OCD Recovery Podcast

Episode: OCD Recovery Short - How To Stop OCD Rumination
Host: Ali Greymond
Date: November 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this brief but focused episode, Ali Greymond addresses one of the core challenges of obsessive-compulsive disorder: rumination. Drawing on her personal experience and coaching background, Ali shares actionable advice on how individuals can break the cycle of obsessive thinking by actively choosing a different response when intrusive thoughts strike.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Understanding Rumination

• Rumination Defined:
  Ali describes rumination as the active engagement with obsessive thoughts, images, feelings, or sensations that arise in the mind.

Response Options When OCD Strikes

• Active Choice Point (00:03):
  • Each time an intrusive thought surfaces, you face a decision:
    • Response Prevention: Deliberately refusing to engage with the thought.
    • "Response a lot": Actively participating—through researching, reassurance-seeking, or analyzing—in behaviors that sustain OCD.
  • As Ali explains, these are active choices, not passive experiences.

Feeding the Disorder

• Engagement Fuels OCD (00:19):
  • Actions like Googling symptoms, asking for reassurance (from people or tools like ChatGPT), or overanalyzing are highlighted as feeding into the cycle.
  • Ali emphasizes self-accountability: individuals must acknowledge their role in perpetuating the disorder by actively engaging with compulsive rituals.

Taking Accountability

• Empowerment Through Choice (00:35):
  • "It's taking accountability, reducing, like, just like we're seeing here in the app on the screen, reducing rumination. Choosing to reduce rumination so that when that stimulus comes in, you're saying, no, I will not actively participate."
  • The process is rooted in making a conscious choice not to partake in rumination, and instead, to practice response prevention.

Tools and Tracking

• Practical Support (00:45):
  • Ali recommends using the OCD help app for tracking progress and urges listeners to use available resources for emergency support.
  • She encourages listeners to actively monitor their behaviors to reduce rumination.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A thought, image, feeling sensation comes in, and now you have a choice. You can either do response prevention, or you could do response a lot. It's an active thing that you're doing.”
  —Ali Greymond [00:03]
• “If you're going on Google, asking for reassurance, asking, chat, GPT, trying to figure something out. This is an active thing that you are doing, that you're choosing to do that feeds the disorder, the very disorder that you're trying to get rid of.”
  —Ali Greymond [00:19]
• “So it's taking accountability, reducing, like, just like we're seeing here in the app on the screen, reducing rumination. Choosing to reduce rumination so that when that stimulus comes in, you're saying, no, I will not actively participate.”
  —Ali Greymond [00:35]

Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – Episode opens with the question: how do you stop ruminating?
• 00:03 – 00:22 – Discussion of active choice and examples of compulsive responses.
• 00:35 – Emphasis on accountability and conscious choice.
• 00:45 – Mention of tracking and resources for support.

Summary

Ali Greymond’s “How To Stop OCD Rumination” episode centers on taking responsibility and making intentional choices at the moment of intrusive thoughts. By highlighting the difference between response prevention and compulsive engagement, Ali empowers listeners to recognize their agency and the importance of reducing rumination as a proactive step toward recovery.