The dangers of rumination

by Liz Winninger, CUSO Magazine

This article contains references to sports, science, and business—three of my passions in life.

As a high-performing athlete, my club consistently and without question offered my peers and me access to an excellent sports psychologist, as well as mental training resources. How this looked was weekly group classes, in addition to one-on-one coaching with a licensed, experienced, and wonderful woman, Dr. Carolyn Phelps.

Carolyn worked with my skating sisters and me on a number of areas, including but not limited to meditation, imagery, positive word association, positive self-talk and body association, and many more. In one such area, performance anxiety, we would dive into and further understand rumination and the impact it can have. But what is rumination?

Rumination in sports and business

Rumination has been defined by the American Psychiatric Association as the following: Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions.

 

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