I ruminate a lot when I walk. What can I do to stop?

Some clients share that they would love to add walking to their list of resources, but for them walking just gives them an opportunity to think even more about their problems and what is stressing them.

First of all, kudos for even noticing this is an unhelpful pattern you have.

There are two ways I like to suggest working with this 1) Mindful attention to one’s environment 2) Attending to your internal experience, flexing your “interoception muscle”.

Here are a few suggestions:

🌿 Engage your senses during your walks. This will shift the focus and help lower the levels of rumination (repetitive negative thought loops without resolution).

🌿 As you walk shift your attention to the sounds. Can you hear the birds, cars passing, a dog barking?

🌿 What can you see? Can you see trees? Notice their shapes and different tones of greens. Look up the sky, is it blue clear skies? Or are there many different shapes of clouds?

🌿 Notice your feet on the ground as you walk. The pressure of them touching the floor. Feeling your steps as you walk.

🌿 You can also notice some of your other internal experiences as you walk. Notice any tension. Perhaps you realise your hands are clenching inside your jacket pocket, or your jaws are a bit tense? Notice those areas of your body, at the same time as taking in the beauty of nature around you.
Please note: this is just an example, and you may notice different areas of your body that are tense.

You can do any of these separately during your walk, or you can combine, mixing and matching all of them at different points of the walk.

If you can do both, tending to your internal bodily experience (interoception) and taking in the beauty of the environment around you, you won’t have much time/space to ruminate.