DESCRIPTION:
Rumination can take a lot of time and energy unless you know how to counter it. Here are some strategies to help you manage it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- There are many reasons for rumination.
- Your ADHD can impact your rumination.
- In some instances there may be a problem you need to solve.
- In other instances it may be a matter of accepting what is.
- There are many ways to manage your rumination.
RESOURCES:
Book:
Writing to Heal by James Pennebaker
TRANSCRIPT:
(00:07):
You’ve tuned into Scattered Focused, Done Re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD, adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins, and I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey to re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD, so you can get what is important to you done without trying to do it like everyone else.
(00:39):
Rumination goes by several names, including racing thoughts, worrying, perseverating, and stuck thinking. They all refer to the inability to move on from thoughts that are causing you a lot of distress and getting in the way of doing what’s productive. This might happen when you blurt out something unintentionally at a meeting with your boss that you later regret. Then afterwards, you replay the scenario again and again thinking about what may happen because of it. Like will this affect your chances of getting promoted or working on future projects? Yet you may not be doing anything proactive about the situation because while you’re just thinking about it, you may even be having a hard time focusing and attending to your other work because your energy is taken over by these thoughts. Does this sound familiar? There are probably reasons you can think of you would want to stop ruminating.
(01:32):
The most obvious one is to reduce your anxiety so you can feel more grounded. As rumination takes away your time and energy. Also, it crowds out your ability to think creatively and these runaway thoughts can take away from your ability to address whatever it is that is prompting the rumination. What are the reasons you want to stop when you’re ruminating whether the payoff is something you want or something you want to avoid, understanding the causes of rumination can help you create the most helpful workarounds.
(02:05):
Let’s first look at how your ADHD may impact your rumination. The first place to start is to remember that your ADHD working memory challenges means that your brain has limited capacity to hold and process information in the moment. Because of this, according to Dr. Charles Parker, you may engage in counterproductive excessive thinking ie rumination. Because you’re not able to hold and consider multiple ideas at once.
(02:34):
Also, while you may want to transition and focus on something else, you can’t seem to turn off your thoughts, and it can happen at the most inconvenient times. As Dr. Parker notes, your prefrontal cortex becomes relatively frozen in time, and you have what he calls unmanageable cognitive abundance. There are three ways this ADHD stuck thinking presents itself according to Dr. Parker. One is you may have frozen thinking without worry. In these instances, you’re thinking about a lot of stuff that just, well, isn’t that important, and leaving yourself exhausted. You may try to micromanage what’s going on in your life in an effort to minimize this thinking. Another way stuck thinking presents itself is frozen thinking with abundance within indecision and worry. With this type of thinking, you may get stuck in your thinking, unable to make a decision or possibly making it too late leading to negative consequences.
(03:35):
And the third way stuck thinking presents itself is frozen thinking with the feeling of anxiety. When this happens, you have anxious feelings coming from thinking too much, and then you’ll become indecisive and worry until you can feel it in your body, which might be in your head, your chest, or your stomach. Can you think of times when you’ve experienced any of this?
(03:59):
Of course, there are other factors that may contribute to your tendency to ruminate, and while you may want to manage these for other reasons, you may not yet have thought about addressing them to help you decrease rumination, but I think you’ll want to. For example, you may become easily stressed and frustrated, which could lead to rumination if you are sleep deprived, do not get an exercise, are not eating well, or getting enough water or don’t feel connected and validated by others.
(04:33):
When you’re not taking care of your physical and emotional needs, your ADHD symptoms may be exacerbated, including cognitive anxiety or ie rumination. And when this happens, you may become even more stressed and overwhelmed, which possibly could leak to well more rumination. You get the idea. It’s important to take care of both your physical and emotional needs so you can manage your A DHD symptoms and tendency toward rumination.
Now that you have an understanding of what may be contributing to your rumination, the next step is to figure out what purpose the rumination is serving. Sometimes it may be that your A DHD brain is trying to find stimulation. So in those instances, if you can distract yourself long enough, you may be able to forget the endless loop of thoughts. In other instances, you may be ruminating about a problem that may or may not need a solution.
(05:28):
In these instances, you need to figure out the best way to move forward, whether that’s solving the problem or not. Ready to see how? Often the first step is to do nothing really. It can be helpful, especially for A DHD adults to have time and space before deciding to act. Otherwise, you may impulsively act or say something you later regret. So unless it’s a true emergency, take whatever amount of time makes sense given the context. It could be an hour, a day, a week or more.
(05:59):
You could start with a mindfulness practice to center yourself so you’re not living in the past or the future due to your rumination. This could include listening to music, practicing yoga, walking in nature, or meditating. Yes, ADHD adults can meditate. And if you don’t have time to do any of these activities, maybe because you need to keep on working, you could try giving your floating attention a job to do so
(06:24):
you can continue working by listening to white noise or music in the background. You could also try playing with a fidget or doodle or maybe even take notes. Can you think of other things you can do so you can keep on working? Whether you are engaging in a mindfulness practice or trying to continue working, the goal is not to act on your feelings right away. Then next, you can use one of several strategies to manage your rumination. Journaling is one way to temper these thoughts.
As you know, your ADHD brain can be a busy place. Dr. Penn Baker, author of Writing to Heal Notes by writing, you put some structure and organization to those anxious feelings. Engaging in a journaling process can help you clarify your thoughts and feelings. As by writing your ideas down you can organize them and make better sense of them ultimately then getting in touch with how you’re feeling.
(07:23):
This clarity may lead to less rumination as well. Also, you may often try to solve problems using your left brain analytic capabilities. Using your right brain by writing can help you be more creative and intuitive in problem solving. So if the source of your rumination is a problem you decided you want to solve, journaling can help you do this in a more creative and intuitive way, and yes, lead to less rumination.
While journaling is one way to externalize your thoughts, you might sometimes prefer to do this while talking aloud. As a way to manage your rumination processing allows you to do this with somebody else. You can get out of your head, get feedback if that’s what you want, feel heard and validated, and strengthen your connection with others. As a result, you may find that you ruminate less when you do this. The key is to make sure you are selective in who you choose to talk to.
(08:21):
That is make sure the person, whether it’s a partner, family member, friend, colleague, or therapist, feels safe. However you decide to explore your thoughts. If the source of your rumination is a problem, you’ll then want to decide whether it is a problem you can or want to solve. I think Dr. Hollowell’s adapted version of the Serenity Prayer is a good reminder of this. Here goes,
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the insight to prioritize wisely what I want to change, the patience, resist trying to control everything I could, had I energy and time, the courage and skill to change the things I’ve chosen to change and the wisdom to know the difference amongst all these. You might decide to accept rather than try to solve the problem. Then you want to acknowledge the reasons you’re choosing to accept what is, and hopefully in time your rumination will, yes, start to dissipate
(09:20):
If you decide it’s a problem you want to solve. The best way to do this is to use a solution-focused approach. Take the example of Joe who thought his colleague Sue was doing shoddy work and not pulling her weight. He went to work every day frustrated by the situation. And he spent a lot of time ruminating about it, even though he really couldn’t afford to waste his time because he had so much else to do. When he decided he wanted to be proactive and address the problem, he tried the solution focused approach by answering the questions to help him clarify how he wanted to change the situation with Sue.
The first question was, what do I want instead of the problem? That is, what do I want to achieve? And he said, I want a fair workload. The second question is, what does the solution look like? And he said, Sue and I will agree on a fair distribution of task. We will meet each other weekly to check in to ensure that we were both following through on our commitments. We will agree to negotiate if down the road either of us feels the workload is not fair, again.
(10:33):
Third question, what is it about having this solution that is important to me? Joe said, like I said before, I want the workload to be fair and I want to be able to spend more time doing things outside of work. The fourth question, how will things be different when I arrive at this solution? On a scale of one to 10, what will 10 look like when I have what I want? Joe said, I can stop worrying about this for sure, and I’ll feel better while I’m at work and be more productive. When it’s a 10, we’ll all be pulling our weight following through on our commitments and renegotiating when necessary.
The fifth question, what are the steps I need to take to accomplish this? Joe said, I’ll come up with a suggested breakdown of our tasks. Then I’ll email Sue to ask to meet. I’ll email my suggestions before the meeting so she has time to think about them. We’ll meet and then go from there. So working toward a solution definitely takes time and effort, but so does worrying, right? So why not put your worry to work instead.
(11:44):
You may also be ruminating about your list of to-dos, telling yourself, I can’t forget. Oh, all right, Bob asked me to do or I need to. One way to alleviate these thoughts playing like a popcorn maker in your head is to stop trying to remember the task and use some type of task manager instead. Because when you capture the task in a task manager, you’ll be more confident you won’t forget them. You may also ruminate because you don’t have a clear sense of how you’re going to use your time, so you wonder, what am I going to do? Or when is that meeting, party, doctor’s appointment, et cetera, or when do I have to have X, Y, z done? These questions will keep popping up unless you capture them in your calendar because then you can be confident. You can access this information when you need it, rather than trying to rely on your wonky memory.
What thoughts are running around in your head right now, whether one of the suggestions above or something else, what can you do today to get out of your head? That’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me and stayed until the very end. If you’re interested in learning more about my work with adults with A DHD, check out my website, marla cummins.com. Of course, if you’ve learned a thing or two from today’s podcast, which I hope you have, please pass along the link to anyone else in your circles you think might benefit, and until next time, this has been Scattered Focus Done, and I’m Marla Cummins. Wishing you all the very best on your journey to re-imagining Productivity with ADHD.