I really enjoyed this article, and I can see how many of my own behaviors map onto this cue-routine-reward structure. I’ve been wanting to read this book, but now I don’t feel that I need to.
I would appreciate it if another reader could try to explain how rumination (focused attention on the symptoms of one’s distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions) would fit into this framework. Here’s my attempt:
Let’s say you were fired from a job you liked, and you ruminate on the loss of the job.
The cue: seeing a former co-worker
The routine: think of everything that went wrong on the job leading to your firing, the possible changes you could have made but didn’t, feeling stupid
The reward: to discipline yourself?
I feel that the cue and routine are well described, but I’m not sure about how the reward.
The anticipated reward for ruminating might be the feeling of closure you’d get from finding a clear, simple solution to whatever problem you’re ruminating about. So it’s not a separate habit in itself but a misapplication of analytical, ‘perfectionist’ problem solving to problems with high uncertainty. I think that was it for me. I also had this idea shoved into my head while growing up, that real life is harsh and unpleasant and being an adult is all about facing the harsh unpleasantness. As a result, ruminating felt somewhat virtuous.
I second the idea about closure. Closure feels good. The problem is finding closure can take any time from hours to days for me. The “solution” is usually completely irrational.
I partially solved the problem by replacing the habit with physical exercise. Unfortunately light exercise won’t do the trick, it has to be strenuous and last atleast for an hour.
Sometimes it seems I manage to simply suppress the habit, but maybe there are other replacement habits I’m not aware of.
From Chapter nine of “Resilience–How to Survive and Thrive in Any Situation A Teach Yourself Guide (Teach Yourself: Relationships & Self-Help) by Donald Robertson”:
When we worry, we perceive danger, feel anxious, and naturally try to problem-solve in order to remove the perceived threat and achieve a sense of safety. As long as we believe future problems are threatening and remain unsolved there’s a tendency for our attention to automatically return to them as ‘unfinished business’, which partially explains why worry episodes tend to keep recurring.
[,,,]
Worry can therefore be seen as a failed attempt to avoid future dangers by mentally problem-solving and preparing to cope with them. Hence, people often feel reluctant to stop worrying because at some level they assume it helps to protect them against looming threats by giving them an opportunity to problem-solve and rehearse coping strategies, although it seldom does so very effectively and normally causes anxiety to escalate instead.
[...]
Rumination can be spotted and postponed in a similar way to worry
If rumination does fit into this, I think the cue is considerably more general than that. At least for me, it seems more like it’s triggered internally, by my thoughts turning to a particular subject (probably combined with an emotional state), than by any external cue. (I recently had rumination triggered just by being reminded of the word “rumination” and thinking “oh yes, that’s the name for the thing I’ve been doing...”)
But it’s not obvious to me that we’d expect rumination would fit into this. I don’t think fear is a habit, for example, even though it has a cue, a routine and a reward.
I really enjoyed this article, and I can see how many of my own behaviors map onto this cue-routine-reward structure. I’ve been wanting to read this book, but now I don’t feel that I need to.
I would appreciate it if another reader could try to explain how rumination (focused attention on the symptoms of one’s distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions) would fit into this framework. Here’s my attempt:
Let’s say you were fired from a job you liked, and you ruminate on the loss of the job.
The cue: seeing a former co-worker The routine: think of everything that went wrong on the job leading to your firing, the possible changes you could have made but didn’t, feeling stupid The reward: to discipline yourself?
I feel that the cue and routine are well described, but I’m not sure about how the reward.
The anticipated reward for ruminating might be the feeling of closure you’d get from finding a clear, simple solution to whatever problem you’re ruminating about. So it’s not a separate habit in itself but a misapplication of analytical, ‘perfectionist’ problem solving to problems with high uncertainty. I think that was it for me. I also had this idea shoved into my head while growing up, that real life is harsh and unpleasant and being an adult is all about facing the harsh unpleasantness. As a result, ruminating felt somewhat virtuous.
I second the idea about closure. Closure feels good. The problem is finding closure can take any time from hours to days for me. The “solution” is usually completely irrational.
I partially solved the problem by replacing the habit with physical exercise. Unfortunately light exercise won’t do the trick, it has to be strenuous and last atleast for an hour.
Sometimes it seems I manage to simply suppress the habit, but maybe there are other replacement habits I’m not aware of.
I think that fits what I’ve read about worry.
From Chapter nine of “Resilience–How to Survive and Thrive in Any Situation A Teach Yourself Guide (Teach Yourself: Relationships & Self-Help) by Donald Robertson”:
If rumination does fit into this, I think the cue is considerably more general than that. At least for me, it seems more like it’s triggered internally, by my thoughts turning to a particular subject (probably combined with an emotional state), than by any external cue. (I recently had rumination triggered just by being reminded of the word “rumination” and thinking “oh yes, that’s the name for the thing I’ve been doing...”)
But it’s not obvious to me that we’d expect rumination would fit into this. I don’t think fear is a habit, for example, even though it has a cue, a routine and a reward.
I suspect the reward is the feeling that you are “doing something” about the problem.