The Consequences of Habitual Rumination, Expressive Suppression, and Perceived Stress on Mental and Physical Health Among Older Adults

Background/Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate whether habitual rumination, suppression, and perceived stress predict poor mental and physical health as well as well-being in a group of older adults (aged 50 to 80 years) from a non-clinical community sample. Methods: The current study comprised a cross-sectional survey design with online self-report measures. It was predicted that higher levels of rumination, suppression, and perceived stress would predict lower levels of general health as well as well-being, and heightened levels of depression and anxiety. Results: Findings from the study indicated that both rumination and perceived stress significantly predicted heightened anxiety, heightened depression, and decreased physical health as well as well-being. Conclusions: These results replicate and extend past research on rumination. However, diverging from past research, suppression was not a significant predictor, or correlate, of stress, anxiety, or of general health and well-being; though, suppression did weakly but significantly predict depression.