Rumination consists of chewing for the second time, returning it to the mouth, the food that has been previously ingested, in a kind of two-stage digestion carried out by some animals that eat vegetables, lack incisor teeth in the upper jaw and have a stomach with four cavities
Some people could also be considered “ruminants” in a sense, although what they regurgitate and chew, not just once but many times, are thoughts rather than food.
They experience the so-called “mental rumination”, which consists of constantly turning over problems in their heads without finding a solution or mentally “getting hooked” on a negative situation, in a tendency that could also be compared to our thoughts going around in circles without success. move forward or get anywhere.
“Rumination is one of the typical reactions to adverse situations that distances us from emotional well-being,” according to the study “Understanding or ruminating our emotions,” prepared by Línea Directa (LD) health insurance based on 1,700 surveys carried out in all of Spain using methods validated and used worldwide in psychology and mental health.
This report has been prepared with the expert in Emotional Intelligence, Ruth Castillo-Gualda, and the specialist in Anxiety and Stress Intervention, Juan Ramos-Cejudo, professors at the Faculty of Health of the Camilo José Cela University (UCJC), In Madrid Spain.
Sustained mental hook.
Ruminative thinking is associated with 40% of the clinical symptoms of anxiety and 30% of those related to depression, and is very common among young people, with 54% of boys and girls between 18 and 29 years old, who admit having gone through this type of problems, according to LD.
Mental rumination consists of “hooking” on a situation, thought, idea, event, person or image, generally when we experience unpleasant emotions. We dedicate excessive energy to those ideas that appear in our mind, mentally reviewing the event or situation, as he explains.
This mental “hook” sometimes arises because it gives us a feeling of control, because we consider that thinking about the problem is something responsible or because we are not directly able to direct our attention to other aspects, he points out.
According to Castillo-Gualda, a doctor in Psychology, “there are many reasons why we ruminate” and “continuously thinking about the problem, like a washing machine spinning, is due to the emotions we are experiencing: stress, worry, negativity, among others. ”.
An example of a ruminative strategy, which is not very useful and which distances emotional well-being, when faced with a relationship problem, may consist of one of its members “thinking over the way they reacted in a past argument, obsessively and in a loop.” ”, explains Professor Ruth Castillo-Gualda.
“You also ruminate mentally when you reproach yourself for a decision you have made and blame yourself for its consequences; when you criticize yourself for not having been ‘up to the task’ in a complicated situation or not knowing how to solve it; when you obsess over the answer someone else gave you and why they treated you that way; when you get confused imagining a negative scenario that could happen,” she exemplifies.
“There are emotional regulation strategies that bring people closer to well-being and prevent anxiety and depression. They are based on identifying our own emotions, understanding them and reevaluating them. “They are skills that can be trained and improved, both in a clinical and educational context,” she points out.
Some of the most effective strategies that help stop ruminating are the following, according to this specialist.
RECOGNIZE AND ACCEPT EMOTION.
“It is very useful to recognize which emotions usually cause rumination, to be able to distance ourselves from this mental tendency, without identifying so much with the thought and assuming that it is biased by the emotion we are experiencing at the moment,” according to Castillo-Gualda, who invites Let’s ask ourselves: What thoughts appear when I am worried, sad or discouraged?
“It is also important to accept what we experience, instead of fighting against it, and understand that, even if we find them unpleasant or we do not like to experience them, emotions transmit messages to us,” he points out.
“We have to be aware that the more we deny or avoid an emotion, the more intense it will become. You have to recognize that it is there and let it pass,” she recommends.
MANAGE OUR INTERNAL CONVERSATION.
“We have to monitor our self-talk or way of speaking to ourselves, in the face of emotionally challenging situations. Talking to us about these situations in more flexible and kind terms can help us face and resolve them,” he says.
For Castillo-Gualda, a helpful self-talk could be: “I know I’m feeling nervous, worried, or negative, that’s why my mind is going into a loop.”
Another example consists of reminding ourselves that what we are feeling is not going to last forever, telling us “just because I think something doesn’t mean it is real” or “what I think or feel is temporary.”
REFORMULATE THE SITUATION.
When our mind goes into a loop, the emotions we feel may be biasing the way we interpret a situation, according to the UCJC professor.
Instead, “when we reformulate the situation, we assume that there is no single true way of looking at the problem, but rather that there are multiple alternatives, multiple aspects on which we can focus our attention,” he adds.
He explains that when we reevaluate, “we consciously choose those aspects that help us feel better.”
“For example, if you have received criticism, you can interpret that it is one person’s opinion and not a reflection of your ability, or if you feel that you are not capable of moving forward or getting something forward, you can remind yourself of past situations in which you have had success” he exemplifies.
Other examples: “When you feel pressured to have to make decisions or solve problems, you may think that it is an indication that people trust you; or when you anticipate that an event is going to have a negative resolution, you can refocus it thinking that this could be one possibility among many others that are equally probable,” concludes the LD advisor for this study.
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