Worrying About the Future, Ruminating on the Past—How Thoughts Affect Mental Health

The Wall Street Journal:

Patrick Molloy has a great fear of offending people. At the end of each day, he replays every one of his conversations and interactions in his head, to figure out if he needs to apologize to anyone.

The 44-year-old graphic designer says it’s nearly impossible to turn these swirling thoughts off. “It feels like an unwelcome guest in my mind,” says Mr. Molloy, who lives in West Sussex in the U.K. “It’s wearying and it’s discouraging.”

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Rumination has been found to predict both the onset of depression as well as the continuation of it in a number of studies. In the lab, participants’ symptoms worsen when they are asked or taught to ruminate, according to Ed Watkins, a professor of experimental and applied clinical psychology at the University of Exeter, who has conducted some of the studies.

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Elaine Fox, an experimental psychology professor at the University of Oxford, and her team have found that people who are high worriers are less able to control their attention and block out distraction. In one study, published last month in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, participants were asked to sit for 15 minutes, focus on breathing and relax.

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They learn to problem-solve rather than ruminate, according to Nilly Mor, a professor in the school of education at Hebrew University who studies rumination.

Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal