“I wish I had said that sentence too.”
“Why did this happen to me?”
“What would it be like otherwise”
“What did I do wrong”
Do these sentences sound familiar to you? What do you think about most during the day? Your plans for that day, the course and maybe some past experiences, some dreams and expectations… We can increase this list. In fact, there is not a single second that passes without thinking. Even while you are reading this article, you are thinking about something, some of you are trying to focus and catch what I am talking about, some of you are lost with thoughts swirling in the background in your mind and have come to this line without realizing it…
There are times when we get bogged down in a whirlwind of thoughts, especially when performing activities that don’t require much focus; such as while eating, walking, trying to sleep. When you feel that you are caught in a cycle of thoughts that you cannot get rid of at such moments, know that your mind is ruminating.
What is rumination?
Rumination is used in the sense of repetitive thoughts swirling in the mind and “ruminating”. Briefly, your mind keeps turning the thought as if ruminating, it cannot come to a conclusion, it just thinks. It has been supported by research that such thoughts do not provide an opportunity to solve the problem. negatively affects their activities. It makes it difficult to focus, negative experiences in the past cause low motivation about the present, impaired perception of the future, and reinforcement of cognitive distortions. Thoughts that appear in the mind in automatic and involuntary ways cause people to feel overwhelmed, suffocated, and feel stuck.
What causes rumination?
Rumination is closely related to the concepts of “anxiety”, “uncertainty” and “control”. Even if the person has no apparent control over the event or situation, ruminating on it feels like everything is under his control. Perhaps in the short term, this feeling relieves people, but in the long term they state that they are suffocated by thought. Likewise, the concepts of uncertainty and anxiety serve in the same direction. Rumination is often a learned behavior, so people say, “I’ve always been a big thinker.” they use the phrase.
It is possible to talk about many reasons, but to state briefly;
- Focusing on negative events and results while evaluating the past,
- Associating negativities with themselves
- There are errors of thinking, such as making too many generalizations.
Going back even further, the form of attachment with the mother is very important. In some studies, it is claimed that the mother’s inability to provide the necessary space for the child to cope with the problem, not teaching the ability to produce alternative solutions to the problem, and intrusive and judgmental attitudes reveal these results.
How does rumination affect a person?
We can talk about the effect of rumination on people in many areas of life. The stress level of people with excessive thinking problem is higher than other people. Thinking constantly in social, work and family life causes a closer approach to the negative and the deterioration of the evaluation-decision mechanism. Because of this, interpersonal relationships may be disrupted. For example, a person who constantly has negative thoughts about his partner will argue with his partner, which will negatively affect his social life. Since it also prevents the person from evaluating the situation correctly, it will make it difficult for the person to take a step towards correction.
