Getting out of your head
Low mood often comes with going over the same thoughts again and again. Why did that happen? What’s wrong with me? What if this doesn’t get better?
It can feel like problem-solving, but it rarely reaches an answer, and it pulls you away from what’s in front of you.
Behavioral activation treats this as something you do, which means you can notice it and choose something else. Ask whether going over it is helping you decide anything right now. If not, is there one small action you could take? If there isn’t, turn your attention to an activity and put it fully into what you’re doing, like the feel of the water while you wash dishes or the sounds on a walk.
If there’s a part you can act on, write it down and plan it as an activity.
What researchers call it
The psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema called this rumination. She described it as dwelling on how bad you feel, on why you might feel that way, and on what it might mean, over and over. In her research, people who tended to respond to low mood by ruminating stayed low longer than people who turned their attention to something else.
Later reviews filled in the picture. Rumination tends to make negative thinking more negative, gets in the way of solving problems, makes it harder to act, and can wear down support from other people, who may not know how to help.
Why it feels useful
Rumination feels like thinking a problem through, and some repeated thinking really does help. Edward Watkins, who has studied this for many years, points to a difference in how the thinking runs.
Abstract thinking, the why kind, tends to keep low mood going. Why does this always happen to me? Why can’t I just be normal? Questions like these have no answer you can act on.
Concrete thinking, the how kind, is more likely to lead somewhere. What exactly happened? What did I do just before? What could I try next time? These questions point to a next step.
One way to catch yourself is to notice which kind of question you’re asking.
Going over it as a way of avoiding
Martell’s approach looks at rumination by what it does, not only by what it’s about. Very often it works like avoidance. While you’re going over why a conversation went badly, you’re not making the call that might fix it, or doing anything else that might help.
Martell and his colleagues teach people to treat rumination as a cue to act. When you notice it, that’s the signal to ask the questions above and then do something.
Ways out of the loop
Act on what can be acted on. If the loop is about something you can do something about, pick the next step, even if it’s far from the whole solution. Write it down and plan it.
Put your attention somewhere. If nothing can be done right now, pick an activity and pay full attention to it. Martell’s manual calls this attention to experience. Notice the warmth of the dishwater, the weight of the plates, the sound of the street on a walk, the taste of the coffee. Your mind will wander back to the problem. That’s normal. Notice where it went and bring it back, as many times as it takes.
Change the setting. Rumination often has favorite places and times, like lying in bed, standing in the shower, driving alone, or late at night. Getting up, going outside, or calling someone changes what’s around you, and that can loosen the loop.
An example
It’s Sunday night, and you’ve spent the last hour replaying an argument with a coworker. You notice it, which is the first step. “I’m going over it again.”
Is this helping you decide anything? Not really. You’ve said the same things to yourself a dozen times. Is there something you could do? Yes. You could talk to her Monday.
So you write it down. Monday, 10 AM, ask Dana if she has five minutes. You put it on the plan.
Then you wash the dishes, paying attention to the water and the plates. The argument drifts back in twice. Both times you notice it and go back to the dishes. It doesn’t vanish, but it isn’t running the whole evening anymore.
When it’s more than a habit
Some people get caught in rumination for hours on most days. Watkins and his colleagues developed rumination-focused cognitive behavioral therapy for people whose depression hadn’t fully lifted with medication, and tested it in a small trial that added it to people’s usual care. If going over things is taking up a large part of your days, a therapist can help with it directly.
Memories of something traumatic that keep forcing their way in are different from rumination. Work on those with a therapist. And if your thoughts turn to death or to harming yourself, get help right away. “When to get more help” has where to turn.
References
- Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1991). Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100(4), 569–582. doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.100.4.569
- Nolen-Hoeksema, S., Wisco, B. E., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). Rethinking rumination. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(5), 400–424. doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00088.x
- Watkins, E. R. (2008). Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 163–206. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.163
- Watkins, E. R., Mullan, E., Wingrove, J., Rimes, K., Steiner, H., Bathurst, N., Eastman, R., & Scott, J. (2011). Rumination-focused cognitive-behavioural therapy for residual depression: Phase II randomised controlled trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 199(4), 317–322. doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.110.090282
- Martell, C. R., Dimidjian, S., & Herman-Dunn, R. (2021). Behavioral activation for depression: A clinician’s guide (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Martell, C. R., Addis, M. E., & Jacobson, N. S. (2001). Depression in context: Strategies for guided action. W. W. Norton.
Helpful links
Everyday Insight’s tools are for education and personal reflection. They are not therapy or medical care, and they are not for emergencies. In an emergency, call 911. If you are in crisis in the United States, call or text 988. Mental health resources