If rumination is a symptom of your OCD, you can learn how to break free from the repetitive cycle of obsessive thoughts using ERP therapy and self-compassion.
Have you ever had an uncomfortable or stressful thought that you felt stuck on? Maybe you kept analyzing it from every angle looking for a solution to the problem. Your thoughts keep on going, long after you want to stop thinking about it.
This pattern of thinking is known as rumination. Many people experience it, but it can feel especially urgent and important when you have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) .
The answer to stopping rumination seems obvious—just tell your brain to “let it go” and move on to something else, right? In reality, learning to stop ruminating can be incredibly challenging, especially if you have OCD. The good news is that it’s possible to break out of the rumination trap with the right tools and support.
What is rumination?
Rumination occurs when you have constant and repetitive thoughts about something. It may involve making repeated attempts to solve a perceived problem you’re having. When you ruminate, you are directing a lot of your attention to a particular thought, and with OCD, often there is a sense of urgency or immediacy behind the thoughts.
One important distinction to make is that rumination is not the same as problem solving. For example, if you have a long and overwhelming list of things to do, you may mentally run through it to prioritize your tasks and figure out logistics. This might take time and mental energy, but there is a solution you are working towards and an end to the thought process. Rumination on the other hand, is a repetitive cycle of negative thoughts. For people with OCD, rumination serves as a compulsion rather than a solution to a problem—engaging with an intrusive thought in an effort to feel certain about it. It may even look like trying to reverse the thought or move on from it with a feeling of assurance or peace.
Compulsions are behaviors that people perform to cope with distress caused by obsessions, relieve anxiety, or prevent a feared thing from happening. Compulsions can be physical actions, such as checking, counting, or asking for reassurance, or they can be mental actions, like rumination.
Because rumination is a mental compulsion, it is often overlooked because it is internal and unseen. Often the person with OCD doesn’t even realize that what they’re doing is a compulsion. Yet mental compulsions do what any other compulsion does: they reinforce the idea that an intrusive thought is dangerous, and deceive your brain into believing that it controls the outcome of the thought.
Why do people with OCD ruminate?
OCD is called the “doubting disorder” for many reasons—people with this condition often doubt their memories, the meaning of their thoughts, their values, etc. OCD distorts how you see things and the experiences you have. OCD often leaves you feeling unsure and forces you to seek comfort or reassurance.
The nature of OCD makes it easy for a person to ruminate and to focus on justifying what they’re doing. It seems like problem solving. With OCD, however, there may or may not be an actual problem. Some people with OCD ruminate about valid concerns in their life as well as OCD obsessions—sometimes both at the same time.
But ruminating on intrusive thoughts only strengthens the false alarm system OCD creates. You are inadvertently teaching your brain that in order to feel less anxious and uncomfortable, you need to take action. The truth is, that no action—rumination or other compulsions—needs to be taken. However, in order to break this cycle, our brain must relearn the signals, which can occur through habituation.
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All our therapists are licensed and trained in exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the gold standard treatment for OCD.
Treatment for rumination
If you are struggling with ruminating on intrusive thoughts, exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy can teach you how to stop engaging with the thoughts causing your distress. In ERP, you will learn how to sit with uncomfortable feelings and resist the urge to do compulsions.
This happens through a process known as habituation. Habituation occurs when you stop responding or paying attention to a stimulus—such as a thought, object, place, person or action—with repeated exposure to that stimulus. Essentially, it means getting used to something that you don’t like or that doesn’t feel comfortable.
Addressing rumination works in the same manner. Once you stop ruminating or engaging with the thought, the “false alarm” goes off less and less. The more you do this, the more it becomes habitual. Initially you may find yourself starting to ruminate and catch it. It’s important in these moments that you give yourself compassion and try again. It requires dedication and practice, and support from a therapist who specializes in OCD can be extremely helpful.
Bottom line
Breaking free from the rumination trap takes patience, practice, and the right support. With tools like ERP therapy and self-compassion, you can retrain your brain to respond differently to intrusive thoughts.
Key takeaways
- Rumination is a repetitive mental compulsion that reinforces intrusive thoughts and anxiety, particularly for those with OCD.
- Unlike problem-solving, rumination offers no resolution and perpetuates the cycle of distress.
- Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy can help you stop ruminating by retraining your brain through habituation.