15 Tips to Stop Ruminating and Get Out of Your Head

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Today's presentation on 15 tips to stop ruminating and get out of your head. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to talk about the difference between intrusive thoughts and ruminations. Then we'll move on to exploring causes of ruminations and Finish up with 15 strategies to address ruminations. I recently did a video on intrusive thoughts, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that in this video. But what's important is to differentiate between intrusive thoughts and ruminations. Both of them are thoughts that you don't really want to have in your head. Intrusive thoughts are generally unpleasant, sudden experiences. And I want you to think of it kind of like a flash of lightning or, or what I usually think of it is as is like the emergency alert system. You'll be watching your favorite program and all of a sudden they'll cut out the audio to the program and you'll hear the bump, bump, bump of the national emergency broadcast system alerting you to the fact that they're just running a mandatory test and so you're missing the favorite part to your favorite show because they're running this mandatory test. Why couldn't they do that during a commercial break? But I digress. So intrusive thoughts generally have no purpose and often have no basis in reality, and you perceive them as unacceptable. One of the most common types of intrusive thoughts are scary thoughts that people have in the immediate postpartum period. Now, these thoughts can occur at any time, especially in response to hormone fluctuations and things like that. But it's important to recognize that if you're having these thoughts and you're perceiving them as unacceptable, then that's a good sign. Postpartum psychosis is associated with having these thoughts and thinking they make total sense. So if the thoughts are making total sense to you, but everybody else is saying, are you sure about that? Then that's when there's a huge concern. If you're having these thoughts and yes, they're very distressful and they can disrupt the parent child bonding if they're not addressed. But if you're having these thoughts and they are problematic to you, that you see them as unacceptable and horrible and you don't want to have them, then again, that's a good sign. And your pediatrician or your obstetrician can be of great service helping you figure out how to navigate this. If it is something that is persistent and bothersome the biggest take home from the Intrusive Thoughts video is that intrusive thoughts shouldn't be given undue attention. Kind of like a annoying salesperson. And. And we've all encountered those, especially at the mall, where they'll just kind of jump out from their kiosk and try to get your attention, try to get you to smell a perfume or see whatever they've got. And if you even acknowledge them and say no, thank you or whatever, they'll continue to pursue you. Whereas if you don't acknowledge them at all, they go on to the next person. So intrusive thoughts shouldn't be given undue attention. Ruminations, on the other hand, are thoughts, problems, or issues that get stuck in our head. And it's something that we can continue to think about and stew on, if you will. And a lot of people know can really latch on to that term stew on. When you're. When you're stewing on something, whether it's about somebody, something that somebody did to you, or something that you did wrong, or something you're worried about, you're just ruminating on it. The thoughts are typically not perceived as unacceptable. You're having these thoughts and they make sense to you, okay? And they're generally not violent thoughts in any way. They are thoughts that encourage you to, or try to help you solve problems. But we'll talk about what causes them in a minute. It is important to recognize that most people ruminate sometimes, and not all ruminations are bad. Some people like to ponder, and my son likes to ponder. He ponders a lot. Philosophers like to ponder. So sometimes you can have a thought and you can get lost in that thought loop trying to understand it or think about it. That's really not what we're talking about here because most people who are pondering over something they want to ponder on are also able to turn that off. So they ruminate for a while, then they turn it off. What we're talking about is the ruminations that feel persistent, uncontrollable, and especially the ones that feel negative. Ruminations are very common in people who have major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, ptsd, obsessive compulsive disorder, or even addictions. And when we think about addictions, it's not just cravings that we're talking about. A lot of people with addictions also tend to ruminate on things they did wrong and things other people did wrong to them, etc. Rumination is most common just before bed and when you awaken, especially when you're awakening in the middle of the night, and you may go, well, why is that? Well, that's when your brain is not otherwise occupied. You're trying to turn your brain off. And as soon as you quit actively trying to control what you're thinking about, your subconscious jumps to the forefront and says, oh, now it's time for me to talk. And it can be really annoying when you wake up in the middle of the night. The same thing, you're wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, oh, I need to go back to sleep. So you're trying to clear your head and get back to sleep, and your subconscious is having none of it. When you wake up first thing in the morning, it can be a little bit different. Some people ruminate first thing in the morning before they get out of bed. But a lot of us, when we wake up first thing in the morning, we jump into autopilot mode and we're getting out of bed, we're making our coffee, we're getting dressed for the day, so our brain is automatically engaged. And you can't think about two things at the exact same same time. Ruminations can also appear when you have what I call downtime time when you're not engaged in something. So some people will start ruminating when they're, for example, watching tv, especially if the program they're watching is not very engaging. Their mind may drift and they may start ruminating. Rumination can occur in response to both population positive and negative affect. However, most problematic ruminations are negative in valence. That means what we call emotional valence, or their emotional temperature or tone is negative. They're difficult to control. They're prolonged, unhelpful, and unresolved. So let's think about that for a second. I talked about how some ruminations can be positive. You know, people can ruminate about philosophical things and what have you, and that doesn't cause them any stress. But other people can actually have negative ruminations in response to positive emotional states. What? Yeah, and, and I think we've all known somebody, or maybe even we are that person that when things are going too well, when we're feeling good, you start looking and waiting for the other shoe to drop, and you start ruminating on what could go wrong. So positive emotional states as well as negative emotional states like anger, anxiety and depression, even grief, can trigger ruminations. What causes these ruminations? A lot of times, ruminations are your brain's way of trying to find solutions to a problem, including controlling the uncontrollable And I want you to think about times that you have ruminated. World events, politics, or cultural issues. People may ruminate on those, and they may get. They may read the news, which triggers them, and they get stuck feeling powerless and, and unsafe, and it may trigger ruminations. They may feel angry and they start ruminating on the. That sort of thing. Or they may feel like they're in danger, so they start ruminating on what's causing that danger and trying to figure out how to fix it, how to make it stop. Philosophical issues, as I already mentioned, can trigger ruminations in some people. And sometimes it can be positive. Other times it can be distressful to the person, especially if they are ruminating over disagreements about philosophical issues with people. They may be thinking, you know, how can I change this person's mind? How can I convince them that I'm right and they're wrong? And another example of trying to find solutions to problems would be ruminating on how to change a person. Well, this person's not behaving the way that I want or doing what I want. So what can I do to fix them? What can I do to make them change? And here's a hint. You can't change another person. You can create conditions to hopefully motivate them to change, but you can't change them. Another reason for rumination is that inner critic. And this is another thing that I do have other videos on, on the YouTube channel. But our inner critic is that voice inside us that remembers every mistake, it identifies every flaw and weakness, and it can tend to dwell on the past. Now, the. Some people say the inner critic is there to try to protect us because it wants us to know our limits and our boundaries. However, I tend to disagree with that. I tend to think. I personally think the inner critic is the result of unhelpful cognitive styles or unhelpful thinking styles that develop. And when we start to feel anxious, or sometimes when we start to feel too content, our inner critic jumps up and wants to make sure that we don't feed, feel too safe, that we are aware of the potential threats in the environment. So we'll talk about creating safety in a few minutes. Another cause of rumination is what I call the inner narcissist. And there. This is not a clinical definition, obviously, but the inner narcissist dwells on other people's mistakes, flaws, and weaknesses. These are the ruminations about how somebody did you wrong. You know, you ruminate on that, you dwell on it, you nurture it, or dwelling on other people's Flaws and weaknesses, trying to see how you're better than them and how they are worse than you, to give you a sense of control or power when you feel disempowered in the world. So you ruminate on trying to figure out all the different things that are wrong with this person and just thinking about that, you know, thinking about, thinking about that feels very depressing and dark. People may also ruminate because they feel unsafe. And this can be a person, and I just say an adult. You know, the person in the moment feeling unsafe in the present. You're laying in bed at night and you start to wonder, did I remember to lock the front door? So an adult may ruminate on that. Now a person who ruminates on that gets up, checks the door, verifies, they locks it and locked it, and then goes and lays back down. And then that's it. That's a rumination. But that's not obsessive compulsive. People who are obsessive compulsive lay down and then they start having that thought again. What if I just imagined that I got up and checked the door? And then they get stuck in this loop where they keep having to check the door and they start developing rituals to help them feel safe. So there is a difference between run of the mill ruminations and obsessive compulsive disorder. The important point here is that either way, those ruminations are often come from a place of the person feeling unsafe in their present situation. People also may ruminate because they feel unsafe about something that's coming. They may ruminate about having to fly somewhere this week or give a speech or. Or they may ruminate about having to drive into a big city if they're from, you know, the country. I know, for me, that evokes some anxiety. So part of my brain starts thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong when I have to drive into Nashville. So those are our adult things or older person things that may trigger ruminations in somebody. We can also trigger ruminations based on past experiences. If you hear something or see something or smell something, that triggers a past trauma experience. Vander Kolk talks about how a lot of times trauma is re experienced not through memories, but through reactions. So you may have a sensory trigger for a trauma. Sight, smell, sound. And you may not realize exactly what's causing it. But all of a sudden you start to feel unsafe. And because that memory, that inner child, says, hey, remember when this happened? And you may start looking around trying to figure out what. What is making you Unsafe. And this launches you into emotional reasoning. I feel unsafe. Therefore something bad must be getting ready to happen. Another cause of rumination is plain and simple. Physical need, or craving and physical need. People who are malnourished, even if they are average or above average weight, they may be malnourished and they may crave particular foods. But we do see a lot of rumination about food in people with eating disorders. For example, because they're not getting enough food, especially in anorexia, they think about food constantly. Their body's saying, hey, you know that, that stuff that you used to put into me? I'd like to have some of that again. People may ruminate about sleep. If they've been sleep deprived for a long period, they're thinking, oh my gosh, how great would it be to actually get a full night's sleep? And then they try to start thinking about, well, how could I do that? And then feeling helpless to actually do that, which triggers the HPA axis. And it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. And then craving. When people become dependent on a substance, for example, or a person, or any sort of addictive behavior to help them alleviate feelings of distress, then when they start feeling distress or when they can't access that thing, they may start having a craving for it. And that is their body's way of saying, hey, I need that external source of whatever it is in order to balance out my neurotransmitters. Cravings, whether it's for foods or substances or addictive behaviors, often relate to a physiological imbalance somewhere. It's either an imbalance in the neurotransmitters or, or an imbalance in nutrients. But cravings actually often do serve a purpose. We just need to figure out what it is and how to most helpfully resolve that issue. And the final cause of rumination that we're gonna talk about is what I call unfiled information. And I want you to think about your brain as the headquarters for your body factory. And there's an administrative assistant there that wants to have everything filed and put away at the end of the day. And when stuff doesn't get filed, that administrative assistant follows you around and says, what do I do with this? There is no file that this fits in. Do I make a new file or is, is there a different file I should be putting it in? Where should I put this? And the ruminations are your brain's way of trying to figure, what do I do with this information? Piaget talked about how we handle new information. And there are two main Strategies to do this, accommodation or assimilation. In accommodation you have a memory, but you change your memory to fit the situation. So let's take stoplights, that's an easy one. You're driving along and you drive to a stoplight and it's red. Red lights turn green. That's what we know, that's what our schema is, that's what we expect. But you come to this red light and it doesn't turn green, instead it flashes. Oh, that's, that's not expected. So what do we do with that? Well, you may think about that for a while, trying to figure out what do I do with this. Now this isn't earth shattering, so you probably don't ruminate on it for a long time. But accommodation says, okay, we need to take in new information and alter our schema, alter our expectations about stoplights. Now that we know that most of the time they turn from red to green and then yellow and then red again. However, sometimes in these cases it may just flash red and that's important. So we're accommodating the situation, we're changing our understanding of the situation to fit this new information. When people ruminate, sometimes that's what they're doing is they're trying to figure out how to change one of the internal files that helps them anticipate and expect the world. They're trying to figure out how to change it to fit this current information. If you are talking about people, you know, we have expectations for how our best friend acts, for example, and if our best friend doesn't behave the way we expect them to behave, then we've either got to. Well, with accommodation we have to change our expectations about our best friend. Instead of thinking that they're totally trustworthy, we may think that they're usually trustworthy, except. So we're modifying that schema or that autopilot script in there that helps us anticipate and expect what this person is going to do. Now the opposite or the alternative to accommodation, instead of changing your belief system, you change the memory to fit the schema. So with the traffic light you say, oh, the light must have been broken. Or maybe I only thought it went from red, it flashed red and maybe it actually went to green. Maybe I'm just misremembering something. So that's one way to assimilate it is to change the memory. The other way to assimilate it is to understand the current information based on your current knowledge. So using information you currently have, understanding the world, understanding your experiences. Now let's take a person again because that gives us a little bit more latitude. Your friend Sally usually responds to your texts and it's your best friend and you trust her implicitly, yada yada yada. But then suddenly she isn't returning your messages, isn't returning your text messages, and isn't responding to phone calls. So do you change the schema about Sally? Do you think, well, Sally has suddenly become, you know, undependable and rude and that's what we should expect from Sally from now on, or do you assimilate the information? Do you say, okay, based on my current knowledge? Sally isn't real dependable, so we need to file this in here with the current knowledge. Or, or do you go out and get new knowledge and accommodate? So accommodate is definitely a more functional adaptation because then instead of just using your current knowledge about Sally, you're getting new information. Oh, Sally dropped her phone in the toilet and she hasn't gotten a replacement phone. That's why she's not answering and not returning texts. You know, that's an excuse that that has happened. Regardless of the cause of your ruminations, what are some strategies to handle it? The first thing that can be helpful, define your rich and meaningful life. What people, things and experiences are important to you? On what do you want to use your energy? You only have 24 hours in a day and some of that you need to spend sleeping. You only have seven days in a week. You only have so much energy even when you are awake. So do you want to use it ruminating, thinking about this thing that you can't seem to solve or that you have no control over? Or do you want to say, you know what, no, not going to think about that. Let me think and use this energy and this time to nurture my relationship with my best friend or to learn a new hobby or whatever it is that's important in your rich and meaningful life? That sounds easy. It's not. Okay, so I'm not saying that bada bing, end of story. What I'm saying is define your rich and meaningful life. So you regularly can ask yourself, is this worth my energy? Is this worth borrowing energy from these other things that are important in my rich and meaningful life? Is this worth taking energy from those things to ruminate on this? And sometimes the answer may be yes. A lot of times it'll be no. So you define your rich and meaningful life. Then when you start having ruminations mindfully and non judgmentally noticed and accept, okay, I'm having these thoughts, if you start Struggling with it and telling yourself, you shouldn't be having these thoughts and get angry with yourself for having these thoughts, then you're using a whole bunch of energy, just fighting with yourself about even having these thoughts. Is that a good use of your energy? What would happen if you just unhooked from them and said, mindfully, I acknowledge I'm having these thoughts. It is what it is. Write it down. That's step two that I have people do. When we talk about things, as soon as the words leave our mouth, they're off into the stratosphere. When we write things down, they are there for us to come back to look at. We don't have to remember them. If we need to remember them, we can come back and look at the paper or the whiteboard. When I do counseling, a lot of times when we go through important points, I may jot them down on a whiteboard for people. That way they don't feel like they've got to try to remember to tell me all of these things. Sometimes at the beginning of the session, I may say, what are the three things that you want to talk about today? And we'll write those down. That way the person can clear their mind of trying to remember. I need to talk to Dr. Snipes about all three of these things. It's on the board. We'll get to it. We'll remember it. We don't have to keep it in our active memory, brain memory banks. So writing it down can be very helpful. And I suggest writing it down with a pen. That's different than typing it. But either way, if you get it down where it is in print, where you can see it, then your brain, a part of your brain, recognizes it does not have to devote current resources to holding on to that memory or holding on to that thought. Unhook from it. Say to yourself, I am having the thought that or I'm having these thoughts. So you've written it down. Now you're looking at it on paper. These are the thoughts that you're having, okay? They are no longer in here. They are no longer part of you. They're on this sheet of paper. And sometimes I encourage people to take that sheet of paper and just ball it up and hold it here. Are these thoughts. Now what am I going to do with them? Am I going to spend the rest of the day walking around with them? Is that helpful? Maybe, maybe not. Again, usually not. Or am I going to let them go? Am I going to put them over here on this shelf if I need them? Later can come back and get them. I don't have to worry about that. I'll forget them because they're written down. But I also don't have to hold them in active memory. Unhooking can be very helpful because it's hard to get rid of something that is part of us. If you tell yourself I am stupid or I am clumsy or I am whatever that's part of you, I am. I am having the thought that I am stupid. If that's what I'm ruminating on, well, then I can decide what am I going to do with this thought. And for something like having I am having the thought that I am stupid, that might be something I ball up and just throw in the trash can. And that can feel very liberating. That doesn't necessarily mean it won't come back. But if you refuse to entertain it, every time it comes back, you ball it up and you throw it in the trash can again, then you're not giving it undue attention. Evaluate the purpose of the self talk. Is the rumination you're having? Is the thought that you're having somehow designed to keep you safe or give you control? And if so, what is making you feel unsafe and powerless right now? When you feel safe, in control, a lot of times you don't feel threatened by external factors. You don't feel threatened by your weaknesses. You feel empowered and safe. So figure out where these thoughts are coming from or the function they're supposed to serve. In what way are these thoughts somehow maybe what you might call creatively protective in a way you're trying to protect yourself? It just may not be the healthiest or most helpful way or does. Are you having ruminations about something because you have a physical need? If you keep thinking about water, it's a good chance you're dehydrated. If you keep thinking about a particular food, if keep. If you keep thinking about foods, it may be something going on physiologically that needs to be addressed, something to think about. Create safety is another step in the process, and I encourage people to use multiple of these tools. But a lot of times our ruminations come from a place of unsafeness and disempowerment. Whether we feel unsafe because of geopolitical things going on, or we feel disempowered in relationships because people don't behave the way we want, or we feel unsafe, we feel like we are going to be rejected because we are imperfect. There are a lot of reasons that we may have these ruminations, but it's important to create safety. Additionally, if you have a history of trauma, it's important to process that trauma at some point, but also figure out, in my home, in my car, at my work, what can I do to make this environment as conducive as possible to me feeling safe? How can I arrange my environment so I feel empowered? When you're in a power position, when you're feeling safe and empowered, you're less likely to have ruminations pop up. Get the facts, not feelings, not assumptions. A lot of ruminations are often based on feelings or cognitive distortions. So it's important to get the feelings, facts about the situation. Start out, am I safe in this situation, in this context, at this point in time, am I safe? You know, there it may be bringing up bad memories. You may be worried about something in the future, but right now, while you're trying to stop ruminating at this point in time, am I safe right now? First question. So there's a yes or a no to that one. Second question, Am I using cognitive distortions? And when it comes to ruminations, the most common ones are mind reading, personalization, magnification, and catastrophizing. So with mind reading, we're assuming that we know what other people are thinking. We're assuming we. We know their motivations. So I. If I'm having a rumination about Sally because she didn't return my texts and my phone calls, you know, I may be ruminating, thinking to myself, she is angry with me and she is intentionally being rude in order to try to punish me. I'm trying to read her mind and extrapolate why she's doing what she's doing when I just don't have the facts. I don't know. For mind reading, I encourage people to look for three alternate explanations why something might be happening. Why might Sally have been not returning your texts? Why might the cashier have been rude to you? Not that they didn't like you or they had something against you, but maybe they had were having a really bad day or were in a lot of pain for some reason. Or why did your boss give you a sideways look when he walked by you? Was it you? Are you getting ready to get fired? Or maybe he just got out of a meeting with senior management and he was lost in his own thoughts and didn't even notice you. And his look had more to do with what was going on in his own head. Two other explanations in addition to that one. So for mind reading, find three explanations for what might be going on. You don't have the facts to confirm or negate any of those. You don't know what was going on, but at least if you have multiple hypotheses, you can recognize that the chances it was you are, you know, definitely not 100%. Personalization is similar to mind reading, but personalization is when we assume that everything happens is our fault. Somebody looked at us cockeyed. Well, it must mean they're angry with me or they don't like me. Or again, maybe they're just lost in their own thoughts. Your child does something at school that is not acceptable. Well, it must mean I'm a bad parent. You don't get hired for a job. It must mean that I am stupid or useless or not wanted. So personalization comes back to it must be my fault for some reason. Just like with mind reading, find three exceptions. What are three other reasons this might have happened? And ideally, get the facts with these eventually to figure out. Why was it that Sally didn't return your texts? Why was it that, you know, something happened, that somebody gave you a sideways look? Ask them about it. If you need clarification, if you need closure, magnification is when you blow something up out of proportion. And I've shared with you in other videos how when I used to work in community mental health, at one point I made the mistake of accidentally tucking my dress into the back of my britches and I walked out of the bathroom down the hallway of the residential treatment unit. Yeah, you know everybody. Well, a lot of people saw and oops, I was humiliated. I was mortified. Magnification. If I would have used that, I could have said, they'll never let me live this down. I'm going to get fired for indecent exposure. On and on and on. Making this huge catastrophe out of something or magnifying the importance of it. With magnification, it's important to look at the facts of the situation. What happened and how much will this matter? Or how much will people remember this tomorrow, in a week, in six months? And catastrophizing, which is related to magnification, is expecting the worst possible outcome. Everything that happens, the worst possible outcome. Instead of a rainstorm, it's going to be a hurricane. Instead of, instead of flurries, it's going to be a blizzard. Instead of, well, whatever. I'm not. I'm not great at catastrophizing, which I guess is a good thing. But you get my point. When people expect the worst possible situation, when they expect that nobody's going to be there to help them and they're going to spiral out of control. So catastrophizing again. Go back and get the facts. Okay, if this bad thing does happen or this thing does happen, what's within your control that you can do to prevent the worst case scenario? What aspects of this situation are in your control? And if you do the things that you can in the situation, if you do the things that are within your control, what is the probability that the worst case scenario is actually gonna happen? You know, if you lose your job, what is the probability that you will suddenly become homeless, living under a bridge and become an alcoholic? You know, a lot of things have to align in order to get to that point. Yes, you could lose your job. Okay, that would suck. Some people live paycheck to paycheck. So if they lose their job, they may lose the house that they're staying in. But would they be unsheltered homeless, or would they be able to stay on somebody's couch for a while? It's a whole different endpoint than living literally out on the streets. So check the facts, identify what's within your control, and if you do what you can, what's the probability of the worst case scenario? And finally, when you start ruminating, ask yourself, is this a good use of my time and energy dwelling on this? I had a friend that when he retired from the military was having these catastrophic thoughts and he was ruminating on, well, now that I've only got my 100% military pension to rely on, if I don't find another job, then, you know, things are going to spiral out of control. And eventually he started, you know, talking back to himself and going, this isn't a good use of my time and energy and it's not even realistic. Make time to ponder. Now this one might seem a little odd. Make time to ruminate. Really? Yes. Because if there's something that's bothering you, it can feel very anxiety provoking and feeling feel very counterintuitive to say, nope, not going to think about that at all. Ever. Ignore it. It'd be great if you could do that, but if you have difficulty doing that, say, okay, I'm not going to think about that right now. I have rumination time, I have worry time from 6pm to 6:30pm and I will think about it. Then let me write it down, you know, going back to writing it down and put it in your worry box and then at 6pm you can go back to it. But you allow yourself only the allotted time to ponder or worry. And a lot of people Find this is a helpful strategy to contain their. Contain their rumination. Some practice forgiveness. A lot of times, things that we ruminate on have to do with things that we feel guilty for that we've done wrong, or things that other people have done wrong and mistakes that they've made. So forgiveness can be really helpful. And remember, forgiveness is not saying, it's okay, don't worry about it, never mind, I'll forget. No, forgiveness is saying, a mistake was made. I'm going to learn from it so it doesn't happen again. I'm going to learn from it so I don't make the same mistake again, or I'm going to learn from it so I don't allow you to. To harm me and make that same mistake again. So I'm going to learn from it, but then I am not going to hold it. I'm not going to continue walking around holding this and ruminating on it and using energy on it, because it's not worth my energy. When we ruminate, when we hold grudges and resentments, part of that is rumination. Consider resentments like bricks. And every resentment that you hold is a brick in a backpack that you have to carry around everywhere all the time. That gets exhausting pretty quickly. Is it worth your energy to continue holding that brick, or do you want to take that brick out and go, okay, I know how to keep from putting this brick back into my backpack here, so I'm going to use my energy to protect myself in the future, but I'm not going to continue to carry around the brick just to remind me to be on the lookout for these things or just to remind me about the mistake that I made. Practice loving kindness. Sometimes ruminations can have to do with feeling out of control. We get frustrated. We feel threatened by people who have different perspectives than we do, who have different goals than we do. And sometimes it can trigger a lot of anger, trigger rumination in us. And loving kindness is recognizing that essentially everybody wants the same thing. We want to be filled with peace, health, and love. That's all most people want. And, you know, some people define these endpoints a little bit differently. But if you envision other people and envision sending them, and I usually envision this golden or bubble thing that I send off to people, and it envelops them and fills them with peace, health, and love, and that helps me have more compassion. It helps me remember that all of us are going through stuff, and people's reactions and their actions often have a lot more to do with them than they have to do with me. And if I can send them peace, health and love, then I can have more empathy for what they might be going through. Guided imagery is another technique. And there are a lot of different types of guided imagery. Alternate script. Guided imagery is what I call it. Instead of thinking about whatever it is that you're ruminating on, you think about something completely different. Your favorite vacation spot, for example. And you use as many of your senses as possible. Five things that you see, four things that you hear, three things that you smell, two things that you can feel. And then you turn in whatever scene or scenario you're in, turn your attention, you know, 90 degrees and look and see what other things you see, hear, feel, smell. When you're doing that, it occupies your mind. We think in words, and there's only one place in our brain that really handles that. So if it's busy narrating this script over here, it doesn't have the ability to talk over here. Even ventriloquists in real life, the ventriloquist person and the puppet can't be talking at exactly the same time. That's kind of what's going on in our head when we use an alternate script. We're blocking our brain's ability to think about that. Now, that's not really practical when you're at work, for example, but it can be really helpful when you're trying to go to sleep or when you've got some downtime. Urge surfing is another type of guided imagery. Urges often if you're having cravings, if you're having urges, whether it's to get up and check a door or whatever. But this is generally pertains to cravings. Envision that craving coming in. It usually crests like a wave, usually crests after 10 or 15 minutes, and then it goes out. And you can envision that happening, or you can envision your urge or stress or feeling like a cloud. And remember how when you were a kid, you used to make little animals or shapes in the clouds and just envision those shapes morphing. And that's your. Your thoughts morphing. You're not getting too attached to them. You're just seeing them and going, okay, they're there. Eventually they'll disappear. You can envision, with guided imagery, you can envision a scenario that helps you feel supported and safe. Whether you envision a nurturing caregiver figure helping you deal with whatever the problem is, or you envision a force field around you that keeps you safe from whatever this problem is. But Support and safety is another theme that you can use in your guided imagery. And finally, successful accomplishment is another theme you can use in guided imagery. Instead of. Turning your attention to something completely different, you turn your attention to that thing. So if you are ruminating about this speech that you've got to give next week, instead of worrying and seeing all the things that could go wrong, envision yourself going through the speech and everything going right. And that guided imagery, that rehearsal, can help prime your brain to expect success. Same thing for asking someone on a date. Or maybe you are going to start exercising. You can start envisioning yourself exercising instead of dreading it and thinking about how awful it'll be and how embarrassing it'll be to be trying to figure out the machines or whatever it is, envisioning a positive outcome. I've also had this help for people who were trying to stop waking up on the wrong side of the bed. They wanted to wake up happy. What would it look like? Envision yourself waking up in the morning, opening your eyes, seeing the sunshine, stretching like they do on those commercials for the sleep aids and everything. Not that I'm suggesting sleep aids, but and just ready to take on the day and enjoying the day. Envisioning that can be helpful. Instead of laying in bed ruminating about, oh crap, I'm going to wake up in the morning and then I'm going to have to get out of bed and it's be to going to be cold and I'm going to hate it. You know, those ruminations aren't serving a purpose except for to continue to make you feel unhappy. Thought stopping is another strategy. And there are a lot of different techniques for thought stopping, but some of them can be as simple as just telling yourself, no, I'm not thinking about that right now. If you are ruminating on things that you need to remember, for some reason you're afraid you're going to forget, write them down. Keep a pen and paper by your bed at night. And even if it's not something you've got to remember, like to get dog food tomorrow, if you start having ruminative thoughts, that's a word, just write them down. That gives your brain permission to let them go. And you can refer to it in the morning when you get up, especially if you've got that worry time, if you've got that time that you've set aside to worry or ruminate or ponder or whatever you're calling it, that tells your brain, hey, we're not going to forget to think about this tomorrow. But Right now we need to sleep. You can also thought stopping. You can envision yourself, not that you're going to actually do it, but. But envision yourself kind of putting your fingers in your ears and going, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. I'm not listening. It happens, you know, sometimes that can be helpful. You can also stop your thoughts, as I mentioned earlier, with guided imagery or with something as simple as a mantra that you tell yourself, it's all good, I've got. Grant me patience. I used to say that one a lot with my kids in the store. Mindfulness and grounding can also be very helpful. Your thoughts are up here. If you force yourself to become mindful in the moment. Again, you are using your words to describe the now you're using your words to describe four things that you see, four things that you hear, four things that you smell. So you can either do 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, or 4, 4, 4, whatever works for you. But you're forcing yourself to notice what's going on in the moment. And when you notice it, you're using words to notice it, which is blocking those other words. Distract with activities, it can be helpful to turn your attention to some other activity. And some people find it helpful when they're. Especially initially when they're trying to distract themselves to narrate it. I love cooking, so if I'm trying to distract myself, maybe I'll go into the kitchen and I'll say, okay, I need to get out a saucepan and I need to get out the milk and the butter. And I will just talk myself through it because again, my thoughts can't be in two places at once. And that can be very helpful to break the thought loop and get support. That is the final one. Call a friend. If you're having ruminations. You may bounce your thoughts off of them and say, what's your perspective? Or you may call them just to talk about something completely different so you can break that thought loop. You're not stuck dwelling on it, especially if it's not something that you are going to be able to personally change or completely affect yourself. Ruminations are repetitive thought cycles. Some can be positive in valence, you know, positive emotionally. Like philosophy. You might be thinking about, you know, what makes us real Descartes. I think, therefore I am. I remember when I took philosophy in college. Oh, that made my brain cramp. And I would have to spend a lot of time thinking and ruminating and pondering on exactly what was being said. And okay, how did, how do I fit this in to my current schema, how do I make this? How do I understand this? And that goes back to that assimilation or accommodation. Ruminations are basically information that is either designed to keep us safe or that is unfiled. And we need to figure out how to fit it in or understand it and file it in our memory banks. Bothersome ruminations tend to be negative and feel uncontrollable. Treatment aims to notice and mindfully accept the thought instead of struggling with it, creating what haze calls dirty discomfort, and develop tools to help you feel empowered to break that thought cycle. Now, you may not break it and then never have it again, but if you can break it, do something else for a little while, Then when it comes back, you break it again. Eventually your brain learns, hey, every time I bring this up, I get shut down, so I'm not gonna bring it up again. Which is kind of the interesting thing with reinforcement. But that's probably another video. I hope this has given you some tools to use to. To address your ruminations. Ruminations, as I mentioned, may have a foundation in a little aspect of reality, but it's important to step back and go, okay, you know, this stuff over geopolitically is chaotic right now, and it's really dangerous for a lot of people on a different continent. How likely is it that right now, in this context at this time, how likely is it right now that this is going to come to where I am, for example? So those are some tips and tools. Let me know any other tools you use in order to handle ruminations, and I'll see you in the next video.