Dr. Aziz explains why you replay conversations: your brain is running a threat-scan, treating social interactions as potentially dangerous. The replays can't change what happened, so he suggests recognizing the scan and reframing it, like asking yourself "what if there is no danger" to break the rumination loop.
When you leave a conversation, do you just replay it in your head? I should have said that. Oh, why didn't I say that? Whether it's a work situation, a meeting, even a social event, a date, there's this constant replaying and it feels like you can't stop. Right? It's just running on autopilot. Well, the reason you can't stop, it's actually serving a function. See, the purpose of this replay, this over analysis is you are scanning for threats. It's a form of social anxiety where you view social interactions as potentially dangerous and something you need to protect yourself from. And so now that you had the conversation, now you to scan through and see if there's any threats, any vulnerabilities, any things that you need to protect yourself from. Now, it doesn't actually do anything. You can't actually protect yourself. It already happened. But this just keeps going and going and going and going. But as soon as you see that, oh, I'm trying to scan for danger, you can call it out, oh, the moment's past, oh, there is no danger. In fact, just try saying that to yourself when you do it next time. What if there is no danger and all of a sudden you might be able to step back way more than ever before?
