Find Yourself Ruminating Again? Here’s Why It’s Damaging to Do So

Ruminating is rarely helpful, especially when you have been diagnosed with a mental health condition and undergoing psychiatry in New Jersey.

To be clear, rumination isn’t harmful, per se. It is also not a mental health disorder. However, it can quickly be habitual such that, rather than causing you to be in a reflective state, it ends up with you stressing and obsessing over unpleasant mistakes and what-if situations.

As a provider of mental health services in Hamilton, New Jersey at K Mental Wellness, here are the specific ways that the act can have negative effects on you:

• Rumination can increase your stress levels by ramping your brain’s stress responses.
• Rumination can spike your blood pressure as it increases your brain’s stress levels.
• Rumination can prolong and even intensify depression, impairing your ability to process things carefully and healthily.
• Rumination can put you at an increased risk for eating disorders.
• Rumination can distort your perspectives.
• Rumination can drain you of your mental resources, making you more vulnerable to daily stressors.

That said, it can be difficult to just ‘snap out’ of it. So, when distracting yourself doesn’t do the trick, be sure to turn to telepsychiatry and/or outpatient mental health services.

Mental health professionals can help you identify why you’re ruminating and how to address the problems at their core. They can also help you establish and stick to better lifestyle changes.