Toward the end of a support group that I facilitate, a woman asked for suggestions on how to end her persistent focus on distress—known as rumination. Everyone leaned in, indicating a keen interest in her question. Although chronic perseverating can be a byproduct of anxiety and depression, almost all of us have experienced ruminating thought patterns.

Unless you’re a cow chewing on cud (the original ruminators), masticating painful thoughts isn’t healthy. Rumination, unlike planning or functional worry, occupies too much space on one’s psychic plate and zaps energy.

Step One

Awareness is the first step in any behavior change. Paying attention to one’s triggers sheds light on what often feels like an automatic response. Journaling or simply making a list of your stimuli and your responses can be a useful strategy in this process.

Recording your triggers for rumination and resultant thought and behavior patterns is a way to get a handle on your perseverating. But awareness alone doesn’t always lead to change.

Spiritual leader and Buddhist teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche recommends a practice he calls “drop it.” When in a loop of negative thoughts, use your out breath to drop the churning. Deep breathing is an age-old practice of restoring the body to calmness. Combined with a focus on dropping or letting go of distressing thoughts, this practice can be used a comforting salve.

Wholesome Diversions

Distraction can be effective when we find our minds churning over some slight that we or a loved one has experienced or when we’ve said something untoward or unhelpful. Here’s when we can turn to our lists of what brings us joy. A creative project is a great distraction; exercise (a walk in the woods or by the beach, a bike ride) might also help. Even mundane activities such as cleaning can be a distraction.

Story Telling

Because other people’s behavior can be irritating— if not infuriating— we have many opportunities to practice forgiveness. A colleague recently shared an interaction she had with someone whose behavior she deemed rude. She made up an entire story about this person including a hard childhood, insecurity, and loneliness. Although she didn’t know any of this to be true, my colleague was able to shift from feeling hurt to forgiveness.

A few years ago, I found myself ruminating about an offhanded remark I made that offended a family member. After apologizing, my brain entered an endless loop of “how could I have been so thoughtless?” I tried a technique I had learned that interrupted that cycle. I allowed myself to ruminate about this incident for 5 minutes every hour; I even set a timer. As you can imagine, I got pretty bored with myself by the end of the day and the chain was broken.

I do believe that we must honor our feelings while recognizing they are real but not necessarily true. In my case of ruminating over my thoughtless words, I feel confident that I spent a lot more energy on that encounter than the person I offended. Self-forgiveness was appropriate.

Self-forgiveness for being imperfect in our deeds and in our thoughts is crucial. Ruminating about our own foibles and missteps is a double whammy of suffering. Not only do we treat ourselves badly for our mistakes, but we might also punish ourselves for ruminating!

Bad Bedfellows

Perfectionistic tendencies trigger rumination about our mistakes. With these tendencies, errors can feel like torture. Perfectionism also creates an impossible bind when it comes to others’ behaviors. How can we be perfect if we can’t protect our loved ones? How can we be perfect if we can’t change others’ behaviors?

Although no one is immune from the perils of perfectionism, parenting is the ideal Petri dish for obsessive worry. Perfectionism and parenting don’t mix; the harder we try to control our offspring, the worse the outcome. The lack of control can be especially disturbing for stepparents who have more moving parts to negotiate and less authority than biological parents traditionally have.

Dwelling on past mistakes (our own or others’) is not the same as problem solving. Problem solving is action-oriented; rarely does brooding over injustices serve this function. Focusing on negative thoughts is the hallmark of rumination. If we could shift into overdrive with positive events, the experience would be very different. Like any skill, stopping the downward cycle of churning our thoughts requires commitment and lots of practice.

 “I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

― Jonathan Safran Foer