One of the biggest brakes on having cognitive bandwidth and also reaching that famous state of well-being I often mention is rumination. This term takes inspiration from the animal biology of ruminants, like cows, but is widely used in psychology. If we want to summarize, I’ll borrow what Google offers me searching the term, supported by sources. It says:
Rumination has two main meanings: in the gastrointestinal field, it’s the involuntary regurgitation of food from the stomach, similar to that of ruminant animals; in the psychological field, it’s a mental process of repetitive and negative thinking, brooding, about past experiences or future worries, which can be a source of anxiety, depression and other disorders, unlike normal reflection that leads to solutions.
Why do I talk about it today? Probably because of the maturation point of my journey.
Rumination is a bitch, damn if it’s a bitch. Pardon my French, but these are the perfect words.
What rumination is (and why we don’t notice it)
We often don’t realize when we start rethinking a problem or situation. And when the rumination process triggers, it destroys us. Let me explain.
Imagine having a client with illogical requests and maybe even late with the invoice. A classic situation, as they say.
It starts like this: “Look at him, he asks but glosses over the invoice.”
Then: “Yeah but now he’s waiting for my response, I won’t do it immediately.”
And again: “But damn, if he paid it’s not even that much…”
Therefore: “Let’s reread the email, maybe something else will come to mind.”
And I could go on forever.
Result? The mind keeps grinding anger, nervousness, wraps around itself. Infinite loop that leads nowhere except damage.
The damage of rumination
This loop leads us to many problems, of which I’ll mention those that are main for me: terrible event management, even with excellent content the form can become terrible and paradoxically put us in the wrong; cognitive fatigue that leads us to errors, carelessness and above all takes energy away from potentially key activities in the medium-long term; exaggerating thinking badly of a person, especially on personal rather than work issues.
This last point deserves particular attention.
The devastating point – Public Enemy Number One
The last point is devastating. Because even faced with objective data, rumination takes them and multiplies them tenfold.
Result? We transform a person who made mistakes, or with questionable character, into a Public Enemy Number One.
If you think about it, it makes no sense. Ok, we might also discover terrible people. Or people we don’t mesh with, don’t resonate with. This is normal, part of life, of human relationships. But making them the apotheosis of evil? Makes no sense.
You’d probably say reading this: “No way, come on.” Instead think about it. Think about those times rumination led you to think the worst. Complex situations where you imagined improbable scenarios, non-existent conspiracies, betrayals that weren’t there. And then talking it resolved everything for the best, maybe it was just a misunderstanding, maybe the person was in difficulty and you didn’t know. Or worse, it resolved but the wound remained because of our attitude, because of how we reacted based not on facts but on amplified rumination.
This last part isn’t pleasant to admit. But rumination leads us to this, often. It transforms data into monsters, human errors into calculated betrayals, imperfect people into enemies to defeat. And we believe it because rumination is convincing, builds coherent but distorted narratives, makes us feel right while we’re exaggerating. It’s a bitch, really a bitch.
How to start managing it – Practical techniques
If rumination becomes part of us over time, for various reasons that we all kind of know, removing it isn’t immediate. But it’s not impossible.
Techniques like breathing or grounding help a lot.
If we stop and do the classic example of inhaling and exhaling for some controlled seconds, it helps calm the blood flow as well as thoughts. No complexity needed, just a few seconds of attention to breath. The body calms down, the mind slows down, the loop loses power.
If we stop, breathe, feel the world around us and dwell on feeling our feet in our shoes and the shoes touching the ground, it helps. This is called grounding, anchoring. It brings attention back to the physical present instead of rumination’s past or future. If we touch a piece of clothing with our fingers, if we automatically play with a Rubik’s cube, if we occupy our hands with something tactile and simple, we help the mind detach from the loop and get back on track.
But do these techniques work alone? Absolutely not.
Content is needed. We need to be well with our self, with our journey, know how to read and evaluate ourselves and others with clarity. If the content is there, we can gradually create the form with these rumination-blocking techniques.
Invented by me? Absolutely and categorically no. And indeed, a good therapist would know how to help much better and in a structured way. But these, in their small way, can lend a hand and help us start a journey that will then continue as needed.
Power of the free mind
Rumination is a real son of a bitch. Pardon my French, as we tend to say, but that’s what it is. Resolving it, or at least starting to manage it, will give us power. A lot of it.
Why? Because a mind free to think is incredible. If you remember the discussion about perceived time we addressed in the past, this is a splendid case where you see it applied. Rumination means perceived time stuck, blocked in an infinite loop where there’s no evolution, no growth, only sterile repetition of the same negative thought. Free mind instead means exponential perceived time, where connections emerge naturally, where solutions are born because the brain can finally work instead of spinning its wheels.
It’s not magic, it’s mechanism. And when you free your mind from rumination, potential explodes. It’s not immediate, it’s not easy, it requires work and consistency. But it’s possible. And it’s worth every effort because the difference between living in rumination and living with a free mind is the difference between surviving and thriving.
Let’s think about it.