Cogitate, rethink, rehash, rewrite thoughts or ideas that get stuck in a loop in your head. You ruminate.

Rumination is a natural process, reliving a situation of failure is healthy, the brain seeks to learn some lessons from it and to adapt its response in the event of recurrence. We have all been through such moments. However, following a daily emotion or annoyance, some people cannot stop their thinking. Unlike doubt, regret or even worry, rumination is characterized by its repetitive nature. Negative thoughts arise and cycle. At the beginning, they focus on the event that has just taken place, but little by little they can slip into other situations of the past, of the present, mixing pell-mell the most intimate doubts.

The person who ruminates locks himself in his problems, his concerns, his negative thoughts, his reproaches, whether they are against himself or against others. Often, it only takes one insignificant event to cause hours or days of mental torture and disarray while remaining inactive. The ruminant person does not seek a solution to move towards positive changes. People who are anxious and depressed have a tendency to ruminate more than others and will therefore be led to doubt themselves.

According to a study conducted by researcher Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a specialist in mood and anxiety disorders in the Department of Psychology at Yale University (United States) which, in the early 2000s, identified Obviously, the “overthinking syndrome” (non-stop mental rumination), 63% of young adults and 52% of XNUMX-year-olds tend to ruminate, an essential component of overthinking. Another study shows that women are twice as likely as men to ruminate when they are sad, anxious or depressed (women who are twice as likely as men to have depressive episodes).

According to the researcher, this trend is mainly explained by education. “From an early age, women are encouraged to express their emotions, talk about their difficulties and listen to others,” she says. On the other hand, we make fun of a crying boy and push him to react differently, in a less emotional way ”.

This hyperemotivity more readily pushes the female gender to continually question itself. This leads some women to obsessively rehash a number of negative thoughts and feelings for hours on end. Some psychoanalysts confirm this difference in reaction that men and women have to overthinking by explaining that, faced with mental rumination, men simply ignore the problem if they do not find an immediate solution, while women will try to find explanations, solutions.

In reality, rumination or “overthinking” is a poisonous poison. It damages our mental health, paralyzes our cravings, our problem-solving skills, and destroys our emotional well-being. Ruminating harms relationships with others, greatly increases the level of stress, with all the resulting health problems:

• severe behavioral or mental disorders, such as depression (nearly 45% of people engaged in non-stop rumination show signs of severe depressive neurosis);
• anxiety;
• alcoholism;
• eating disorders (bulimia, anorexia).

A study by psychologists at the University of Liverpool (Great Britain) found that while traumatic life events are the main cause of anxiety and depression, how a person thinks about these events determines the level of stress she is under.

The difference between an “overthinker” person and another is the way they will cope with this situation:

• the first will be completely overwhelmed by her fear and will activate her mental “wheel”;
• the second will escape this tendency of mental agitation.

Because nothing forces us to fall into this trap. We have, if we want, the ability to extricate ourselves from this manifestation of hypersensitivity, heightened mood swings and learn to recognize and express our emotions correctly.

It is always possible to control them and manage the situations that upset us, to keep our serenity despite the conflicts, tragedies and chaos of everyday life.To stop ruminating and get out of it, to interrupt the loop and redirect his thoughts, he there are a number of solutions.

Writing

Writing down your thoughts can help you “clear” your head and find simple steps to a solution you can act on.

Therapy

When rumination becomes so extensive that it is difficult to manage on your own, seeking professional help can help overcome negative thought patterns and learn mindfulness techniques and coping strategies. Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT is often used to manage ruminative thinking. She uses mental exercises and thinking techniques to help change ruminative thought patterns.

Meditation

It is essential to learn to spot the positive, to accept the negative by not giving it too much importance. Meditating prevents depression. Among the various meditation techniques, mindfulness (PC) finds its origin in Eastern philosophical, religious and cultural traditions and more particularly in Buddhism. By PC is meant the fact of paying attention in a particular way, deliberately, in the present moment and without value judgment. In other words, they are meditation exercises taught in order to be more attentive to the present moment and to keep negative emotions at bay. Because the mind trains like you train a muscle or a gesture in a sport. A study by Dr Guido Bondolfi with the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Geneva, showed that the more anxious and depressed people were, the greater the effect of meditation on a region of the medial frontal cortex. In this study, the MRI images are convincing. Certain areas of the brain reacted to meditation, activities that were absent before the sessions. These brain activities were more marked in people with a history of depression. And clinically, meditation has allowed them to better manage their emotions.