Why We Ruminate, and How to Feel Better

I heard once that for every negative or stressful thought that we experience, chemicals related to that emotion are released into our system, and they remain there for a certain amount of time – generally eight to twelve seconds.

This perpetuates unhealthy mental states – including anxiety and depression – because our body is continuing to express those chemicals while we ruminate (get stuck on a thought) on the negative experience and keep it fresh in our minds. 

The question is, then, why do we ruminate?

Why do we allow ourselves to get stuck on a problem and run it over and over in our heads? Does it serve a purpose?

Sometimes our minds believe that if we think about a situation enough, we’ll find a solution or we’ll somehow feel better.

However, there are some things that simply don’t have a solution – like things that happened in a past relationship, or even some upsetting things that are happening in a current relationship.

So because of this mindset, we end up thinking in circles while feeling continually worse and worse as time goes on.

Cyclical thinking is a survival instinct

This method of thinking is totally normal. In fact, if your mind is going around in circles, it is actually doing exactly what it was designed to do to help you survive. 

According to what we currently understand about how our survival system works, there is a part of the brain in the frontal lobe designed to replay and analyze moments of stress or threat in our mind. 

This might go something like this:

A bear chases me → I run away and find a place to climb to that the bear can’t access → I wait until it gives up and leaves → I feel safe. 

The “replay” part of our brains might run through the scenario with a fine-toothed comb, analyzing the details in order to protect us in the future. It might be on the lookout for things we might have missed the first time, like warning sounds, tracks on the path, or alternate escape options. 

If our brain concludes that the threat is over, and that you did all you could do (which, in the case of physical threat, you generally did because you survived), then that part of the brain relaxes. All necessary survival actions have been taken. Or alternatively, once we’ve found an escape route, that part of the brain relaxes because it found the action for completion needed. 

Now, when the perceived threat isn’t physical – more like being worried about a conversation that didn’t go the way you wanted, or past arguments with a loved one that didn’t get resolved – there is no Action for Completion indicated by our brain, so the analyzing part of the brain just keeps going. That is what it is designed to do. It’s sort of like an old program that just keeps running with no one around to maintain or update it. 

This is completely normal, and we all have this survival response.

But, it’s not the most optimal way to go about handling these scenarios.

When we start to feel bad, stressed, tense, irritable, or down, one of the ways to shift our state away from this cyclical rumination is to consciously interrupt our thought process. 

Interrupting the pattern of rumination

There are many different ways by which one can work to interrupt their thought process.

For example, there’s a process for this purpose that I actually developed called NIRS. NIRS stands for Notice, Interrupt, Redirect, and State Change, and this process works both for getting you out of a “triggered” state, as well as for interrupting your negative thought spirals when they arise.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about the inner workings of NIRS and how you can implement it in your own life, feel free to check out my previous blog on the subject here. 

For now, however, the process can be summarized as this: to be in gentle care as you shepherd yourself through rehabilitation, and to compassionately NIRS yourself through a trigger. 

But how can this be done?

It is done through engaging in activities that you know lower your overall stress and toxicity levels. Walking in nature, reading a good book, hugging puppies, and laughing with friends are all a solid start to nourishing the brain energy resources required to enable you to remember to interrupt your ruminating mind. 

As a next step, go deeper into the practice of Neurosculpting®. This practice helps you create the delicate architecture in your brain needed to be able to more easily interrupt your negative thought spiral in more intense moments. 

I find so much relief in recognizing when there is no action for completion indicated in my thought spiral (even though I so wish there was) and being able to interrupt both my negative or stress inducing thoughts and the subsequent chemicals of emotion they produce. 

Somehow, by acknowledging the fact that my mind is stuck in a survival pattern, it alleviates some of the pressure, and the need to keep thinking those thoughts dissipates. 

Once I’m no longer in a thought spiral, my perspective shifts, and I find so much more energy, possibility and open-heartedness available to me.