There is something your brain is spinning right now, that you may never have been given a name for or a way out of. The thought you keep replaying. The conversation you keep recasting. The reel that loads up again and again without resolution, making you feel worse each time and no closer to clarity. That is rumination. And according to the neuroscience, it is the single greatest pre-diagnostic factor for depression and anxiety we have identified, and we are all doing it more than we ever have.
Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science writer whose work sits at the intersection of neurobiology, emotion, and mental health. Her new book, Mind Drama, is the most rigorous and humane investigation of rumination yet written: what it is, why your brain does it, what it is actually trying to tell you, and how to use a specific neurobiologically grounded framework to loosen its grip.
In this conversation, you will explore:

Why rumination is a survival response gone rogue, and why knowing that changes how you relate to your own spinning thoughts
What a brain scan of Donna's own ruminating mind revealed, and what those red swirls in the default mode network actually mean for your daily life
Why midlife may be the season when old ruminative patterns return with the most force, and what that signal is asking you to hear
The research showing that women ruminate at significantly higher rates than men, why this is, and what the neuroscience says about the acting-in pattern and its link to depression
The MIST framework: a four-step neurobiological practice for naming the mental movies, emotions, and somatic sensations underneath your rumination so the brain can actually let go
Why rumination is never random, always circling the question of whether you matter to the people who matter most to you

If you have ever told yourself to stop thinking about something and found you could not, this conversation is for you.
You can find Donna at: Healing Together Substack | Instagram | Episode Transcript
Next week, we are sitting down with Candace Dellacona, a trust and estates attorney who is also personally in this season, to talk about the caregiving years, and what it costs you when you are pulled in every direction at once, not just logistically but in terms of who you are and who you thought you would be by now. If you are caring for an aging parent, a younger dependent, or both at the same time, this one was made for you. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts, so you do not miss any upcoming episodes.
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