Not surprisingly, ruminating is damaging. It “”keeps people dwelling on and amplifying the upsetting aspects of a situation and their perceived character flaws.
Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions.
Rumination is associated with the worsening of negative mood states, greater affective responding to negative material, and increased access to negative memories.
It may make us doubt ourselves. It may make us feel like we're in danger, and could keep us in the flight, fight, or freeze mode. Rumination can negatively affect our emotions, causing sadness, depression, anger, or apathy. It can make us feel unlovable and do a number on our self-esteem.
Rumination is one of the co-occurring symptoms found both in anxiety disorders and depression. It is often a primary symptom in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Rumination, which is characterised by repetitive thoughts about negative personal experiences, has been suggested as an underlying mechanism for triggering and maintaining depression, anxiety and psychotic symptoms.
Rumination syndrome is the chronic (long-term) repetitive, effortless regurgitation of recently swallowed food back into the mouth. The regurgitated food may then either be rechewed and swallowed or spat out. The exact reason why some people can ruminate their food is not fully understood.
Myth: Rumination gets worse with age.
From there, rates of rumination increase, with the highest levels of ruminators being under the age of 25. Rates of rumination then begin to decline with age. Older adults, those 63 and older, ruminate the least.
Rumination Occurs Randomly
Like many symptoms of trauma, it can become disruptive. You may be sitting at your desk at work focusing on a project, or out to dinner with friends, when these thoughts crop up. Suddenly, your mind is elsewhere.
Therapies for conditions like O.C.D., anxiety and certain types of depression — which can include cognitive behavioral therapy, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, light therapy or writing out your feelings — are all useful in reducing rumination, he said.
People often ruminate because they are trying to make sense of something that happened to them. They believe that replaying the situation over and over again in their head may give them some kind of clarity and answer to their problem when really, it can do the opposite.
Rumination is persistent and repetitive thinking that is usually looking backward and more associated with depression; worry is persistent and repetitive thinking that is usually looking forward and more associated with anxious apprehension.
Rumination is a behavior and not a mental health condition. It's a common symptom in anxiety and mood disorders, though. But it doesn't have to be permanent. You can learn to manage it.
The condition has long been known to occur in infants and people with developmental disabilities. It's now clear that the condition isn't related to age, as it can occur in children, teens and adults. Rumination syndrome is more likely to occur in people with anxiety, depression or other psychiatric disorders.
Many different mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), may involve ruminating thoughts. However, in some cases, rumination may just occur in the wake of a specific traumatic event, such as a failed relationship.
The urge to ruminate can feel truly addictive such that the more we ruminate, the more compelled we feel to continue doing so. Rumination can increase our likelihood of becoming depressed, and it can prolong the duration of depressive episodes when we do have them.
Rumination syndrome is a rare problem. But it may be underdiagnosed because it is mistaken for another problem. Rumination is most often diagnosed in children. But it's also diagnosed in adults.
SSRIs and SNRIs for depression have shown efficacy and would likely help severe rumination.
Antipsychotics are efficient in reducing rumination in first episode psychosis.
Rumination is a transdiagnostic process evident in individuals with PTSD. Our review identified six sub-groups of studies, cross-sectional and longitudinal. Across studies, rumination was correlated with and predicted PTSD symptoms.
When anxiety is already present, the ruminating, worry and racing thoughts literally exhaust the mind. Brain fog can take over with all its deficiencies in alertness and processing skills.
Brooding and reflection rumination were obtained from the Ruminative Response Scale, whereas deliberate and intrusive rumination were obtained from the Event-Related Rumination Inventory.