\u201cOne of the reasons I, and others, ruminate is because we think it\u2019s useful. Like, we think we are planning, we think we are preparing, we think we are solving a problem,<\/p>\n
\u201cBut once you actually get this language and this model, you start to see it doesn\u2019t do anything useful for you. There are better strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petrie has spent years studying sustainable performance, burnout prevention and how people cope in high-pressure environments. His own interest in stress began after cancer treatment in his 20s, when he found himself physically recovering but mentally consumed by fear it would return.<\/p>\n
Petrie later met British academic Dr Derek Rodger, whose work examined why people can respond differently to the same high-pressure situation. <\/p>\n
Rodger told Petrie, \u201cI can\u2019t help you with the cancer, but here\u2019s what to do about your stress\u201d, and taught him about separating pressure from stress, then spotting and interrupting rumination. <\/p>\n
After applying Rodger\u2019s approach, Petrie says his stress levels dropped from \u201c10 out of 10\u201d to zero, even when the cancer later came back.<\/p>\n
He says one of the most important steps is learning to recognise rumination for what it is.<\/p>\n
Nick Petrie is an organisational psychologist and burnout expert. Photo \/ Victoria Vincent <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we ruminate, we think about events from the past or future, and we attach negative emotion and churn over and over and over. So you might wake up at 3am, and you start ruminating about events, or you do it on your commute. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd most of us just think, \u2018well, that\u2019s thinking\u2019. But once you actually learn about this, you realise once you add the negative emotion, that\u2019s the rumination part. It\u2019s not just thinking, it\u2019s stress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petrie says that doesn\u2019t mean avoidance is a good strategy. The key is understanding the difference between useful reflection and getting stuck in a loop.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you are doing it in a positive or neutral way, that\u2019s reflection. When you add in the negative emotion, it turns into rumination,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith reflection we tend to think about it, come to closure. But the rumination, it\u2019s open-ended, it keeps going. So that\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to watch out for.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first practical step is to notice it and name it. Petrie says he\u2019s seen people successfully interrupt the pattern by telling themselves they are ruminating.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe awareness is the starting point,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Listen to the full episode of The Little Things<\/a> to find out:<\/p>\n Why \u2018pulsing\u2019 through the workday may be better than grinding.How an \u2018opposite world\u2019 can help switch off your work brain.The three stages of burnout, and why waiting until collapse is a terrible strategy.<\/p>\n The Little Things is available on iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. The series is hosted by broadcaster Francesca Rudkin and health researcher Louise Ayrey. New episodes are available every second Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOne of the reasons I, and others, ruminate is because we think it\u2019s useful. Like, we think we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[21230,36671,1863,18509,21335,36174,4527,9189,7799,134,1345,11551,296,56387,302,5511,761,9933,6093,554,555,116581,24350,111,139,69,384,13084,10057,152319,63559,3405,223,165,8229,6035,1960,51183,1316,4276,46103],"class_list":["post-509158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-advance","tag-always","tag-back","tag-closes","tag-conversation","tag-difficult","tag-doesnt","tag-follow","tag-heads","tag-health","tag-home","tag-hours","tag-into","tag-isnt","tag-its","tag-just","tag-laptop","tag-later","tag-little","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-mentally","tag-modern","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-prepare","tag-problems","tag-ruminating","tag-solve","tag-stress","tag-the","tag-their","tag-they","tag-things","tag-thinking","tag-tomorrows","tag-when","tag-why","tag-workday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}