Stop Obsessing! 6 Strategies for Taming the Worry Wart and Rumination
Turn off the self-torture switch, now
Does your brain feel like a stomach-churning merry-go-round? The repetitive annoying music, the dizzying up and down of ghastly painted horses going around and around non-stop, over and over again, until your head starts to spin?
Obsessive worrying and rumination are very much like that; once it’s turned on, it’s almost impossible to stop: did I say something hurtful? Will I go down with the plane? Will the cafeteria tuna fish poison me?
Living the merry-go-round of obsessive worrying is part of my world as someone with anxiety and ADHD. But you don’t have to have those conditions to be a worry wort. Anyone can be bothered by it at some time or another. For others, though, it can be a chronic and debilitating distraction.
It makes sense, though, that we often see obsessing and ruminating as part of living with ADHD. After all, most of us have hyperactive minds, if not bodies to match, and our brain needs to be in hyper mode much of the time. If there’s nothing particularly pressing to think about, then what’s an ADHD brain to do? Obsess, of course! It needs a moving target to keep it stimulated.
Difficulty making decisions is also a related ADHD brain torment because once there’s a choice…
