Coming from a small agricultural town I am well aware of the term rumination. It refers to the process of cows chewing their cud – a digestive process whereby the cow chews, swallows and regurgitates their food over and over (six times to be exact) before they can digest their meal. Now apply this repeated process to your thought or emotional processing and you get the idea rumination plays in feeding your stress.

In the article, “Wake Up! The Surprising Truth about What Drives Stress and How Leaders Build Resilience”, Nick Petrie identifies a 4 step process to reduce ruminating habits to help alleviate our natural stress responses that are triggered by reliving a negative experience or emotion over and over again.

Petrie’s 4 steps are:

1. Wake up (and stay awake) – recognize that rumination is an issue
2. Control your attention – be present to now and not in the past or the future where rumination sites
3. Detach – get some distance and perspective on the issue
4. Let go – take the learning from the situation and move forward

Easier said than done but with time these skills can be honed and practiced to help replace the habit of rumination.