in a cycle of rumination and worry, know that you are not alone, and there is support available.

At Emotion Wise Counselling, we understand the complexities of your feelings and can help you navigate through them.

Our professional counseling sessions are designed to provide you with the tools and strategies you need to break free from rumination cycles and regain a sense of control over your life.

Don't let anxiety and uncertainty hold you back any longer.

Book a counseling session with us today, and take the first step towards a brighter, more peaceful future.