Rumination
The Basic Idea
You come home after a long day at school with only one goal in your mind: slip into a sweet, intoxicating slumber.
But as you lay in your bed, you start to recount the events of the day, the things that went wrong, and how you could have reacted differently. Before you know it, your thoughts start to spiral, dwelling on failures from both the past and the present, prolonging the sadness you’re experiencing.
This domino-effect of depressive thoughts is known as rumination. Rumination is a form of obsessive thinking that magnifies the negative impacts and significance of a situation that has already occurred. Rumination often leads to emotional stress, and at its worst it can encourage the onset of psychopathological disorders like depression and anxiety.
Rumination consists of two important sub-components:1
- Reflection: This occurs when one looks back on a situation that has happened in order to process the emotions associated with the event.
- Brooding: the focus on negative mood consequences related to a situation in the past or present.
Rumination was the primary research area of psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. Her work, combined with the input of countless other researchers, has allowed the concept of rumination to become a mechanism that links stress and other depressive factors to psychopathological disorders.
Even if the explanation provided by the therapist is wrong, giving depressed ruminators a plausible rationale for their depression and the hope they can overcome it by following the therapist’s prescriptions may go a long way in interrupting the depression-rumination-inaction cycle.
- Susan Nolen-Hoeksema and colleagues in her 2008 publication Rethinking Rumination
About the Author
Joshua Loo
Joshua was a former content creator with a passion for behavioral science. He previously created content for The Decision Lab, and his insights continue to be valuable to our readers.
