HealthAugust 10, 2026
brooding
BROOD-ing
Definition
To dwell on one's own negative thoughts, feelings, or past events in a repetitive, unproductive, and distressing manner.
Etymology
Derived from the Middle English 'broden,' originally referring to a bird sitting on eggs to hatch them. It evolved metaphorically to describe the act of sitting on or obsessively thinking about troublesome thoughts.
In the news
The article contrasts the unproductive habit of brooding over abstract questions with the more helpful approach of identifying concrete next steps to resolve a problem.
The research on overthinking points to one specific shift that helps more than telling yourself to stop: drop from the abstract why is this happening to me to the concrete what exactly happened and what is my next step
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com