#359 Primer on Perseverative - Repetitive, Negative - Thoughts

     Mindfulness practices train one to rest in the awareness of whatever the present moment holds, without judgment, letting go of self-talk, letting go of thoughts of the past or future. Below are a few reasons, from the perspective of Western psychology, why this is beneficial.

     "The ability to recall stressful life events and to anticipate stressful events has several adaptive functions. It enables us to learn from previous mistakes, to avoid negative events, and to prepare for the worst. There is, however, also a downside to these abilities: thinking about past and future negative events also enables perseverative thoughts (or perseverative cognition): repetitive, negative thoughts that do not solve or improve a situation. Examples of perseverative thoughts are: recurrent self-denigrating thoughts about a past failure on an exam or anxious thoughts about an upcoming contest. Two concepts that fall under the category of perseverative thoughts are worry (‘a chain of thoughts and images, negatively affect-laden and relatively uncontrollable’; and rumination (‘a class of conscious thoughts concerning one’s goals and that recur in the absence of immediate environmental demands requiring the thoughts.’ 

     Already in childhood, these perseverative thoughts are quite common. Perseverative thoughts arise in middle childhood when children’s cognitive development allows them to reason about future possibilities, to consider multiple outcomes, and to elaborate potential negative consequences. In line with findings confirming the down- side effects of perseverative thoughts on adults’ emotional functioning, perseverative thoughts in childhood are associated with further problems of negative affect, such as anxiety and depression.

      The literature on adults also has consistently shown that perseverative thoughts are positively associated with adverse physiological activation, cardiovascular disease and somatic complaints. These findings support the ‘perseverative cognition hypothesis’. According to this hypothesis, perseverative thoughts prolong physiological activation beyond the presence of actual stressful situations. Whereas acute physiological changes in response to an actual stressor are useful in enabling a person’s behavioral responses to stress (i.e., fight or flight), the prolongation of this physiological activation caused by perseverative thoughts adds to the total load, or ‘wear and tear’ that stressful events have on somatic well being. This prolonged physiological activation eventually leads to a pathogenic state and somatic problems. In addition, the negative affectivity related to perseverative thoughts may increase the attention of adults and children for internal signals, and to interpreting them more negatively. According to the symptom perception hypothesis of Pennebaker (1982), this will increase the likelihood that physical symptoms are perceived as somatic complaints." 

       Jellesma FC, Verkuil B, Brosschot JF. Postponing worrisome thoughts in children: The effects of a postponement intervention on perseverative thoughts, emotions and somatic complaints. Social Science & Medicine 2009; 69(2): 278-284.

Portia and Hildie