How Do We Overcome Worry and Rumination? (Episode 142)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 665 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Disordered, guest co-host Kimberley Quinlan joins Drew to pull back the curtain on one of the most persistent hurdles in anxiety recovery: rumination. Whether you call it overthinking, worry, or mental "problem solving," the process is a universal constant across panic disorder, OCD, health anxiety, depression, and other related issues.
We examine why rumination feels like a productive tool when it is actually a mental compulsion designed to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty. Kim and Drew break down the "tax" that rumination imposes on your life, specifically the deep physiological and emotional exhaustion that leaves you without the energy to make the actual changes you want.
What You’ll Learn This Week:
The Process vs. The Content: Why the specific thing you are worried about matters less than the fact that you are stuck in a circular thinking process.
The "What If" Statement: How to recognize that "what if" is a statement of fear, not a question that requires an answer.
Problem Solving vs. Rumination: Identifying the moment thinking stops being an investment and starts becoming a drain.
Beliefs About Worry: Challenging the "positive" beliefs we hold, such as the idea that worrying makes us a better parent or more prepared for disaster.
Attention Control Training: Practical ways to re-engage with the present moment, even when your brain is screaming for certainty.
Recovery is about learning to put the thoughts down and returning to whatever is next in your day. It is hard work, and you might "suck at it" initially, but managing rumination is a skill for life that reduces suffering and brings you back to your own experiences.
Find Kim's podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/@youranxietytoolkit
Kim's courses and workshops:
Kim's Instagram
https://instagram.com/YourAnxietyToolkit
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The Disordered Guide to Health Anxiety is now available. If you're struggling with health anxiety, this book is for you.
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Struggling with worry and rumination that you feel you can't stop or control? Check out Worry and Rumination Explained, a two hour pre-recorded workshop produced by Josh and Drew. The workshop takes a deep dive into the mechanics of worrying and ruminating, offering some helpful ways to approach the seemingly unsolvable problem of trying to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Rumination. Some people call it overthinking, worry. |
| 0:04.6 | It's the one symptoms that does show up across almost every condition. |
| 0:11.0 | Somebody with panic disorder is going to ruminate and worry. |
| 0:13.6 | They may have different content, but the process is going to look the same no matter where we look, right? |
| 0:18.7 | All rumination is an attempt to not be uncertain. |
| 0:23.3 | It's an attempt to avoid discomfort. |
| 0:25.0 | The idea of having to make changes to get that thing you want, you don't have the energy |
| 0:30.7 | for it. |
| 0:31.0 | You know, it feels productive to ruminate about it, but it actually isn't, as you know. |
| 0:36.7 | We often ruminate. We're trying to whip ourselves |
| 0:40.3 | or punish ourselves for it not going well, as if that's going to make you get the energy to make |
| 0:47.8 | change. |
| 0:52.7 | Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 142. Today we're going to talk about how rumination, overthinking, worry, show up across different anxiety disorders in different contexts. I am Drew Linzalata, one half of disordered. I am a therapist that specializes in the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders. In New York, former sufferer of the things we talk |
| 1:11.5 | about and disordered, four-time author on the topic, social media guy, dude with cameras and microphones, |
| 1:17.0 | advocate. You know the story, and I am joined by... Me, not Josh. Oh my gosh. What a disappointment |
| 1:24.1 | to everyone. My name is Kimberly Quinlan. I am an OCD and anxiety specialist in |
| 1:29.1 | the state of California. I'm a podcast host. I'm an author. And I'm just pretty much a human. |
| 1:36.8 | Just a general human. Yeah, one of my favorite general humans, too. Thank you, Kim, for stepping |
| 1:41.1 | into the breach. Josh is under the Manchester flu is going around and he's got it. |
| 1:46.7 | So I reached out and Kim was gracious enough to like, sure, tell me a link. And here we are. |
| 1:51.4 | Yeah. Yay. I'm so happy to see you. |
| 1:53.4 | I'm guessing if you guys listen to Disorder, you know who Kim is already. So we're going to talk today about rumination over it. Some people call it overthinking, |
... |
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