You are in bed at 2:00 in the morning, or halfway through a meeting, running the same conversation again: what you said, what they said, what you should have said. That is ruminating, going over the same thought, memory or conversation again and again without getting any closer to an answer. If you want to know how to stop ruminating, start here: the loop has a subject. It keeps circling one thing, and once you know which, you can do something about it.
This is the everyday version, the one that follows a capable person home after a hard conversation, a decision or a mistake. If your loops come with low mood, panic or weeks of broken sleep, please speak to a doctor or therapist as well. I'm a coach, not a therapist.
Why thinking harder does not stop it
Many of the people I work with have already tried the standard advice. They have breathed, journalled and told themselves to stop, and the loop comes back. One client of mine, very good at her job, described herself as always overthinking, and her answer was to analyse her way to calm: work out exactly how relaxing works, then do it. She was using the tool that makes the loop to try to end it. Thinking harder feeds a loop, because thinking is what a loop is made of.
What the loop is circling
In the people I work with, a loop usually circles one of three things: a decision already made, a decision not yet made, or a conversation or feeling that has not been dealt with. Each has a different way out, so the first job is to find out which one you are in. (There is a six-question quiz for that, and you do not need to give an email to see your result.)
If it is a decision you have already made
You make a good decision and then find yourself renegotiating it, looking for a way to make the old arrangement work after all. It costs a lot of energy, and it ends in doubt and self-blame, not in a better decision.
What I have noticed is that second-guessing is there for a while, and it does not last forever. The more you act on your first knowing, the less it appears. So ask the question from the piece on people pleasing: what was my first answer, before the reasons arrived? Then act on it, and let the decision stand.
If it is a decision you have not made
Often you already know. What wears you out is the undecided state itself, and the middle ground keeps paying you something: a bit of safety, a bit of support, a future you hoped for and are not ready to let go of, which is why it is so easy to stay.
I stalled for two years on leaving Melbourne. What moved me was holding the future in mind as if I had already decided, then asking whether it was a feeling I wanted more of or less of. I wrote that up in a note on making a decision, and two small tools go with it: hold each future in turn and what waiting is costing you.
If it is a conversation or a feeling you have not dealt with
This is the one that replays at 2:00 in the morning. The loop keeps retelling the story, who said what and what you should have said, because the story is easier than the feeling underneath it. When a client starts retelling events, I stop her and ask what is going on inside her because of them. Once we get to the reaction, we can change something. Staying in the story, we can't.
Two things help. Put the feeling on a page: draw its shape, often a tight spiral that ends nowhere, then slowly stretch the ends out onto a bigger sheet until the lines separate and lighten. It takes two minutes. And if you said nothing at the time and are now judging yourself for it, ask what you would have liked to say and, if it is still kind and still true, say it now: a message, an audio note, a short call. A client of mine who did that came away much lighter. It can feel awkward to say something late. That is ok.
Pick one, and make it small
Ask what this loop is trying to get you to do. Pick the one of the three that sounds most like you and take the smallest version of its next step today. A loop with a subject is easier to put down than a loop with none. If you cannot tell which one is yours, the quiz takes about two minutes.
If the same loop has been running for years, that is a conversation worth more than this note. I keep a free 45-minute call open for exactly that: peteradams.coach/call. For now, I think you will find the loop gets quieter once it has a subject and one small step.