Most people ‘ruminate’ during the normal process of thinking about things. That means they indulge in repetitive thinking.

If you consider a problem from different angles or think about it a couple of times – that is normal.

If. however, you find yourself thinking the same thought over and over, that’s not good for your state of mind.

You’ll probably find, as you repeat it you will tend to embellish it more negatively each time you think it. Not surprisingly, another definition of ruminating is chewing the cud.

Similarly, I’m sure everyone has at some time or other had a catchy tune get stuck in their brain.

The harder you try to think of something else, the more incessantly it plays over in your head until you want to smack yourself. That is also ruminating.

I’m not going to go into why we ruminate or why tunes may keep repeating in your brain.

Rather, just like you don’t have to know which rock started an avalanche in order to deal with it (get out of the way), it doesn’t matter why your brain behaves so irritatingly and unproductively.

More important is how you can stop the incessant repeating of negative thoughts or the mindless repetition of a tune. 

It is actually remarkably simple. When you find you have a song stuck on repeat in your brain or a pesky thought echoing – start singing:

Old MacDonald had a farm. E-I-E-I-O.

And on that farm he had some ducks E-I-E-I-O.

With a quack quack here.

And a quack quack there.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O …

I won’t hold it against you if you think I have taken leave of my senses … that’s exactly what I thought the person had done who told me to do this to stop ruminating.

Bit of advice, to avoid being mocked, sing it silently in your head. But the next time you become aware of your brain repeating the same problem or a tune won’t stop playing in your head, try it. It is astonishing how well it works. And if the problem comes back as it might – sing it again, but this time add a few more animals.