The Upside of Rumination |
I did something rather unusual last weekend whilst driving to the gym. I noticed that I hadn’t listened to a word of the podcast playing in my car, so I decided to turn it off and let my mind ruminate. Given that I am such an advocate of mindful, somatic awareness, and my usual practice would be to redirect my thinking into my body, this course of action felt almost rebellious. But something made me pause and simply observe where my thoughts wanted to go.
My mind was running scenarios, the conversation I might have, and the situations I could navigate. And, to my surprise, instead of the expected tightness, constriction, and agitation I would associate with destructive mind loops, I felt a little different. A sense of empowerment and control seemed to emerge.
We’re generally told that rumination is bad—a perspective I would endorse for the most part. And, there’s good reason for this rationale. Chronic rumination is strongly associated with depression, increased anxiety, and psychological distress. However, there is recent research that suggests there might be more going on.
Psychologists Leonard Martin and Abraham Tesser (1996) have proposed an interesting framework called Control Theory. They suggest that rumination can serve a positive function of attempting to solve the gap between where we are and where we want to be when looking at important goals.
Research distinguishes two types of rumination. Reflection rumination is the process of mentally rehearsing scenarios—this is when we imagine specific steps towards achieving a goal. Brooding rumination is where we passively dwell on negativity and distress. Studies show that reflective rumination is adaptive and can help us regain equilibrium, while brooding can leave us feeling worse (Treynor et al., 2003).
When........