What are rumors and how to deal with them?

1 February 2023
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There are situations when thoughts torment, constantly dizzy in the head. It feels like an experience that keeps you from thinking about something, nor can you change your thinking. The result of such a situation is the inability to concentrate on tasks, everyday activities, and a constant deterioration of mood. This state of affairs is scientifically referred to as rumination. This term is strange to many people, so let's take a closer look at its meaning.

What is rumination?

Rumination is thoughts that keep on recurring. These are usually difficult, negative thoughts that are in no way related to the activities or tasks performed at the moment, nor do they explain or help to understand the situation in any way. Thoughts that are constantly in circulation are most often about oneself. However, they can also be a reference to other people or events that a person has experienced.

Joanna Pruban

Psychologist, pedagogue and specialist in psycho-oncology, Department of Oncology and Oncological Surgery for Children and Adolescents, Institute of Mother and Child

The expert advises:

The power of ruminating thoughts occurs simultaneously with symptoms of low mood, lack of inner peace and bad light of seeing yourself. A person suffering from the intensity of ruminative thoughts has difficulties in formulating opinions, assessing interpersonal relations, and is unable to solve even everyday problems. Ruminations arise due to the emerging difference between expectations set for oneself and expectations towards other people, the world, together with the existing reality in which man comes to live.

What is it there is rumination: examples of behavior

In order to understand exactly what rumination is, it is worth knowing that the Latin term means "to chew". Ruminations can take many forms. We include among them:

  • type of obsessive thoughts in the area of ​​doubts as to the quality of performance and the fact of the actions performed; they occur most often in disorders characterized by obsession and compulsion;
  • rumination may arise too independently as one of the obsessions;
  • often these are thoughts about doubts as to whether a certain action has been performed (turning off a tap, closing the house, etc.);
  • persistent thoughts, focusing on experienced symptoms of stress, its causes, recurring memories and images from the past;
  • mainly concerns past and is associated with negative emotions.

Ruminations: how to cope?

Thoughts that keep coming back are not a good strategy for dealing with emotions or depressed moods. In this way, you can get stuck in negative feelings for a long time, and nurturing this discomfort, constantly recurring thoughts, makes it difficult to function properly on a daily basis. The tendency to "chew up" thoughts results from a misconception of what it is to deal with a given problem.

 

We often feel that if we constantly think about a problem, we'll finally get to the bottom of it and understand it in depth. Which, in the end, will have an impact on its solution. When a person ruminates, he has the impression that he can analyze the past in this way, and everything that has taken place, under the influence of such action (thinking), will reveal the truth to him. A person recognizes that thanks to this they will find out "why something happened?" And, as a result, will feel better. Believing that the same mistakes can be avoided becomes very little over time, and we are full of anxiety.

Below are some examples of rumination:
  • Could I hurt someone I love?
  • Am I sure I closed the doors and windows?
  • I wonder if I turned off the iron?
  • Is my essay flawless?

Thoughts are very tiring and cause intense inner restlessness, tremors and chaos. If thoughts are allowed to run unlimited, we do not have the comfort of stopping over the "here and now". This takes up space that could be used for freedom and peace.

What does ruminating lead to?

Joanna Pruban

Psychologist, pedagogue and specialist in psycho-oncology, Department of Oncology and Oncological Surgery for Children and Adolescents, Institute of Mother and Child

The expert advises:

Recurring thoughts, images and impulses that disturb consciousness are very annoying and very difficult to dismiss and guide them. In such a situation, the person focuses only on the negative aspects of the case and constantly asks questions to which he wants to find an answer. This one, however, is not coming. Emotions do not change, the course of events does not reverse, and doubts grow.

In such circumstances, complaining about oneself and others becomes something constant, or something that cannot be changed in functioning becomes annoying. Then any action is blocked, because we feel like prisoners of our own thoughts. In such feelings helplessness grows, "chewing" the same situation over and over again. Helplessness and the lack of getting out of the closed circle of the problem increase with each subsequent question.

ruminating becomes a habit, we choose it instinctively as a strategic way to act, and we have no hope of curing this condition. We don't think that you can otherwisethat it makes sense in a different way.

What attempts can we make to stop the rumination?

Once we realize what rumination is and that perhaps we are using this harmful strategy ourselves, we need to tell ourselves - "End of it! Stop!" Obsessive thoughts are very bothersome, but we must not let them begin to guide our thinking. Of course, when looking for ways to treat or deal with intrusive thoughts, you should bear in mind that not everything is clear in life and that sometimes you have to tolerate uncertainty. Out of uncertainty, ambivalences arise in a person, and they also need approval. Anyone can have "mixed feelings" that are linked to events, people, decisions. Mood cannot perpetuate negative feelings that drive guilt on oneself and other people.

Joanna Pruban

Psychologist, pedagogue and specialist in psycho-oncology, Department of Oncology and Oncological Surgery for Children and Adolescents, Institute of Mother and Child

The expert advises:

In such situations, you need to accept the reality as it is. There is no point in looking for importance in past experiences, because life is what is "here and now", which is the implementation of present goals and plans for the near future. Even if the ruminations keep coming back painfully, set a time limit with yourself for excessive meditation. However, attention should be consciously focused on another activity - on the breath, on the image you see, etc. It is also worth considering how much is lost by constantly "chewing" the past and asking yourself - is this how I want to continue living?

Constantly stuck in problems, we stay in sadness and despondency for a long time and we cherish only the negative sides of events, depriving ourselves of the possibility of treating this state of affairs. It is worth analyzing your ways of thinking to become more and more aware of yourself. Ruminating is an established habit, and habits can be overcome and changed.

 

Author

Joanna Pruban

Psychologist, pedagogue and specialist in psycho-oncology, Department of Oncology and Oncological Surgery for Children and Adolescents, Institute of Mother and Child

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