Rumination: A Problem in Anxiety and Depression

by :Margaret Wehrenberg Psy.D. Psychology Today April. 2016.

Brain function plays a role in rumination in several ways, but one significant aspect of brain function relates to memory. People remember things that are related to each other in neural networks. And when people enter a 'woe is me' network the brain lights up connections to other times they felt that way. Ruminating is worsened by another difficulty of the depressed and anxious brain: inability to flexibly generate solutions. Brain chemistry makes it hard to switch to another perspective to find the way out of problems, so rumination intensifies. Both anxiety and depression are then reinforced.

Rumination can be switched off by two good methods: 1) get out of the negative neural networks and 2) tackle one problem at a time with planning.

End rumination by exiting the negative memory network

First, stop ruminating on negatives and activate a neural network of times when everything worked out okay. These might be hard to remember. Neural networks are triggered by mood, and your mood might have connected to other moods when you were afraid of bad outcomes.You can deliberately decide to recall instead the times when things worked out even though you had been afraid. Those networks of anxiety can lead into remembering positive outcomes. However, ruminating may get you too negative to shift into a network of positive thoughts without a memory jogger. What can shift you into a different network?

1. Use family or friends to help you remember. Ask them to help you think of times when things turned out fine. Conversation with encouraging others can shift your attention to a different memory network, and when others point out positive outcomes at your request, you start down a different neural path.
2. Interfering with rumination may be helped with a memory jogger for times you were feeling good by going over pictures of happy memories. As you look them over, try to recall not just what you were thinking then but what your body felt like. You might be surprised that joy and happiness are physical sensations. To get in touch with a body memory, scan your senses. What you see? Taste? Touch? Smell? Hear?
3. Music holds the power to put us directly back into to a place when we listened to it, usually entering into the mood we were in when we listened and then the pieces of memory fill in with people and situations. As one rather depressed person I know put it, "I like to listen to songs from high school and college, from before things started getting complicated. Maybe life was not perfect, but the music makes me feel good when I hear it." Is there a time frame or type of music that puts your memory back into a good place?
4. Another rumination interrupter is to put yourself literally into a place you connect with things turning out for you - taking a walk in a location that helps you enter a positive frame of mind can only be helpful.

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Cognitive Principle Matrix. [CPM]-Understanding rumination

• The bad habit is located in the subconscious mind which is working one million times faster than the conscious mind, while not based on logic and in emotional order, not time order. That means emotions can be triggered from ten years ago, before yesterday's emotion, if it was significant enough event.

Understanding Neural pathways:

• In CPM theory neural pathways can be related to the 5 levels of the matrix as shown below:

Negative rumination occurs at the 2 lower levels.

• Level 1 where there is a loss of control, driven by fear, negative concerns such as paranoid fear, hopelessness, rage, panic, shame etc. Triggers are taken personally.
• Level2 where there is a loss of control driven by fear, negative principles such as fear, anger, anxiousness, confusion and criticalness. However, triggers are not taken personally.

The neural pathways are:

• All negative ruminations are at level 1 & 2. TPN is the conscious mind, thinking negatively and connected with either DMN-Negative Mind Wandering or DMN- Negative & Procedural [Ie. bad habits] in the subconscious mind.
• The solution is to stop thinking using TPN-Neutral [eg Meditation, distraction, etc].

Influence & Concern- how to stop rumination.

• The past is only used to gain knowledge, not to repeatedly go over negative situations, otherwise you become a “If Only” person. Your sub-conscious brain works in emotional order, not in time order, therefore if you repeatedly go over negative situations with negative emotions, then the sub-conscious brain will keep trying to fix the problem.
• The future is only for planning. Plans can be as simple as a future idea in your head. If you don’t have a plan then you are like a cork in the ocean, it goes with the wind and the tide and you could end up anywhere. However, once you have a plan you don’t become a “what if” person continually going over all the possible negative outcomes in the future. This causes the sub-conscious mind to overload the conscious mind and you becomes anxious.
• Other than going to the past for knowledge and the future for planning, then stay in the present and use influence not concern.

Influence versus concern related to suffering.

You should not engage in suffering if you can have influence over what ever is causing the suffering. Rather you should fix the problem using your influencing principles.

If however, you have no influence over the cause of the pain, but only concern, then you should grow your influencing principles by suffering, such as patience and persistence while you wait for your concern to pass.

If you fail to suffer and grow your influencing principles, then you will be critical and start blaming others, yourself or circumstances. Suffering provides a great opportunity to grow, other wise you blame and make it personal and continue with the negative rumination.

The CPM rule is:

• When you have influence you apply your influencing principles
• When you have concern you grow your influencing principles.

About Influencing Principles: They include assertiveness, calmness, courage, patience, persistence, self-control and evaluation.

These principles have the following characteristics:

(i) They have influence over negative situations

(ii) They have the potential to grow more in negative situations than positive situations. That is, courage can grow faster in when faced with danger rather than with peace.

(iii) They are more effective in dealing with processes rather than people

Rumination -The Comparative and Predictive minds

We all ruminate using our comparative minds, based on fear and greed.

• Greed-something I want
• Fear-something I don't want.

The problem occurs were were take these ruminations personally and then we use our predictive minds, to predict that things will stay the same or get worse. Then we compare our own predictions. In CPM this is called a very bad habit.

Note: The two main outcomes are normally avoidance [flight] or anger [fight]

Each of the 4 brains has a role to play in maintaining an integrated healthy state, as shown below:

Rumination gradually forces each of the brains to get out of balance. The end result can be depression, that is, the Head lacks direction, the Heart's emotions are erratic, the Gut looses both control and focus and the Spirit looses hope and support.