What is Perseverative cognition?

Perseverative cognition is a collective term in psychology for continuous thinking about negative events in the past or in the future.

It has been shown to have physiological effects, such as increased heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol, in daily life as well as under controlled laboratory conditions. Because of these physiological effects, the psychological concept of perseverative cognition helps to explain how psychological stress, such as work stress and marital stress, leads to disease, such as cardiovascular disease.