Anxiety: Overthinking, Worry and Rumination (Episode 026)

SPEAKER_02 0:01

For conventional anxiety, thinking and problem solving is is great. However, with disordered anxiety, the rumination and overthinking then becomes a compulsive safety behavior to try and rid us of a feeling that we want, you know, to get rid of immediately.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

It's our relationship with thinking. Thinking is my go-to. I have to think, I have to keep thinking. But then I hate that I keep thinking. I love to think because it keeps me safe, but then I wish I wasn't thinking.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

A solution that would work for anxiety surrounding a problem that I could solve externally, and I was applying it to a cyclical disordered anxiety presentation.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Why can't I get over this? If you start asking yourself that question, why am I so stuck on this? Why can't I stop thinking about this? Well, there's a there's a clue.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Welcome to Disordered. Today's episode is on the topic of rumination, overthinking, and worry. If you're happy and you know it, overthink, go and ruin it for yourself. My name is Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist specializing in the world of anxiety disorders, and I'm based in Manchester in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

And I am Drew Linsolata, the other co-host of Disordered. I'm a grad student in clinical mental health counseling en route to being a licensed therapist in the state of New York, here in the good old US of A. I am an author, a podcaster, and a former sufferer of anxiety disorders and depression for many years. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Welcome. Before we get stuck into the juiciness of rumination, overthinking, and worry, we do like to celebrate our community with their Did It Anyway wins. If you're new to this podcast, this is what we do. We listen and read out Did It Anyways. People to adopt the principles of what we talk about in this podcast and do some brave, courageous stuff. Should we hear this one? Yeah. Let's do it. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Hi, Josh and Drew. My name is Kimberly and I'm from Appleton, Wisconsin. You can use my name and I'd like to share a hashtag DidItAnyway. I live with panic disorder and recently have been struggling with being home alone. So today I chose to be home alone. Uh the first couple hours were really intense. I had a lot of panic as expected. Um, however, instead of calling my safety person or texting or seeing which neighbors were home, which I wanted to do, I just decided to do what non-anxious me would do through those feelings and acknowledged that they were there, but kept kind of getting through um what I needed to get done around the house. And over time I realized it kind of faded to the background. So um it definitely did not go away throughout the day. It came back off and on, but I just kept practicing that and not listening to that Craig the critic about what I'm doing and all the things. And so anyway, I'm feeling really great. It's been a long day, and I'm so proud that I did this. So thank you so much for having this podcast. I've been listening from the beginning. I appreciate it so much. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Well done. Superb. Uh, that's absolutely brilliant. And again, it sounds like you took on the the principles there. Yeah, monophobia is a tricky one. We'll probably do an episode of that later on. But yeah, you well done. You did it anyway. Um, that's superb. Also, what a great accent. The Wisconsin accent's really cool. Uh, why don't you sound like that?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I know. I could try. Wisconsin. Yeah, yeah, but that's just you now for it. You just switched. Uh I'm sticking with Long Island, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Rumination, overthinking, and worry. How much of this is um kind of part of an overall anxiety problem, Drew?

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Oh, I I think it's a huge part of it. For some people, it is the core of it, I think. You know, there's there's the panic attack people, there's the health anxiety people. Everybody engages, I think, when you're in a state of disordered anxiety in some measure of rumination and overthinking and worry, but for some people, this is like the core. This is what drives all of it, I think. Has that been your experience, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, I mean, uh, how many times do you want to hear me on this podcast talk about inwards focus, outwards focus? But inwards focus um doesn't just include body scanning and looking for dangers. A lot of it is rumination and overthinking. Um, when we say overthinking, I usually find think that's quite a harsh term. It's usually you've got your threat response arguing with your cognitive brain and they're trying to solve or find solutions as to why the threat response is on. Yeah, you know, and for conventional anxiety, thinking and problem solving um is is great. You know, if you've got a problem that you're worried about, it's okay to break to brainstorm and and and and throw up solutions. However, with disordered anxiety that doesn't really have a rational solution, it's just a misfiring threat response. The rumination and overthinking then becomes a compulsive safety behavior to try and rid us of a feeling that we want uh to you know to get rid of immediately.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah. I think just like anything else, it's it's a matter of degree, right? So we have this amazing capability to reason and we have logic and we have analytic capability, puts us on the top of the food chain, right? It's what would makes us rule and therefore ruin the planet in sequence. But then for people who are listening to this podcast, that goes off the rails. It goes into an extreme state on the far end of the spectrum where thinking becomes a solution to everything and it doesn't stop whether you're thinking about the future, the past, like I have to keep thinking and I have to keep problem solving when there might not be a problem to even solve. Or it's is, but it's unsolvable.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

How much was it part of uh your anxious experience?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

I think for me, I was probably mostly worry-focused. So, like technically, we would say that rumination is sort of thinking about the past and worry is sort of future focused. I mean, roughly, but I was ten generally future focused. What's gonna happen to me in the next 30 seconds and in the next two weeks? Um, of course, what's gonna happen to me meant would I feel anxious, would I panic, would I have to do things that would trigger me. And yeah, you get totally stuck in that. I was trying to control the outcome of every day to make sure that I wouldn't get triggered. So that becomes part of it. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Yeah, and you kind of ruminate on things, is particularly if you're someone who's playing scenarios over and over again, either from the past or the future. Yeah, I think so. Or just trying to solve and go round and round in circles. Yep. You know, everyone ruminates, and that's okay when people with with or without anxiety, you know, will get anxious and and often leads to rumination. It's interesting because I I speak to friends who don't have disordered anxiety, but what keeps them up at night to me is like what that's keeping you up at night? That's nothing. But it's interesting, you know, comparatively, because their threat response is firing off because of something like I think it was someone I yeah, someone I know very well. Um it was they were worried up till two uh at night because of um a slight uh blemish mark on a higher car that they used. Yeah, like that would that would not register with me, you know. Whereas they would think uh, you know, look at me and go like, why would you worry about that? Right. I I can't relate to that thing. But what's interesting is that we'd both ruminate, just the topic's different, and but the rumination kind of can keep that worry there.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah, 100%. And I think then it's the matter of degree that I was just talking about. But interestingly, this is why that we talk so much about how the content often doesn't matter, which I know sounds dismissive, but so you have a friend who's really worried that maybe put a ding in a in a rental car. And to you it's like but to him, that's really important. That's as important to him in that moment as your you know OCD theme was to you in that moment. So it but you see how it doesn't matter. The content is completely different, but the end result is the same. Now, for the person with disordered anxiety, that rumination might just continue all the time. Whereas, you know, your friend managed to get to the end of that at some point and didn't deal with it anymore. So yeah, it's really weird. It there's a real this is where sometimes that metacognitive thing comes into play, which I know is I'm really a fan of, but it uh sometimes it's a little mechanical also, but it's our relationship with thinking. You know, I I think is my go-to. I have to think, I have to keep thinking, I want to keep thinking, but then I hate that I keep thinking. So I I love to think because it keeps me safe, but then thinking brings me so much distress. Oh, sorry, that I I wish I wasn't thinking. Yeah, really hard back and forth. Love thinking, hate thinking. Love it, hate it.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah, uh, how do you know when you're ruminating? For me, it's when life's going by and I'm up just in my head. That's rumination. I that was like, you know, I could be you know, uh out at a music event or out seeing friends or whatever, and or even just walking. And I it's I'm on autopilot because I'm actually looking and focusing on what's happening in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, which I think is something that everybody does. We all go off into that little bit of a daydream. Sometimes we get lost in our own heads. Everybody does that. But to me, I think the anxious person sort of knows that they're ruminating when it lasts a very long time and when there's a real sense of urgency. It's not so much, oh, I'm bothered by this, or I'm trying to figure something out or make some future plans. I'm really bothered by this. This seems like a huge problem to me.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

And I'm often back at square one. Yep. Yep. Uh, I'm often going around in circles, um, but I'm also drawn to trying to find that. You often pull up in in in previous episodes when I said I'd spend a lot of time trying to find the miracle thought to make my anxiety go away. This was 100% rumination. I was ruminating because I believed that if I, you know, go into the deepest echelons of my mind and find the the memory, I call it inception thinking in here, which is a part of rumination. If you've seen the movie Inception, you know, it's it's absolutely bananas, but you know, go going into the deep dream levels of your mind. I thought, well, you know, if I find and really work out, trying to work out how I feel, why I feel this way, um, and and find the miracle thought, the solution to make it go away. But actually looking back, that was very ruminative behavior. I was trying to draw upon a solution that would work for anxiety surrounding a problem that I could solve externally, and I was applying it to a cyclical disordered anxiety presentation, uh, which just put me on the hamster wheel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yeah, round and round and round and round I go. Yeah, it's another good indication that you're engaged in rumination or excessive worry or overthinking, whatever you want to call it. Why, why can't I get over this? If you start asking yourself that question, why am I so stuck on this? Why can't I stop thinking about this? Well, there's a there's a clue. Um, you know, I I keep trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn't have a solution, or I'm trying to find a problem where none exists, or I'm trying to answer a question that doesn't have an answer, you know. So uh that's really hard. And then you find yourself in a state of distress because you're you keep going back, I don't want to do this, but I feel compelled to do it. So it's it's vicious, it's a cycle can be really vicious in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yeah, no, it can be. It was it was nasty as well. And particularly if you're someone who does a lot of mental problem solving, and perhaps if you've developed excessive anxiety, and maybe this is part of your job, this part of your personality, you've always used this thinking, rumination, problem solving, or you know, to get through stuff, this will be quite jarring for you because you're like, Well, what this isn't working, right? And I see this quite a lot. Like, you don't need to ruminate on the problem because often the problem is is quite simple. My threat response is misfiring, it creates doubt, and me giving it importance, attention, uh attention, changing my behaviors in response to all this, including rumination, is telling the amygdala that it is important. Yeah, let's do it. Amygdala. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go there, but I guess. Yeah, uh, and also remember the amygdala's always watching, like I always say. And if it's if it sees you suddenly stop what you're doing, go inwards and start playing through the mental movies and problems you're trying to problem solve in your mind. The amygdala, all the make amygdala remembrance is that you've stopped. Yep, you've stopped what you're doing, so this must be important.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, and now it's now it's my job to ratchet things up and declare a threat. So, yeah. Absolutely. It's funny. I had somebody the other day in uh one of my Instagram posts comment, it was a lovely comment, it was a good discussion. But this person said they listened to an older podcast episode I'd done on The Anxious Truth on GAD, generalized anxiety disorder. And oh, that podcast, I was talking to somebody else in the comments. That podcast was really super helpful, but also really challenging because all the suggestions he gave involve a total personality change. Now, I would never tell somebody that their job is to change their entire personality, but it was a good illustration of what you're saying. This person felt identified so strongly with her status as an as a warrior and an over W-O-R worry, not warrior like in war.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

You love that talk, too.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I have to. I'm a warrior. I'm a warrior. No, the warrior. I'm the warrior, I'm the person that cares too much, I'm the overthinker and the problem solver. I take care of everybody. She was so connected to that identity that hearing the idea that, well, maybe you can leave your worries unattended for a while seemed like a complete, I might as well say just completely reboot your brain, wipe it, and write a new program. It's it was that impactful for this person. Well, I have to change my whole personality.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

What doesn't help, and this is some of the sad stories I hear, and this is something that happens to me, yeah, is that in a lot of it's not a bad thing necessarily, but there's not a lot of people that aren't anxiety disorder informed.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

So there's a lot of stuff like who people who dissociated with themselves who don't have an anxiety disorder. There's a lot of encouragement from in the wellness sphere and even in therapy about checking in with yourself, finding the answers in yourself. I know there's a lot of anxiety books out there. Um, there's one that I particularly can't stand by a neuroscientist who I won't name, who encourages you to find the point in your body to get rid of the trauma, breathe into the trauma, stuff like this. This kind of narrative personally made me more ill. Now, the reason why is because it was fuel for rumination, it was fuel for problem solving, it was adding to a narrative that I needed to be fixed. No, my anxious response wasn't disordered, it was not in order. I just need to get back in order again. When these kind of things, I think for certain people, you know, that usually the healing lot, you know, don't get me wrong, if you only use healing, and that's fine, and it's your interpretation. But um, people deliberately use the word healing as a vague thing to make you buy their stuff and and whatever. But in general, that checking in with yourself, doing those things, healing. So that for me, that may be poorly. I thought there was something I was missing when actually before all this, I was very happy, I was very quite content. Just a warning there that if you are a ruminator, uh, we did a post on that, didn't we? The ruminator. The ruminator. Oh, we did. That was a good one. Yeah, the ruminator. Uh, just remember that could be ammo. Yeah, yeah, that could that could be ammo to go in with.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, that's true. And it is sort of conventional wisdom that that sometimes is uh is conveyed as you look for the anxiety as a signal if you're feeling anxious and you keep returning. That's a signal. It's not a signal, I'm not ignored. Right. And like an externally generated sort of life anxiety, regular anxiety. It might be. I mean, now I can sort of look at my anxiety as a signal of some kind. I'm not sleeping enough, I'm driving myself too hard, I have a conflict in my life I want to resolve. Okay, cool. But in the state that I was in, I I'm gonna go on a limb here and say it wasn't just you that that harmed Josh. It was a lot of people. They get stuck in the whole, like, I know, but I have to find the what if I miss it? What if that person's right and it is a signal and I miss the signal because you're telling me to disengage with this thought process. So that's a powerful message that is louder than ours, I think, in the social media community. Much louder.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Oh, yeah, much louder. Yeah, you you hear a lot of that. Um, you know, it's your intuition, right? That you're anxious for a reason. When actually, and this is when I do talks and stuff, and people I really received well where it's like, to be honest, that sounds great, doesn't it? It would look great on a Netflix documentary or a movie. You know, you find the thing, the inner thing, and and the wisdom of the wisdom, yeah, the wisdom of it all. Uh, but actually, sometimes you just get super stressed, your stress drug fills up. I love the stress drug analogy, it's simple. It's that your what's in your stress drug is subjective to you. And what happens is that builds up and builds up and builds up and builds up, either really quickly and acutely due to trauma or just an accumulation of loads of stuff in your life, and one day, bang, yep. You know, there's no coincidence that the vast majority of people who develop anxiety disorders happens in their early 20s as they hit into adulthood. Yeah, but there's also no coincidence when I um speak to people uh you know who are later on in life where it happens. Usually it could be something like a divorce or grief, yeah, menopause is a big one. Sure. You know, it's kind of like bang. And and yeah, the threat response just decides to go a bit bananas. What doesn't help is that kind of narrative. We'll do a separate episode on ranting about these people. I think Drew and I probably pour ourselves a whiskey and um tune in for that one.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

It's gonna be a good one. It could be a less disordered, but disordered after time. Disordered after time. Put the kids to bed. We're gonna go on a rant. I I think yeah, because everybody's gathered around their radio listening to disorder with their kids, of course. But um I I think what we're really doing here in certain ways trying to gently do it, of course, there's you know, always trying to be respectful. But there are also sometimes the worry and rumination overthinking thing, the intuition, you mentioned it's your intuition or it's a signal from the universe. Sometimes there are literally cultural, spiritual, faith-based beliefs that come into people come into this with which is fine. It's not that's not a problem. But sometimes the idea that you should disconnect from your thinking process and not treat it like a signal might conflict with some of your cultural background or your spiritual or faith background. Like, no, no, no, this is the universe or this is a higher power trying to tell me something. How I'm not I I'm not allowed to ignore that. So what we're really doing here is trying to plant the suggestion, I think, that it is in fact possible for your thinking just to go off the rails a little and not really mean anything. That is, in fact, we have to at least consider that possibility. Or you would have a hard time overcoming overthinking and worry and rumination. If you want to at least consider that, it's a hard problem to solve. It's an amazing problem to solve.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah, I'm sure we haven't done yet, have we? Intuition versus it's on the list. Yeah, I think that's what we should do soon because I hear that quite a lot. Like, actually, I'm ruminating because I don't know what my intuition is. Right. And I don't know what is a signal that I have to listen to. And I think that's a super important subject because it would challenge you and I, Drew, who are in a pretty good place now. Because yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I'm anxious and I do listen to that. Yep. Sometimes when I'm around certain people, I'll get like a feeling in my stomach. And that's when like kind of somatic therapy comes in. I'm like, oh yeah, I did notice that. Yeah, that person does make me feel uneasy, uh, and there's a reason for that. Or this person makes me fun feel uneasy because they remind me of someone who makes me feel uneasy and stuff. That's okay. But when you're in the haze of anxiety disorders, and you're not uh, you know, it's it's very difficult to to kind of pinpoint what is and whatnot. But it's easier the better you get at willfully tolerating, and finally your symptoms you know start to lower and dissipate.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Right, then you have a better chance. But even in a perfectly healthy mental state, which probably nobody really is, but you would still sometimes get it wrong. And that's part of the problem. Sometimes you'll miss a signal. We all do, everybody does. You know, when you hear everybody will can relate with like, why didn't I see that coming? Or you have a relationship that breaks up and everybody says, dude, that you know, thank God. And you're like, why didn't I why didn't anybody tell me that this was a problem? That you sometimes even regular people that don't have anxiety disorders miss signals that happens. I like to say, if there is if you are a firm believer in intuition, that's totally fine. But for now, you're gonna have to put it to the side because it's it's dragging you, it's it's gone off the rails, and you can't trust it right now. Come back to it later, see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah, yeah. And particularly those for with OCD. Oh, yeah. Uh yeah, you know, no, no, this is the stakes are high here. Yeah. You know, and it's like, no, no, no, just that's okay. Your th your doubt response is misfiring. You know, it's not always gonna misfire and sometimes it'll fire off when you need to. And again, disclaimer if you are at home and you're in a in a situation where your omegas actually firing off because you're in a situation that's that's tricky, maybe you you're in an abusive relationship, uh, maybe you're in a situation that isn't safe, you know, that that's nothing to be. I know we've said this before, but that's nothing to be challenged, you know, and that's okay. And you know, if you need to ruminate to feel safe, that's fine. Yeah, but in general, I was thinking today, I am such a ruminator even now, not for my anxiety disorders, but my any problem, so I will ruminate over and over and over again. Yeah, it's really tricky, it's almost default, automatic.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah, some people are just prone to that. And we're all different, and in a way, it makes the world go round. So you might think more than I do about things. Okay, that's fine. World needs you and me. We'll do it. Does it really, though? I mean, we might argue that. But I think, yeah, so again, it just sometimes goes off the rails, though. Regular people ruminate too. Regular listen, overthinking. If you go to Instagram and look for the hashtag overthinking, you'll see millions and millions of posts, some of which are profound, some of which are not so helpful, some of which are really funny. Everyone can relate to overthinking, everybody can. We all get it, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

But also that because that turns into a kind of cliche thing that prevents empathy. So a lot of people who ruminate and overthink about their own anxiety, uh maybe their theme of OCD, maybe just over grief, even or anything stressful. Um what isn't acceptable is is acceptable. That's a that's a word. That's a great word, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Um is when a family member says, Oh, you're just overthinking again.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

You're overthinking it's not acceptable for you to be dismissed for that. And that's just, you know, that certain family member or person siding with Craig the critic. Yeah, because that's what it is, isn't it? I I don't want to tolerate what you're saying now, so I'm just gonna dismiss you by by criticizing.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

And in a way, it's a lack of understanding. Like this is not a person saying, Listen, you gotta stop thinking about the spare tire that needs replacing in the car. It's not that important. Okay, we might objectively agree with that, but if your rumination is based on safety issues, or you feel like you're preventing some sort of horrible disaster in your life, or you're just trying to manage your state because you're suffering all the time, uh, it's not okay to just be told, get over it. Just stop thinking about that. That's not a that's not advice. That's not a strategy either. Stop thinking about it. You can't.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Let's the what do you what do you reckon? Let's have a game of uh well, we call it Family Fortunes up in uh in the UK. I don't know who's the who's the guy who does it in the U the US? Steve. Steve Harvey, Family Feud. Yeah, Family Feud. I love that show. Yeah, yeah. And uh so we have a similar one called Family Fortunes in the UK. I'm sure yours was first because we just rip off British TV here. Oh, absolutely 100%. I don't doubt that at all. Yeah, um, you know, because but it's America, isn't it? That's what you're gonna do. Oh yeah, the soundbox.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

You got it all ready to go, an America soundbox.

unknown 25:14

Shh.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Yes, bald eagle, baby. Yeah, it came in, swooped down, and stole Family Fortunes from its nest. Um what are the top five places people ruminate? The most common places.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Places you mean physically?

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Yeah. I'll go, I'll go with I'll start with number one. Okay. I'm gonna lying in bed when you just gotta be ding ding ding ding's gotta be number one.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

That's gonna say 70 out of 100.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

And I'm led to it's because you're ruminating as well. Don't lie there and ruminate. At night anything but ruminate.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

ABR. You said that a couple episodes ago. I'm taking that by the way. ABR, anything but rumination. ABR. And at night, especially because often by default, there's nothing else to do. It's quiet, you're just laying in bed, it's dark. If there's not a lot of activity going on, ripe for rumination. Totally. Ripe. Next one would be uh next one. Uh this is a tough one. I'm gonna go with shower. I had another one, but I'm gonna go in the shower.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Yes, shower thoughts. Yeah, absolutely. But also, yeah, worrying. I remember spending so much time ruminating about my anxiety disorder in the shower. How can I fix it today? What's it gonna happen? Is it gonna make me panic later? What if I go crazy? Yep, what if this happens? Playing these scenarios out in my head. Uh yeah, shower's a really good one. Yeah, you got another one? Yeah, in front of the TV when the show is pretty boring.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

That's a good one. I didn't think of that one.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Yeah, yeah, you zoned it.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

You're not actually watching it, you're just like, uh, zooming out. Yeah, yeah. That's me, that's listening to podcasts like this one. Same thing. I will put on a podcast, and I'm playing, but I'm I'm a million miles away. What the hell did what are they just in the last 30 minutes? Yes, audiobooks, same thing. And I'm like, what the hell? What's going on here? I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Yeah, yeah. And reading as well, how many times do you ruminate whilst reading? There's two pages, and you're like, wait, how did it get here?

SPEAKER_01 27:09

What the hell happened that? Another I the the one that I was gonna pick over shower was in the car. People will ruminate while they drive, and I think yeah, all the time. I'm like, well, you're driving and it's sort of on autopilot because you're really good at it because you practice it all the time, and and your mind just starts to wander. That's when you get that whole like, wait, that light was green, wasn't it? Like, yeah, how did I get I'm a mile down the road. How did I get this mile down the road? That's it sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Yeah, you zoned out you ruminate. Maybe you've got a job. What I hear a lot is you know, I I do a job, but I'm so competent at it now, I can just kind of switch off and do it on autopilot. Yep. Or what are you doing instead? Yeah, yeah. Thinking about stuff, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

What's the difference between rumination and daydreaming? I'm gonna say probably degree and impact. So everybody daydreams, but daydreams daydreaming's great. And daydreaming doesn't, I almost fell off my chair. That's really good. I almost fell right off the balance. That would have been great. We would have left it in too and edited. Yeah, then we then we post video. This would be the most video. Um, I think daydreaming is a great thing. I'm with you, but people, when you're daydreaming, it doesn't really have so much an adverse impact. I mean, yeah, you might get in trouble in school because you're not paying attention to the teacher, but rumination has an adverse impact. When you get to the point where you call it rumination, it's impacting your mental health, your stress level, your lifestyle in some way. Daydreaming is just a thing everybody does.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

I often say to people, oh, catch yourself daydreaming and pat yourself on the back. Yeah, because in order to daydream, you've got to have pretty low levels of anxiety to allow your brain to float off. Yep. So I remember I used to, I was daydreaming. I had a stupid like, if I owned a taxi company, what what color would it be? What would the name be? What logo would it be? I'd spend a good 10 minutes daydreaming about that. I'm not interested in taxes. I don't know. It would I just it just went off on that. What would it be? Anxiety Josh Cabs. And I thought, oh great. That's 10 minutes. I wasn't thinking about my anxiety, and my brain's just off doing its own thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Daydreaming, doing stuff like that. Yeah, I just thought, yeah, that's that's great. So if you are daydreaming, it means that your threat response is turned off.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, that's true. If you're getting back into that thing, which I love the randomness of if I owned a cab company, it's great. What would yours be? What do I daydream about? Always random stuff. I are these is this daydream about it.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

What about the Lintzelate because you never arrive on time? Linsa late cars.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

You know, we will get you there like two minutes late every time, which makes you seem very important. That's a selling point, really. Yeah. The MyCab Company. Sure. Linsa late cabs. I often I wonder if I'm daydreaming. And we're off topic a little bit here, but it's interesting. Am I daydreaming or are just having memories? I often will play music. Like I'll go back to music that I really like, or movie scenes, and then I think about wow, that would be a cool, I would edit it this way. Movie scenes. Yeah, like I would have changed it this way. I'm like a frustrated filmmaker in the end, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

But this isn't off topic because often people ask, well, what is not ruminating? And we're just I don't know. Literally doing the spitballing. That's it. That's right. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm not ruminating about how I feel. Yeah, I just doing that. Oh, I wonder how I'd cook that. I wonder what that, I wonder how I'd design that. Yeah, yeah. Or I wonder what's going on there. Oh, here's a memory I'm gonna just play in my head. Yeah, exactly. You know, uh yeah, just like your thought, just this is it. This is the difference. Rumination is a straight line. Yep. Whereas thinking, you just let your brain go wherever it wants.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

I would say it's almost even the difference between thoughts and having thoughts is a passive process. You can't not have thoughts. Thinking is an active process. So daydreaming is a lot more passive. Like whatever thoughts pop in, they're gonna pop in. I'm gonna maybe play with them a little bit. I don't know. But you know, why did you think about a cab company? You didn't intentionally try to think that. There was no urgency, there was no threat in that. It wasn't about how you felt, it's just a random topic. Or maybe it's not random, but it's not urgent.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah, yeah. And and the you know mindfulness and things like that, they try to teach that you know, you can when thoughts come in, you can grab which ones are important and let go of ones that are not. Obviously, it's a bit more nuanced than that because some thoughts can immediately trigger the threat response. Yeah, particularly if you've got acute OCD or an old thought has been torturing you in the past. Sure. That's why I never I love mindfulness by the way, but it's not the panacea, it's not, you know, it's not a cure. Yeah, but the principles uh do apply here where actually I and I do remind myself, like, no, I can decide whether or not to kind of give this importance now. And by grabbing a thought, for me, that's like, what am I doing with my behavior? Yeah. So if I've stopped to sit down, ruminate, worry, seek reassurance, compulsively do things, I've grabbed this thought and I've taken it home with me, you know, and that's it. Whereas sometimes with an anxious thought, it will trigger the immediate thing. You will feel anxious, but you're like, okay, I'm I'm gonna show my brain and body that I can let this go now with my behavior, with the willful tolerance of uncertainty, with an effort to keep my focus external.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah, I would agree. I think mindfulness and meditation in the context of worry and rumination, they're they're experiments sometimes. They're like, well, let me let me at least explore the possibility that I can have a thought without latching onto it or making it the most important thing in the room. So you're kind of experimenting with that. Can I let this thought go? No, at the moment I'm struggling with it. It's okay, nobody ever gets it right.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yeah, yeah. It would be nice to do a mindfulness episode as well, get an expert on whose anxiety disorder and so on.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

We'll get John Cabot Zinn on. Think he's available? I guess he's not. John Cabot Zinn, uh, he's like the mindfulness guru. Um, really? I'd love to have him on because he actually he teaches mindfulness as like there is no right way. I love that guy because he doesn't tell you there's a right way to be mindful. It's like, no, no, this is just what it is.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah, I suppose it is the antithesis of rumination. If you don't like the mindfulness exercise, I love doing like I go on YouTube and do the attention and training exercises. Yeah, I think it's because I'm neurodivergent, so I find that a bit uh easier to keep and train my focus elsewhere. Yeah, but in general, yeah, try and disengage. If you find yourself ruminating, realize ah catch yourself ruminating, don't be critical. Give yourself part of the back. Ah, I thought I found myself ruminating. Caught it. Well done. Caught myself. Yep. Here's I'm going to endeavor to engage in something else, something that non-anxious me would do, which follows really nicely on from the previous episode.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

That's an MCT concept, too, like in metacognitive therapy. Like we're we're gonna identify our crazy back and forth relation to the thinking process, love it then hate it. And when you want to disengage from it, replace it with a behavior. You know, thinking is a behavior too in a certain way, but like what can I do instead of sitting here and thinking actively. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

To be honest, that was a game changer. I'm glad you said that. It was a game changer for me. Rumination is a behavior, it is a behavior 100% of behavior. You're not daydreaming about which is also a behavior, but rumination is more of a it's a directed task behavior.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, I think it is. People will say it's automatic, and it it becomes a habit, habitual or compulsive behavior, but nonetheless a behavior. You participate in it.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Yeah, and when we talk about exposures as well, Drew, it's like we talk about micro avoidances and macro avoidance, stuff like that. A lot of people, when you know they go and do something scary and they do the macro thing, like I've gone to the scary place, I'm hoping it goes away. They'll often be pulled into rumination too. Because they're, oh, actually, I'm here, but I'm ruminating.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

I'm ruminating in my anticipatory anxiety, I'm ruminating about a lot of things. Don't get me wrong, you can't stop it all, but you know, that's that's usually what happens.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

It's a as we always say, it's a practice, and I'll catch it. What can what else can I do besides this? Let's talk for a minute about avoidance because I see people get confused about that too. I was in a conversation not long ago that prompted this episode, really, where the person was confused because they feel like when they ruminate and worry, they're problem solving, right? And if I don't, but I don't you keep saying to disengage with that, Drew, but if I isn't that avoidance, I'm running from the problem. And actually, often it's the other way. It's not the content of the rumination. You're trying to solve if you're ruminating because you keep going over it and there is no solution to that problem, or it's not even a problem. But that feeling is what the rumination is the avoidance. The act of ruminating, the behavior of ruminating and choosing to worry and latch onto that, that's the avoidance. I'm uncomfortable about that problem, that question, that thing that happened in the past that I regret or makes me feel embarrassed or guilty. And I'm trying to alleviate my internally bad experience by ruminating, thinking, worrying. So the rumination is the actual avoidance. You're not avoiding if you back away from your rumination at all.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

That's such a good point. Yeah. Um, yeah, absolutely. Rumination is the avoidance because you're trying to shortcut your way out of feeling.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Correct. I don't like this internal experience, so I'm going to ruminate to try and solve the problem so that my discomfort goes away. But yeah, but then it goes off the rails because now I'm uncomfortable because I'm ruminating.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Like, oh also, as well, it's worth mentioning people will ruminate and overthink because there's a comfort in it. There's a comfort in the routine and the habit, and it gives you the temporary illusion that you have some kind of control over the problem. Ooh, here's all our quotes right here. But then it actually by the very process of you doing that, it shows it's got a bit of control over you. Yep. You gain control when you turn your back on it and and and walk away and start engaging with your life again.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

When you overapply the process of uh it's funny because uh who wrote but minding? It's minding as a verb. There's you, your mind, and you are minding as a verb. I love that verb. Don't know. Yeah, I I may have Russ Harris. I think it was one of those guys. It was a it was a bald eagle baby invented that. America. Uh I won't finish. But uh I the process of minding, I think when you are over applying the process of using your mind or problem solving or thinking, you uh it's that thing where a temper it feels like you're doing something. That feels like I'm doing something that's productive, but it's not, especially if you're over applying it to a problem that either doesn't exist, can't be solved, a question that doesn't need to be asked, or if it is asked, has no answer, like existential questions and things like that, then you it feels like you're doing something. It's it's the illusion of look, I'm controlling something, I'm fixing it, but but you're not. There's no fixing there.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Well, it's like the state of executive function, isn't it? Executive function is a fancy way of saying do something. Yes. Yeah, and when you are anxious, executive function in your brain kicks off, yeah, and it says do something. Well, with disordered anxiety, it's usually not it's usually a fictitious problem. Yep. So the only thing you could be be led to is to like do something. Okay, well, there's no problem in front of me, so I'll ruminate.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's the equation there. We just oh yeah. There's math in that. I'm a I'm a fan of geek. I literally have like equations written where I've tried it, like how can I scribe describe this using math? That makes so much sense when yeah, yeah, the the executive, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Do something if you're faced with threat, there's nothing to do. Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

There's nothing to do, then well, at least rumination is something. Oh my god. I always have I always have a thinking switch I can flip. I might not have a swing my sword or shoot my gun or fight off the grizzly bear, because there's no nothing to do that with, but I always have to think because I'm in the supermarket making out, so I might as well I can turn it on up here. That's what I'll do. I'll do that. It's oh yeah. I think it would love it when we learn more stuff.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

I mean, yeah, but like have it conceptualized that is that.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

I think it was Dave Carbonel who said uh somebody attributed to him, and I believe it because he's a funny guy. You know, normally we'd be like, Don't just don't just stand there, do something. But in our context, this don't just do something, stand there. It's the other way. It's the other way. And that always made me laugh when I heard that. And I'm like, you know, that's true too. Such a good one. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Anyway, okay. Questions conclude with a question and some did it anyways, didn't we? Uh I've got a did it anyway I want to share. It was emailed in. Uh you may use my name. Okay. So this is from Kelsey. Um, I have a huge did it anyways. I got married in 2015 and never changed my name on my social security card. I went once right after and saw the line of people, panicked, and immediately left. Since listening to your podcast, thank you, I decided it was time. I willfully tolerated not only the anxiety I felt at the office, but also the anticipatory anxiety leading up to the visit. This was a huge win for me. I even ended up going to the to a produce stand afterwards that I'd been wanting to go to for a year. Craig the critic kept telling me I couldn't do it, but I did it anyways. Oh, that's a good one. Applause. Extremely good. Well done, Kelsey. You absolutely nailed that. Ignited the studio audience. Yeah. That was brilliant. And you told Craig Craig to get really to get lost in the city.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

You know what I love about brilliant? I love the part where people who have those big wins often tack on something else. I felt so good that I also I love that part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Yeah, the ball, the ball starts rolling. Yeah, yeah. Um, I've got an uh another did it anyway before we take a question. If you are. This is uh they've not said I can use the name. Hey, I have a massive did it anyway to share. I start college next week and I don't drive, so I need to catch the bus. We've got another bus story um from uh Dan, from the Dan episode. Do you remember the double decker bus story? Uh the Dan episode. That's how much we liked it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I don't drive, so I need to catch the bus. The bus has always been a scary idea to me. The idea of being trapped with a bunch of strangers and not being able to get off would make me feel sick. But today I decided I want to see what would happen if I got on the bus or like that, like an intrigue. Me and my friend went together. I felt anxious, my thoughts were racing with all these ideas of things that could go wrong. Especially, oh no, what if I have a panic attack? But I kept thinking, well, instead of thinking about what could happen, let's go on and see what will happen. I went from one stop to the next, five minutes, and absolutely nothing happened. I told anxiety that if it wanted to give me a flood of adrenaline, then that was okay. I just let it do its thing. And I actually felt really calm on the bus. Yay, I practically skipped all the way home. Have a good one. Got ahead. Good. Very, very good. I love that, and that that little give yourself pat on the back, you know. Um, you know, I can do these things. Yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. Um, do you have a you've got a question for you, Drew? Because I've been talking too much. Yeah, sick of the sound of my own voice. Um, here we go. Hey guys, I really got a lot from last week's episode on setbacks. Well, that that to this person it was last week. Yep uh I want to say thanks. At the end, Josh talked a little about the fear of simmering anxiety, and this was very close to home for me. And I wondered if you guys may drill down a little further into the subject. I've never really heard anyone speak on this before, and it really caught my attention when you guys mentioned it. Thanks, guys. Can you drill down a bit more the fear of simmering anxiety, Drew? Great question, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah, it is a good question, I think. Simmering anxiety to me, and what I used to experience was it's just that being right at the edge of meltdown all day. And it always feels like I'm right there. I'm just about to have a total meltdown, panic attack spiral, whatever you want to call it. And that's uncomfortable. It's just super uncomfortable. I mean, I don't have a lot of drill down other than it's really uncomfortable and unpleasant, and it will just grab all of your attention all day long. All I wanted to do was make it stop. Is it getting better? Is it is it going down? Am I gonna panic? I don't know. It was a really uncomfortable place to be in when it would happen. Was there a fear of it? Yeah, of course, because they didn't want to panic. I didn't want it. The simmer part indicated it's about to tip over into the no fly zone that I don't want to go into.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah. And for me, for me, what the way I interpreted that question was you get people that fear anxiety symbolically as well. And so these are usually people with GAD. So it's like, I don't, I fear the anxiety. Not I know rationally that the worst it can get is panicky, panic attack and stuff. But for some people, it's like, oh, I don't really care about panicking. I just fear its symbolic presence in my life. I fear it simmering away in the background. I fear it there. It's become a thing, it's become my adversary. So what I would say to that is to be like change your relationship and association with it, allow it to simmer. It doesn't mean anything more, you know. Also, I'd have a look at like take it to therapy. Sometimes the simmering anxiety isn't just always about anxiety, you know, it can be stress. Maybe there's stuff going on in your life. Yep. No, your threat response will go off in in response to stress, but these could be legitimate stresses that you could address in perhaps talking therapy as well. But I'm just gonna go on a whim here and say that yeah, it's a symbolic problem. I I fear simmering anxiety is symbolic. I don't want to feel on edge all day. I know I can do panic attacks, but I don't want to feel on edge. And there is actually a large proportion of the community that are like that. Yeah, I can have panic attack.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

It's just the simmering anxiety I hate the most. That's really good. You you know what? You said I talk too much. You keep on talking, my friend, because I learned stuff from you. It was really good. It was very kind. Yeah, because you know that's true. And I hear people say maybe they don't fear it, but they see it as failure. If I'm anxious all day, I'm doing something wrong. I'm not being a good dad, I'm not being a good employee, I'm a terrible mom, I'm not a good friend. Sometimes those narratives get attached to the fact that just being anxious is wrong. It should not be here. And I should be able to get rid of it, and I can't, and that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Yeah, and people fear that too. Yep. You know, uh, which is really important. And we'll we'll talk more about that. Yeah. We're never gonna run out of things to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Never.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Exactly. Yeah, we'll be here until the apocalypse. Yeah. Um, if you got questions and did it anyways, go to disordered.fm. Uh there you can record a voicemail uh or you can leave us a message. If you want us to include your name, just put in brackets, you may include my name. Otherwise, we will not. Um, thank you for the reviews on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. They've been flying in, particularly in the UK. We're catching up to the to the US now. And I I can't check the European ones. Maybe they add to the UK one. I'll do a bit of research on that. Yeah. But we'd really appreciate it if you can leave us a review on there because it helps um this podcast reach other people organically.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Absolutely. Everybody's been so supportive, and we really do appreciate it. Makes it fun to do this. So yeah, I love doing this. It's one of my favorite parts of my entire job. 100%. Even though this one was recorded in the not that early, but 7 a.m. at New York recording. Not too bad. Well, make me do okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Drew pulling the morning shift.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

I'm on the morning shift today. While you're on our website at disorder.fm, you can also join our mailing list. One day we will actually send mail to all y'all. So if you joined, thank you. I know you haven't heard from us, but if you want to pop on our mailing list, we have a few things in the works with it.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

You could hear about stuff, uh projects, books. We've got the disordered 30-day recovery club coming up for people who want an intensive um uh mentoring and help. Uh, I'll stop plugging. You have a nice rest of the weekend. Absolutely. We'll catch you soon. I'll see you in the next one.